Spirited Sounds ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ Pays Tribute To The Legendary Fats Waller

The national touring production of “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” features two legendary stars.

One will be present only in spirit; the other will be live and on stage.

The latter is Martha Reeves, the Motown legend, who along with the Vandellas contributed enormously to the soundtrack of the ‘60s with such songs as “Heat Wave,” “Dancing in the Street,” “Quicksand,” “Nowhere to Run” and “Jimmy Mack.”

The other star is Fats Waller, gone since 1943. Yet he, too, contributed hugely to the development of pop, rhythm and blues, jazz, show music and rock ‘n’ roll, even decades after his death.

“Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” is a tribute to Waller’s music, consisting in its entirety of 30 Waller tunes, performed one right after another by a cast of three men and three women (the three women being Martha and the Vandellas).

This 1978 Broadway smash does not attempt to tell the story of Waller’s life. In fact, it barely has a plot at all. Yet Waller’s music was his life; if you listen closely, you’ll learn what a gigantic entertainment figure he was.

The title tune alone, “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” might give you a hint. Waller was a man for whom misbehavin’ was the rule, not the exception. When Waller played, he was likely to have a bottle of gin on the piano, a cigarette dangling from his lips, a derby hat jauntily cocked on his head, and all 300 pounds of him shaking with laughter.

During his 1942 Carnegie Hall recital, he was almost too drunk to play. One of his most notorious wartime songs was “The Reefer Song,” which contains the line, “I dreamed about a reefer five feet long.”

His prodigious appetites weakened his system to the point that a bout of pneumonia was enough to kill him.

Yet in his short span, he became one of the best-known figures in America, and, along with Louis Armstrong, one of the first black superstars. He first attracted attention as a regular at informal Harlem musical parties. By 1922, he had already scored his first hit, “Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do.”

Soon, he and lyricist Andy Razaf were churning out hits such as “Honeysuckle Rose,” “The Joint is Jumpin’,” “Black and Blue” and “Your Feet’s Too Big” (all of which are included in “Ain’t Misbehavin’ “).

By the late ‘30s, he became a national radio star when CBS boss William Paley gave him his own jazz show. He was a natural at mixing comedy with music. Soon, he was appearing in movies, the best known of which was “Stormy Weather,” right before his death.

His celebrity was short-lived, but not his music. Waller was one of the chief proponents of “stride” piano, a jaunty style which developed out of ragtime. The left hand plays the bass note on the beat and “strides” up to the chord on the offbeat, leaving the right hand free to play a complex melody. His music was amazingly sophisticated and harmonically complex. You can still hear its influence today in honky-tonk and many other styles of blues-influenced music.

In 1977, an actor and collector of Waller records named Murray Horowitz came up with the idea of a musical based on Waller’s music. He played his records for lyricist and director Richard Maltby Jr.

Together, they stitched the Waller songs into a seamless show, adding some lyrics to some of Waller’s instrumental numbers. When it hit Broadway in 1978, it won every major award, including the Tony for Best Musical, and Maltby won a Tony for Best Director. Nell Carter was the star.

Now, the show is in the midst of a 48-city tour with Reeves in the spotlight.

Reeves, 55, began her career as a blues singer in Detroit. She soon caught the attention of Berry Gordy, who had a fledgling record company called Motown. She was first hired as a secretary and general assistant, but before long, she was singing. She renamed her backup group the Vandellas (after Van Dyke Street in Detroit, combined with the “Della” from her favorite singer, Della Reese), and they soon embarked on a string of hits that epitomized the Motown sound.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Spokane Opera House. Tickets are $34 and $31, available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.