Fats Navarro

Fats Navarro
Fats Navarro, ca 1947. Photo by William P. Gottlieb.
Background information
Birth name	Theodore Navarro
Also known as	Fats, Fat Girl
Born	(1923-09-24)September 24, 1923 Key West, Florida, United States
Died	July 6, 1950(1950-07-06) (aged 26) New York City, New York, United States
Genres	Jazz Bebop
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer
Instruments	Trumpet
Years active	1943–1950
Associated acts	Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, Gil Evans, Andy Kirk, Charles Mingus, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Kenny Clarke

Theodore "Fats" Navarro (September 24, 1923 – July 6, 1950) was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown.

Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, of Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage. He began playing piano at age six, but did not become serious about music until he began playing trumpet at the age of thirteen. He was a childhood friend of drummer Al Dreares. By the time he graduated from Douglass high school he wanted to be away from Key West and joined a dance band headed for the midwest.

Tiring of the road life after touring with many bands and gaining valuable experience, including influencing a young J. J. Johnson when they were together in Snookum Russell's territory band, Navarro settled in New York City in 1946, where his career took off. He met and played with, among others, Charlie Parker, one of the greatest musical innovators of modern jazz improvisation. But Navarro was in a position to demand a high salary and did not join one of Parker's regular groups. He also developed a heroin addiction, tuberculosis, and a weight problem (he was nicknamed "Fat Girl"). These afflictions led to a slow decline in his health and death at the age of twenty-six. Navarro was hospitalized on July 1 and died in the evening of July 6, 1950. His last performance was with Charlie Parker on July 1 at Birdland.

Navarro played in the Andy Kirk, Billy Eckstine, Benny Goodman, and Lionel Hampton big bands, and participated in small group recording sessions with Kenny Clarke, Tadd Dameron, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Howard McGhee, and Bud Powell. In Charles Mingus's somewhat counter-factual autobiography Beneath the Underdog, Navarro and Mingus strike up a deep friendship while touring together.