A Conversation with Guitarist Al Casey

Fats’ ‘Rhythm’ Sideman Remembers Waller, Recording in the 1930s, and Going Electric I was lucky enough to play with Al Casey, the legendary Fats Waller guitarist, who was a good friend. Below is transcript of my interview with him recorded two years before his death in 2005. From his mid-teens on, Al had an interesting career and an individual way of playing rhythm guitar. Surprisingly, Fats Waller heard him one afternoon in 1933, and hired him immediately; one year later, he played on Fats’ first Victor recording. After that Casey appeared on countless Waller discs. Working with Fats was a challenge because the stride jazz pianist sometimes used passing chords that strayed from a song’s harmonic road map, or would play chords as written during the first chorus and then put in substitutions later on. Another hurdle: the band often had to record new or obscure tunes thrust upon it for the first time at the outset of a recording session. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1915, Casey moved to New York CIty with relatives of Fats Waller and attended DeWitt Clinton High School, as had Waller himself a decade earlier. Al was a child prodigy, playing violin first before switching to ukulele, then to guitar. After Waller’s death in 1943 he led his own trio, and in 1944 and 1945 was named the instrument’s top player in Esquire magazine’s annual jazz poll. He also worked wi