The time Al Capone kidnapped Fats Waller to play at his birthday party
When he wasn’t busy running the streets of Chicago as the boss of the city’s Italian-American Mafia, Al Capone was a noted jazz aficionado. There were a lot of connections between musicians and the mob during the Prohibition era, where the activities of the organised crime syndicate were actively pumping money from their operation into the careers of many notable jazz stars.
Without Mafia backing, the likes of Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Billie Holiday wouldn’t have had clubs to play in, and a number of young Black musicians would have likely been living in poverty if it wasn’t for the injection of money that Capone and his cronies coughed up.
There are plenty of stories of Capone coming face-to-face with jazz musicians, such as the time he split a $100 bill for clarinettist Johnny Dodds and told him he could have the other half once he had learned a song for Capone. He also sent bodyguards to accompany pianist Earl Hines on tour once, and despite his violent temperament, he clearly cared for the wellbeing of the musicians that provided him with such joy in his downtime.
However, what lengths would you go to have one of jazz music’s most prominent figures perform, especially for you, at your birthday party? Allegedly, Capone sent a number of his goons to round up the great pianist and entertainer Fats Waller by whatever means necessary and drag him to an exclusive club to perform for Scarface himself.
In 1926, on what would’ve been the notorious gangster’s 27th birthday, armed mobsters accosted Waller after a concert in Chicago, held him at gunpoint and demanded that he come with them in their limousine to an undisclosed location. When he arrived at the private party, Waller didn’t initially realise that the event was being held for Capone until he spotted his face in the crowd, but it seemingly didn’t faze the young musician.
Supposedly, the party dragged on for three days, and because of how thrilled he was to have Waller in his presence, Capone plied the pianist with the finest alcohol and platter of food that he could ask for. While Waller wasn’t known for having had a criminal past, he certainly knew how to drink and party, and kept up with the Mafia boss for the duration of the bash, sleeping on the stool of his piano only to resume festivities the next day.
Waller may well have had the best three-night run of his career in terms of financial gain, as Capone was allegedly willing to tip him $100 for every song he played. Once the party had drawn to a close, Waller returned home thousands of dollars better off, and also had one of the most incredible stories to tell.
If I’d been asked at gunpoint to perform for the Mafia, I’d probably have wet myself and run for the hills, but Waller clearly knew there was something in it for him. His three-day bender with the most notorious gangster of all time might not have changed the course of jazz history, but it serves as an example of how the genre was able to flourish thanks to this occasional streak of altruism from the mob boss.
