Fats Pichon

Walter G. " Fats" Pichon ( born April 3, 1906 in New Orleans, † 25 February 1967 Chicago) was an American jazz pianist, singer, arranger and songwriter.

Life and work

Walter Pichon grew up in New Orleans and learned piano as a child game. He also played as a young baritone horn in the brass bands of the city, from 1920 as a professional musician. In 1922 he moved to the north of the United States, among others guested in New York City and New Jersey, before settling in Boston and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. After extensive tours of the U.S. and with the Eleven Aces Mexico by the mid- 20s he returned to his native town where he performed until 1928 with his own bands in dance halls and on Mississippi riverboats on, further Sidney Desvigne. With a stint in New York the end of 1928 first recordings were made under his own name, mostly as a vocalist with novelty numbers, accompanied by Luis Russell and other groups from New Orleans.

In the 1930s, Fats Pichon had his own big band in New Orleans, with whom he also played on the river steamers; to his musicians were among the young Dave Bartholomew. However, there were no recordings with this band. In Texas, he played in Dusky Stevedores (1929 ), then with Elmer Snowden and Fess Williams ( 1931) in New York, in 1935 in Memphis, and he went with Mamie Smith on tour.

In the 1940s, he was a long time house pianist at the Old Absinthe House, a popular venue on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, where he played until 1960, interrupted by occasional tours of the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean. From 1951 Pinchon took over the role of Eddie the Waiter, when he replaced the comedian Eddie Green, in a weekly radio comedy of NBC broadcasts ( Duffy 's Tavern ). Because of the deterioration of his eyesight, he joined in the 1960s to only rarely. Under his own name Pichon took during his career only occasionally; at a session in 1929, two songs were in a trio with Red Allen and Teddy Bunn, 1946, he played two unaccompanied solos, four more pieces in 1947 with a trio ( for DeLuxe ) and finally a trio album for Decca Records in 1956.