Way back when: Fats Waller serving pure charisma with “Ain’t Misbehavin’” in the 1943 musical film Stormy Weather.
He’s joined by the luminous Lena Horne, plus dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson popping in as a waiter. A fun note: Stormy Weather was one of Hollywood’s rare all-Black musicals of the era, featuring a powerhouse lineup including Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers.
The band behind Waller is stacked: drummer Zutty Singleton, bassist Slam Stewart, trumpeter Benny Carter, guitarist Irving Ashby, trombonist Alton Moore, and clarinetist Eugene Porter. (Several of these musicians were major swing-era players who later shaped early bebop sessions.)
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INYIM Did You Know?
- Stormy Weather was released in July 1943, just months after the U.S. lifted several wartime restrictions on film production.
- The movie features the legendary Nicholas Brothers’ “Jumpin’ Jive” routine, which Fred Astaire once called “the greatest movie musical number ever filmed.”
- Although set in Harlem, most of the film was shot on 20th Century Fox soundstages (Century City, on the historic Fox lot) because wartime travel was limited.
- Lena Horne was only 25 years old when she filmed it, making this one of her earliest major screen showcases.
- The film’s soundtrack was one of the first to spotlight an all-Black big-band ensemble in a major Hollywood studio release.
Drop your thoughts below — which performance from Stormy Weather still hits you the hardest? Let’s talk classics.
