So imagine Vienna in 1947. Okay. The war has
been over for about two years, right? But the
city is still totally divided into occupation
zones. Right. You've got the Russians, the Americans,
the British, the French. Exactly. And the physical
state of the city is just, I mean, the opera
house is a shell. The economy is in absolute
ruins. Very much that classic, the third man
atmosphere. Yes. Shadows, rubble, black markets,
just this desperate need for something new, something
that actually feels alive. Yeah, the cultural
vacuum there must have been staggering. And right
in the middle of this fractured, broken city,
there is a 20 -year -old kid. Just a kid. Right.
And he's holding a clarinet. But he's not looking
backward at the ruins. He's listening to the
American radio broadcasts. He's looking for the
rhythm. Exactly. He is looking for the rhythm.
It really is a striking image to start with.
It is. And honestly, it is the perfect place
to start our deep dive today. Because the figure
we are going to be discussing, Franz and Georg
Pressler. Which is a name we'll get into. We'll
definitely get into the name. But he didn't just
exist in that post -war environment. He completely
metabolized it. Yeah. He took that chaotic mix
of, you know, old Viennese tradition and the
new American occupation. Yeah. And he turned
it into a career that basically defined Austrian
jazz for three decades. Three entire decades.
So for you listening, today's deep dive is all
about the life and career of Franz Pressler.
Though, as you hinted, almost no one actually
called him that. No, not at all. To the world
and even to history, he is known simply as Fatty
George. Fatty George. I mean, it's a name that,
frankly, you just cannot ignore. You really can't.
It dominates the conversation right off the bat,
much in the same way he dominated the bandstand.
So let's talk about the source material we're
using today to unpack all of this. Yeah, what
are we working with? We have a really fascinating
stack of material. It's essentially a biographical
profile from Wikipedia. Okay. But it's very dense.
It's drawing from some highly specific biographical
dictionaries and jazz encyclopedias. Right, which
are referenced throughout the text. Exactly.
So on the surface, it's the kind of dry, factual
text. that just lists dates and band names and
venues sure the standard reference book style
But if you read between the lines, the story
it tells is just screaming with drama. It really
is. I mean, we are talking about a guy who goes
from the incredibly prestigious Vienna Academy
to running a literal nightclub called Fatty's
Saloon. Which seems like a total contradiction
on the surface. Totally. But when you look closer
at the facts provided in these encyclopedias,
it actually makes perfect sense. How so? Well,
we are really looking at the difference between
a musician. And for lack of a better word, an
architect. OK, I like that. Most people in this
scene, they just play the music. Fatty George,
he built the actual infrastructure that allowed
the music to happen in Austria. That's a great
way to frame it. And that is exactly our mission
for this deep dive. To map out that architecture.
Right. We want to reconstruct this entire career
arc. We want to understand how a formally trained
clarinetist ends up leading something called
the Chicago Jazz Band in the 1980s. Which is
a wild stylistic journey. And we also need to
talk about the people he dragged along with him
on this journey. The personnel. Yes. Names like
Joe Zawinul, who, as many of you probably know,
went on to change the entire landscape of global
jazz. The Zawinul connection is absolutely critical
to this story. It is. But we also really need
to look at the business side of things. The venues?
Yes, the venues. Because this is a story about
sheer entrepreneurship, just as much as it is
about melody and harmony. All right. So let's
jump right in. Part one, the origins. Let's do
it. So we have the birth date from the sources,
April 24th, 1927. 1927, which places him squarely
in that classic interwar generation. Right. Between
the two world wars. Exactly. Think about what
that means for his development. He is a child
during the rise of all those intense political
tensions in Europe in the 30s. Right. He's a
teenager. During the actual war. Which is intense
enough on its own. And then he becomes a young
adult the exact moment the death settles. The
timing there is just everything, isn't it? It
really is. If he had been born, say, 10 years
earlier. He would have been drafted. His prime
early career would have been totally crushed
by the war. Wow, yeah. But if he's born 10 years
later, he misses that initial crazy explosion
of the American cultural occupation in the late
40s. So he hits this. absolute sweet spot. He
does. He's exactly the right age to step into
the cultural vacuum of post -war Vienna and help
fill it. Now, we have to address the elephant
in the room, or I guess the name on the gravestone.
Yes, the name. The sauce material is highly specific
about this. It notes that he is, quote, known
by the stage name Fatty George. Right. But then
it explicitly points out that he is depicted
as Fatty George on his own gravestone. Which
is just a profound detail when you stop and think
about it. I mean, usually a stage name is just
it's a mask, right? A professional tool. Yeah.
It's a mask you take off when you go home at
night. Like you're The Rock on television, but
you are Dwayne Johnson to your family. Or you're
Sting on stage, but your passport says Gordon
Sumner. Exactly. But for Franz Bressler, the
persona of Fatty George seems to have just consumed
the man entirely. It became who he was. Do you
think that was a calculated branding decision
on his part? Or was it just the reality of living
the jazz life 24 -7 back then? I think it started
as a survival strategy, and then it just calcified
into an identity. What do you mean by survival
strategy? Well, think about the late 40s and
early 50s in Europe. If you wanted to play jazz...
And actually be taken seriously by the crowds.
You had to be American. Or seem American. Exactly.
You had to have that American spirit. Franz Pressler
sounds like, I don't know, an accountant. Or
a classical oboist. Right. It sounds very traditional
Viennese. But Fatty George. That sounds like
a guy who knows how to swing. It sounds like
a character straight out of a noir novel. Or
some guy hosting a Harlem rent party. It really
does. It sends an immediate signal to the audience.
It tells them, before they even hear a note,
this is not Strauss. This is jazz. So it's this
brilliant act of self -mythologizing. Precisely.
And by the time he died, the myth simply was
the reality. There was no going back to being
Franz. Okay, so before he becomes the myth. before
the stage name takes over. He obviously has to
learn the actual craft of music. The foundation.
Yes. And the encyclopedic notes we have highlight
this really fascinating duality in his musical
education. The two instruments. Right. On one
side we have the saxophone. The text specifically
says he began playing alto sax as a teenager.
And that phrasing, as a teenager, usually implies
a more informal kind of training. Like self -taught.
Likely, yes. Or at least picking it up outside
of a rigid academic setting. How would a teenager
in wartime or immediate post -war Vienna even
learn jazz sax? He was probably listening to
whatever records he could find. Maybe those V
-discs that the American soldiers brought over.
Oh, the victory discs. Yeah. You listen to them
endlessly and you figure it out by ear. And the
saxophone is a somewhat intuitive instrument
in that specific way. Meaning what exactly? Well,
you can make a sound on saxophone relatively
easily compared to some other woodwinds. Now,
mastering it is incredibly hard. But getting
started and playing by ear is accessible. It's
a very vocal, street -level instrument in the
jazz tradition. Okay. But then we have the other
side of his education. The clarinet. And this
is where his story gets really rigorous. Because
the source states very clearly that he was educated
as a clarinetist at the Vienna Academy. Which
is no small thing. Right. Today, that institution
is known as the University of Music and Performing
Arts Vienna. Yes. That is not a place where you
just show up and jam in a basement. Definitely
not. That is the absolute citadel of Western
art music. Right. We are talking about endless
scales, arpeggios, incredibly strict embouchure
control. Sight reading. Yes, sight reading. Highly
complex classical repertoire. To even get accepted
into the academy, you have to be elite. So Franz
Pressler, soon to be Fatty George, wasn't just
some scrappy kid blowing a horn in a smoky cellar.
No, he was a highly trained technician. You know,
I've always wondered about the difficulty of
doubling on those two specific instruments. Saxophone
and clarinet. Yeah, because they're related,
obviously they both use a single reed, but they
really aren't the same. Oh, they are notoriously
difficult to balance at a truly high professional
level. Really? Why is that? It comes down to
the embouchure. That's the way you form your
mouth and facial muscles around the mouthpiece
and the reed. Okay. The clarinet requires a much
tighter, firmer embouchure. It takes more concentrated
pressure. Got it. And the sax. The saxophone
embouchure is generally looser, a bit more relaxed
and open. So they fight against each other. Exactly.
If you spend all day playing the saxophone, your
mouth gets used to that loose feel and then your
clarinet intonation can suffer. You might sound
flat or uncontrolled. And vice versa. Yeah. If
you play too much strict classical clarinet,
your sax tone can end up sounding really pinched
and thin instead of fat and robust. Wow. So for
him to do both, to master the street style sax
and the rigorous academy clarinet, it really
suggests a massive level of musical discipline.
It gave him a totally unique toolkit as a player.
How did he use that toolkit? Well, when he wants
to be raw, loud, and deeply emotive, he has the
alto sax ready to go. Right. But when he needs
to be intricate, fast, nimble, and highly precise,
he switches to the clarinet. That's a great dynamic
range. Plus, having that academy training gave
him something invaluable in Europe at that time.
Credibility. Because it's Austria. Yes. In Austria,
especially in Vienna, titles and formal education
really matter to the establishment. So being
an academy trained musician. It likely opened
doors for him that a purely self -taught jazz
cat. simply wouldn't be able to get through.
It legitimizes what he's doing. Exactly. It's
a way of telling the conservative Viennese cultural
gatekeepers, look, I know your rules perfectly.
I'm just choosing to play these other rules instead.
I love that. He becomes a bridge, a bridge between
the very old classical Vienna and the brand new
American influenced sound. A perfect way to put
it. Which brings us to the moment that bridge
actually opens for traffic. The late 40s. Right.
Part two of our deep dive, the post -war explosion.
The year is 1947. Okay, so he's 20 years old
here. Yes. Born in 27, so he's just 20. Think
about being 20 years old in 1947 Vienna. The
city is still physically recovering. The people
are still hungry, literally and metaphorically.
And what does this 20 -year -old do? He decides,
I am going to start a band. Not just join a band
as a side man. He starts his own. Right. He founds
a group called the Hot Club 7. Hot Club 7. You
know, I really want to unpack this name with
you because the source notes explicitly describe
this exact group as a bop group. Yes, bebop.
But the name Hot Club, doesn't that specifically
refer to Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli?
It absolutely does. The Quintet du Hot Club de
France. Right. Hot Club was the primary branding
of the 1930s European swing era. It invokes a
very specific sound, doesn't it? Very specific.
String swing, acoustic guitars, violins, a bit
of that gypsy jazz flavor. It is fundamentally
a pre -war European aesthetic. But Bop Be Bop
is the complete opposite of that. Totally different
universe. Bop is Charlie Parker. It's Dizzy Gillespie.
It's that radical, incredibly modern, high -speed
music that was just coming out of New York in
the mid -40s. So we have a really fascinating
contradiction right off the bat. He names his
band after the old, safe European style, but
he plays the aggressive, brand -new American
style. Right. Do you think that was just confusion
on his part? Or was it a deliberate... marketing
tactic i suspect it's maybe a little bit of both
but primarily it's savvy marketing how so hot
club was a brand name that european audiences
already understood to them it just meant jazz
it was a safe keyword exactly if he had called
his band say the vienna rebop collective people
might have been totally alienated they wouldn't
know what to expect that makes a lot of sense
by saying hot club he gets the audience in the
door they think they know what they're buying
and then Once they are sitting down with a drink.
He hits them with a bebop. Right. He educates
them. Which is a huge risk, honestly, because
bop is not easy listening. Oh, not at all. Bop
is deeply challenging music. It's fast. It relies
on heavy chromaticism, blistering tempos, incredibly
complex chord substitutions. It is highly intellectual
music. It's not dance music anymore. No, you
sit and listen to it. So for a 20 -year -old
kid to be leading a septet. Wait, yeah, let's
talk about that. A septet. Seven musicians. That
is just wild. Finding six other guys in 1947
Vienna who can even physically play bebop is
practically a miracle. Seriously, who even has
the sheet music for that stuff? Nobody. They
certainly weren't buying Charlie Parker charts
at the local music store. So how are they learning
it? They must have been meticulously transcribing
things straight off the radio broadcasts. Or
trading those precious 78 RPM records that the
soldiers brought over, slowing them down, trying
to figure out what Parker was doing. That takes
extreme dedication. It does. And it speaks volumes
about Fatty George's inherent charisma. How do
you mean? Well, you simply don't need a complex
seven -piece band at age 20 unless you have a
crystal clear musical vision. And unless the
other musicians truly respect you. Exactly. Or,
and this is crucial, unless you are the guy who
can actually hustle and get the paying gigs.
Ah, the business side again. Right. And that
really seems to be Fatty George's superpower
from day one. He makes things happen. He gets
the room. He gets the crowd. He gets the money.
So the late 40s serve as his launch pad. He establishes
himself as this young lion of the Vienna scene.
Yes. And then we move forward into the 1950s
and his personal brand starts to evolve. We enter
the era of the Two Sounds Band. The Two Sounds
Band. I just think that's such a great name.
It is very catchy. The source text doesn't explicitly
define what Two Sounds refers to, but given the
conversation we just had. We can make a very
educated guess. It has to refer to as two instruments,
right? The clarinet. And the saxophone. The dual
sounds of Fanta George. Yes, absolutely. It's
almost like a flex. He's putting his technical
versatility right there on the marquee. It creates
a brilliant, unique selling proposition for the
audience. Come see the man who can do it all.
Precisely. Though structurally, it might also
refer to the stylistic range of the band itself,
their ability to play both the hot traditional
sounds and the cooler, more modern sounds. That's
a good point. Let's actually look at the lineup
of this band as provided in the encyclopedic
notes, because this is where the deep dive gets
really interesting. Oh, this lineup is unbelievable.
It's not just some random pickup group playing
a Tuesday night gig. No, this is essentially
a super group. It is the absolute cream of the
crop of the German -speaking jazz world at that
time. Okay, let's go through them. First up,
we have Oscar Klein on trumpet. Right. Oscar
Klein is a total legend in his own right. He
was an Austrian -born Swiss musician, correct?
Yes, and he was a true master of the traditional
jazz styles, but he could also play swing and
mainstream jazz brilliantly. So having him on
trumpet. It gives the band a very strong, highly
skilled, brassy front line. He anchors the traditional
elements. Next on the list, we have Carl Drewo
on saxophone. Now this is a fascinating choice.
Because if Fatty George is already playing the
saxophone, why do you need to hire Carl Drewo?
Doesn't the sonic space get a little crowded?
You'd think so, but not if you arrange the music
intelligently. How did they do it? Well... You
have to remember that in the 1950s, the tenor
battle or the sax battle was a massive trope
in jazz. Like Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt? Exactly.
The crowd loved it. Having two saxophones allows
you to trade fours where you bounce short solos
back and forth. Oh, right. It allows you to harmonize
lines in thirds, which creates this massive wall
of sound. And tying back to his versatility,
it frees Fatty up to put down the sax and pick
up the clarinet. Exactly. He can switch to clarinet
without the band. suddenly losing its saxophone
section, Druot holds down the fort. That makes
perfect sense. So Druot is the anchor and Fatty
is the wild card who can float over the top.
Right. And Druot was just a fantastic player.
Yeah. Very modern, very robust tone. Okay. Next
member mentioned in the source, Bill Grah. The
notes list him as pianist and a vibraphonist.
The vibraphone. That is such a crucial sonic
detail for this era. Why is the vibraphone so
important here? It seems like kind of a niche
instrument. You have to think about the broader
1950s jazz soundscape. Okay. Over in America,
you have groups like the Modern Jazz Quartet
rising to international fame. The MJQ. With Milt
Jackson on vibes? Yes. And the vibraphone comes
to represent this new movement of cool jazz.
Ah. It's this shimmering, deeply sophisticated
metallic sound. It sustains notes beautifully.
It's very different from a piano. Exactly. It's
not the aggressive honky -tonk piano sound of
the 1920s. The vibraphone is the sound of a dry
martini glass clinking in an expensive lounge.
I love that visual. So by adding vibes to the
two sounds band, they aren't just a loud, aggressive
bop group anymore. No, they gain incredible texture.
They gain atmosphere and mood. Which makes them
sound expensive. It makes them sound highly modern
and very chic. And then we get to the final name
on this list, the name that really jumps off
the page for any jazz fan. Oh, absolutely. The
text lists. Keyboardist and composer Joe Zawinul.
Joe Zawinul. It's just incredible to see him
here. Now, for anyone listening who might not
be a hardcore jazz historian, why should they
care about Joe Zawinul? Okay, Joe Zawinul is,
without exaggeration, arguably the single most
important jazz musician Austria ever produced.
High craze. It's just a fact. He eventually leaves
Europe, moves to America, and joins Cannonball
Adderley's incredibly famous band. He wrote Mercy,
Mercy, Mercy. He did. A massive hit. And then
he played with Miles Davis on the Seminole albums
In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. which basically
invented jazz rock fusion. And then he founded
Weather Report. Exactly. He is a literal titan
of global music. And here he is, just a young
guy in the 1950s playing in Fatty George's local
band in Vienna. It's his proving ground. And
notice what the source specifies about his role.
He wasn't just the keyboardist. It says composer.
That is the golden nugget in this text. What
does that tell us about Fatty George? It means
Fatty George gave Zawinul the space and the permission
to write original music for the band. He wasn't
just a hired gun told to play the standard chords.
No, he was actively shaping the sound of the
ensemble. Do we think Fatty George actually knew
what he had in Zawinul? Did he see the genius?
He must have recognized the sheer talent. I mean,
you don't let a young sideman compose your band's
material unless they're bringing something absolutely
undeniable to the table. That's true. And for
Zamenhall, this band was his incubator. Before
he could go to America and conquer the music
world, he needed a laboratory to test his ideas.
And Fatty George provided that laboratory. Exactly.
It's honestly amazing to think about the musical
DNA bouncing around in that room. You have Oscar
Klein holding down the deep tradition. Right.
You have Carl Drew pushing the modern sax boundaries,
Bill Graw adding that cool, sophisticated vibe
texture, and young Joe Zawinul probably already
experimenting with wild harmonic ideas. All while
Fatty George is standing up front playing two
instruments and conducting the whole chaotic
symphony, it really shows that Fatty wasn't an
insecure band leader. How do you mean? A lesser
leader, a more ego -driven leader, would be deeply
threatened by a generational talent like Zawinul.
They'd try to keep him down. Keep the spotlight
on themselves. Right. But Fatty George deliberately
surrounded himself with people who could potentially
outplay him, and he just rode that creative wave.
That's the mark of a great manager, honestly.
It is. But... As we hinted at earlier, just having
a great band isn't enough to sustain a scene.
No, you need a place to actually play the music.
Right. the physical space which brings us to
part four of our outline the impresario this
is where the story shifts because in 1955 fatty
george makes a massive career move that changes
everything he stops being just a gigging employee
of the music industry and he becomes an owner
yes the source states that he founded the jazz
casino in vienna in 1955. the jazz casino i really
love the pure ambition in that name it tells
you exactly who his target demographic was He
wasn't opening a dingy underground cellar or
a jazz cave. No, he was opening a casino. It
implies what? High stakes? Money. It implies
deep glamour. It implies the jazz music. belongs
in the exact same sentence as roulette wheels,
champagne, and tuxedos. He's elevating the status
of the art form. He was trying to bring it out
of the rubble and into the high society of Vienna.
And according to the timeline, this is happening
concurrently with his time leading the Two Sounds
Band. Yes. So he is pulling triple duty. He is
the star house band. He is the owner taking the
financial risk. And he is the booker deciding
who else plays. That is total... Top to bottom
control of the product. But it's also total unmitigated
financial risk. Oh, absolutely. And unfortunately,
the market always has the final say. Which it
did, because the source notes plainly that the
jazz casino closed down in 1958. So roughly a
three year run. Is that a failure? Three years?
In the brutal nightclub business, a three year
run isn't a total disaster. Right. But it does
indicate a failure of the core concept. The high
end casino idea just didn't stick long term in
that economy. Now, this is the crucial pivot
point in his life. It is. Because most musicians,
if they lost their club after three years, they
would take the loss, pack up, and go back to
touring full time. It's safer. But the notes
say he, quote, rebounded immediately. He didn't
even pause. He turns right around in 1958 and
opens a new place called Fatty's Saloon. I want
to look at the linguistic difference there. Casino
versus saloon. It's a massive fundamental rebrand.
It really is. A casino is very European. It's
formal. It's elegant. Maybe a bit stiff and intimidating.
You have to wear a nice jacket. Right. But a
saloon. That is pure Americana. It is the Wild
West. It's cowboys. It's rough wood. It's whiskey
in a glass. Why on earth would a jazz musician
in 1950s Vienna want to open a cowboy saloon?
Because at its core, jazz is American music.
By creating a venue called a saloon, he is essentially
building a theme park of American culture in
the middle of Austria. Oh, wow. He is saying
to the Viennese public, you want the authentic
raw jazz experience. You have to come down to
the saloon. You have to step fully into this
fantasy version of America. It's pure exoticism.
Exactly. For a local Viennese person in 1958,
going to an American saloon is as exotic as going
to a Polynesian tiki bar. It's not just a gig.
It's a destination. It's an escape. And importantly,
he puts his own name on this one. Fatty's Saloon.
That's a huge shift, too. The jazz casino was
a corporate anonymous name. Right. Fatty's Saloon
is deeply personal. He is the barkeep. He is
the jovial host. He is the sheriff of this little
town he built. And the source notes confirm that
the strategy worked. It says it became an important
jazz venue in Austria. The saloon concept resonated.
where the casino concept failed. Why do you think
that is? It was almost certainly looser, louder,
more fun, and far less pretentious. People could
just relax. And it became the absolute hub of
the scene. If you were a major touring American
musician coming through Europe, say Duke Ellington
or Louis Armstrong, you played your formal concert
at the big hall. And then you ended up at Fatty
Saloon at 2 a .m. Exactly. That's where the real
jam sessions happened. So he really built the
clubhouse for the entire community. He built
the physical scene without the saloon. Where
does the community even gather? Where do the
hungry young players get to meet the old masters
passing through town? He provided the actual
square footage for the culture to take root and
grow. He was the architect. Now, as the venue
changed and as time marched on, his music seemed
to change as well. It did. Which brings us to
part five, the evolution of his later career.
Moving into the 1970s and 80s. Right. The encyclopedic
notes mention that in the 1970s, he led a new
group. And this one was called the Chicago Jazz
Band. We really need to pause here and look closely
at the timeline of the genres we've discussed.
Let's review it. Okay, 1947. He starts with the
Hot Club 7 playing bop. That is the absolute
cutting edge of modern music at the time. Right.
1950s, the Two Sounds Band, cool jazz, vibraphones,
modern original compositions by Zabin. Still
very forward -looking. And then the 1970s. The
Chicago Jazz Band. Right. Now, Chicago Jazz,
that refers to a style from the 1920s, doesn't
it? The revival of that early New Orleans sound.
Yes. It is fundamentally trad jazz. Dixieland.
So it's music that was literally 50 years old
by the time he was playing it in the 70s. It's
heavily traditional. Isn't that backward? Well,
it depends entirely on how you look at the arc
of an artist's life. Usually we expect artists
to get more experimental and weird as they age.
That's the cliche. Look at Miles Davis. He went
from bop to cool to modal to electric fusion.
And eventually he was playing with hip hop beats
in the 80s. He never went backward. Right. But
Fatty George went from cutting edge bop all the
way back to Dixieland. It is certainly a regression
in terms of harmonic complexity. But we have
to look at the broader cultural context of the
1970s, especially in Europe. What was going on?
There was a massive continent -wide trad jazz
revival. Oh, really? Driven by nostalgia? Huge
nostalgia. You had people like Ackerbilk in the
UK having massive pop hits with trad jazz. There
was a huge, eager market for happy, stomping,
highly accessible jazz music. Because the modern
stuff had gotten too difficult. Partly, yes.
The avant -garde movements. Free jazz. The really
intense fusion stuff. It was getting very loud,
very abstract, and honestly very difficult for
general casual audiences to digest while having
a beer. So Fatty George, the consummate club
owner, looks around his saloon, a place literally
built for good times, and realizes something.
He realizes, I shouldn't be playing abstract
20 -minute atonal art music in here. I should
be playing party music. Exactly. Chicago jazz
perfectly fits the architecture and the vibe
of a saloon. It fits the atmosphere of clinking
glasses, smoke, and laughter. If he had booked
a free jazz ensemble into the saloon... It would
have cleared the room in 10 minutes. So the pragmatic
business owner in him dictated the direction
of the musician in him. That's one very likely
interpretation, but there's another angle. What's
that? Perhaps after 30 straight years of constantly
chasing the new and the modern, he just wanted
to play the music that... physically felt good
to play returning to his roots there's a profound
joy in chicago jazz the collective improvisation
the simple driving rhythm that intellectual bop
doesn't always provide it's comfort food it is
absolute musical comfort food yeah and for a
man in his late 40s or 50s dealing with the daily
stress of running a busy nightclub maybe musical
comfort was exactly what he craved he didn't
want to do math on stage anymore he just wanted
to swing exactly and he clearly stuck with it
because the notes say he remained active as a
band leader right up until his death yes he died
basically in the harness march 29 1982 1982 he
was only 54 years old 54 that strikes me as incredibly
young it is very young to have accomplished all
that but you have to think about the reality
of the life he lived the nightclub life nightclubs
secondhand smoke every single night alcohol The
relentless financial stress of running a small
business. The terrible hours. Yeah, jazz is not
exactly a profession known for promoting longevity.
Especially when you aren't just the star who
shows up to play for two hours. He was the guy
unlocking the doors at 6 p .m., dealing with
the plumbing, playing the gig, paying the staff,
and then locking up at 4 a .m. Every night for
30 years. He completely burned the candle at
both ends. He really was the candle. That's a
good way to put it. Let's look at his final legacy,
then. Part six of our dive. Because when we step
back from the timeline, what are we ultimately
left with? We are left with that very first image
we discussed, the image on the gravestone. Fatty
George, carved in stone. It confirms everything
we've just talked about. History doesn't remember
Franz Pressler, the kid who went to the academy.
It remembers Fatty George, the undisputed Austrian
jazzman. And the geography of that title is crucial
here. How so? The source notes keep emphasizing
his location, Austrian jazz musician. Vienna
Academy, Vienna nightclubs. He stayed. He is
a national treasure, precisely because he didn't
leave. Zawinul left. Zawinul left. Oscar Klein
traveled constantly. A lot of the great European
talent emigrated to the states where the industry
was bigger. But Fatty George stayed home. He
anchored the scene. He proved to multiple generations
of kids that you could actually do it right there
in Vienna. You didn't have to flee to Paris or
New York to have a world -class jazz club or
to front a world -class band. You could build
it in your own backyard. So if we have to summarize
the core pillars of his career based on these
encyclopedic entries, how do you see it? I see
his career as a really sturdy tripod. If you
remove any one of the legs, the whole legacy
falls over. Okay, let's name them. Leg one. The
musician. The technically brilliant, academy
-trained clarinetist who thoroughly understood
the rules of Western music, paired with a street
-smart, self -taught saxophonist who understood
the soul of jazz. He had the pure chops. Unquestionable
chops. Leg two. The band leader. The visionary
who could spot raw, young talent like Joe Zawinul.
The guy who had the sheer audacity to manage
complex, seven -piece bop bands at age 20. And
the guy who could keep a working band employed
and together for decades. Right. He was a true
leader of men. And leg three. The entrepreneur.
The impresario. The club owner. The man who fundamentally
understood that the music cannot survive without
a physical home. The jazz casino. Fatty's saloon.
He literally built the stage so that others could
shine on it. And because he's all three of those
things simultaneously. He transcended his birth
name and became the myth. Fatty George, a totally
singular figure in European culture. Exactly.
You know, exploring a story like this, it really
challenges the standard way we tend to think
about music history. What do you mean? Well,
we usually only focus on the massive innovators
of style, right? We ask who invented the new
chord progression, who played the fastest, craziest
solo. Right. We are obsessed with the technical
breakthroughs on the records. But Fatty George's
story suggests something else entirely. It suggests
that the local infrastructure is just as important
as the notes being played. It's the foundation
of everything. If there is no saloon, there's
no gig. And if there's no gig, the musicians
don't meet, they don't practice, and there is
no scene. You can literally be the greatest trumpet
player in the world with all the talent imaginable.
But if you don't have a Fatty George in your
town to open the doors, pour the drinks, and
pay the electric bill. You're just playing alone
in your bedroom. That is the truth. Fatty George
was the fertile soil that the entire Austrian
jazz scene grew out of. That is a really beautiful
way to put it. The soil of the scene. Thank you.
Well, I know one thing for sure. The next time
I happen to be in Vienna, I am going to actively
look for that gravestone. It feels like a necessary
pilgrimage now, doesn't it? It really does. It's
a genuine piece of history. Absolutely. And to
you, our listener, thanks for taking this trip
back to 1947 with us. It's been a ride. I think
the big takeaway here is something to just mull
over on your own is how the physical environment
you exist in, the spaces you inhabit or even
own can ultimately shape the art you produce.
Does the saloon create the Chicago jazz or does
the jazz require the saloon? Exactly. It's a
reminder that sometimes the most important cultural
figures aren't always the ones on the international
bestseller lists. Sometimes they're the ones
who just stayed home and built something sturdy
that lasted. Well said. We will catch you on
the next deep dive. Goodbye. See you.