May 21, 1926: Legendary jazz artist Fats Waller completed another show at Chicago’s Sherman Hotel. He was done for the evening. Then, to his surprise, four white men confronted the black musician, held him at gunpoint, and forced him into a waiting sedan.
Waller was driven across the city to the western suburb of Cicero. At 22nd and Cicero Avenue, they arrived at a three-story hotel with a small restaurant on the ground floor.
The four mobsters pulled Fats Waller out of the car and took him inside the Hawthorne Hotel. It was owned by, and the headquarters of, Chicago’s most notorious gangster: Al Capone.
Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller was from Harlem in New York and one of 11 children (with only five reaching adulthood). He learned to play the piano as a boy and dropped out of high school to earn a living playing the organ at a local theater. Yet he later studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
Waller mastered the difficult stride piano technique in which the song’s melody is played with the right hand while the left hand plays chords or single notes. The pudgy musician also sang while playing, and he composed hundreds of original jazz tunes.
Among his most famous songs are Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Joint is Jumpin’, Honeysuckle Rose, and ‘Taint Nobody’s Bus’ness If I Do.
Like Capone, Waller was successful at an early age. At the time of the kidnapping, he was 22.
In the Prohibition Era, few men were as ruthless as Al Capone, also known as Scarface. Like Waller, Capone was also born and raised in New York City. He moved to Chicago in 1919. The mobster was said to be a huge fan of Fats Waller.
The four kidnappers worked for Capone and knew that their boss loved Waller’s music. So they abducted him as a surprise present for their boss.
Fats Waller arrived at the Hawthorne to find a party underway. They were celebrating Al Capone’s birthday. The kidnappers told Waller to sit at the piano and play something.
Fearing for his life, he felt he had no choice. He entertained the mobster and his party guests. For the next three days.
Waller was never mistreated, despite being a black man among dangerous Italian gangsters. Someone saw to it that he was fed. They also kept him pretty well drunk.
With nowhere else to sleep - despite being in a hotel - Waller curled up on the piano bench to snooze. When he awakened to find the party still going on, he continued performing.
By the end of the days-long bacchanal, Waller was exhausted. The kidnappers drove him back to the Sherman Hotel. Partygoers gave him thousands of dollars in tips as a thank-you for his entertainment.
Four months after Waller’s kidnapping, the Hawthorne was riddled with bullets in a gangland attack that would draw the scrutiny of the FBI and Capone’s number one nemesis, Elliott Ness. Capone was present at the shooting but not injured.
Fats Waller’s career kept climbing. He toured all over the United States and Europe until his death in 1943.
The jazz musician and his most notorious fan never met again.
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