★★★★☆There is a line in the first half about the nature of stride piano. There are a couple of lines in the second half about selling your songs to Tin Pan Alley. And that, more or less, is that for the chat in this musical revue made up of the songs written or performed by Fats Waller in New York between the wars. Such storytelling as there is you have to piece together from tunes whose outwardly blithe celebration of their Harlem renaissance nightworld of fun and romance, drink and drugs is made piquant near the end by a song, Black and Blue, that tells us through its goosebump-inducing five-part vocal harmonies that “my only sin is my skin”. That’s arguably the highlight of the…

Source: The Times April 25, 2019 16:07 UTC