Scholarship, Documents and Commentary

(Sample of Fats Navarro's handwriting from 1949)

The Music and Life of Theodore "Fats" Navarro: Infatuation by Leif Bo Petersen & Theo Rehak
Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Plymouth, UK, 2009. [ISBN: 978-0-8108-6721-5].
This is the only full length biography of Navarro to date. It has extensive information about Navarro's
life as well as a full discography, analyses of his playing style and circumstances of all recording dates.

This section is devoted to original scholarship, commentary, criticism or annedotes contributed to the Web page dealing with the life and music of Theodore "Fats" Navarro.

Compositions by Theodore "Fats" Navarro
Transcriptions of Navarro recorded Solos
Documents
Remembrances and Interviews
Some Open Questions Posed from Dr. Carlos Iramain in 2000:
- Fats Navarro reportedly used to sit in with Latin Bands in New York in the late 1940s. Does anyone have information on this Latin connection? (He is known to have been able to speak Spanish.)
  Reply: Charlie Mingus speaks of this in Beneath the Underdog (1971), and old colleague Howard McGhee mentions this in a 1978 radio interview with Phil Schaap.
- What kind of trumpet (brand/model) did Fats use? Whatever happened to his last horn(s)?
  Reply: Both Idress Sulieman and Uan Rasey say that he played a Conn.
- Does anyone know of any film clip of Fats?
  Reply: No film footage has ever been found.
Analysis and Criticism
- Dissertation by Russell Zimmer: A Study of the Improvisational Style of Theodore "Fats" Navarro, 1949-1950