Fate Marable (December 2, 1890 – January 16, 1947) is a very important figure in the early history of Jazz. The bands he led on the Strekfus Mississippi river boat lines served as a training grounds for many of the great Jazz musicians of the 1920s including Louis Armstrong, Baby and Johnny Dodds, Zutty Singleton, King Oliver, Johnny St. Cyr, Tommy Ladnier, Red Allen and Pops Foster to name a few. Fate played piano and was renowned for his steam calliope playing on the river boats. The keys of the steam calliope were so hot that the musician had to wear gloves to play the instrument. Marable led bands on the boats up until the 1940s. In the mid-1940s he played in clubs in St. Louis.

Also See: Fate Marable, Louis Armstrong, and the Big River

Fate Marable’s Society Syncopators

Jazz On The River, by William Howland Kenney, University Of Chicago Press, 2005