Nick Fatool was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 drummer.

Fatool first played professionally in Providence, Rhode Island

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

, which he followed with time in Joe Haymes

Joe Haymes

Joseph Lawrence Haymes was an American jazz bandleader and arranger.Born in Marshfield, Missouri, Haymes relocated with his family to Springfield, Missouri, after his railroader father was killed in an accident. Joe attended Greenwood Laboratory School in Springfield and was a drummer in the local...

's band in 1937 and Don Beston's in Dallas soon after. In 1939 he played with Bobby Hackett

Bobby Hackett

Robert Leo "Bobby" Hackett was an US jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late thirties and early forties.-Biography:...

 briefly, and then became a member of the Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

 Orchestra. He became one of the most visible drummers of the 1940s, playing with Artie Shaw

Artie Shaw

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....

 (1940-41), Alvino Rey

Alvino Rey

Alvin McBurney , known by his stage name Alvino Rey, was an American swing era musician and pioneer, often credited as the father of the pedal steel guitar...

 (1942-43), Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader...

, Les Brown

Les Brown (bandleader)

Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...

, and Jan Savitt

Jan Savitt

Jan Savitt was an American bandleader, musical arranger, and violinist....

. In 1943 he moved to Los Angeles and took work as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

, recording profusely. Credits include Harry James

Harry James

Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...

, Erroll Garner

Erroll Garner

Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard...

 (1946), Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 (1949, 1951), Jess Stacy

Jess Stacy

Jess Stacy was an American jazz pianist who gained prominence during the Swing era.-Early life:Stacy was born Jesse Alexandria Stacy in Bird's Point, Missouri, a small town across the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois. In 1918 Stacy moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri...

, Tommy Dorsey

Tommy Dorsey

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

, Matty Matlock

Matty Matlock

Julian Clifton "Matty" Matlock was an American Dixieland jazz clarinettist, saxophonist and arranger born in Paducah, Kentucky...

, and Glen Gray

Glen Gray

Glen Gray Knoblauch, better known as Glen Gray, was a jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra....

. He began an association with Bob Crosby

Bob Crosby

George Robert "Bob" Crosby was an American dixieland bandleader and vocalist, best known for his group the Bob-Cats.-Family:...

, playing with him regularly between 1949 and 1951 and occasionally with Crosby's Bobcats into the 1970s.

Between January 7, 1944 and April 23, 1958 Nick Fatool played on sessions for the following Capitol Records artists: The Capitol Jazzmen, Charles LaVere, Eddie Miller and His Orchestra, Ella Mae Morse, Johnny Mercer, Betty Hutton, Paul Weston and His Orchestra, Jo Stafford, The Pied Pipers, Peggy Lee, Dave Matthews and His Orchestra, Billy May and His Orchestra, Freddie Slack, Nat "King" Cole, Jesse Price and His Orchestra, Dave Barbour and His Orchestra, Wingy Manone, Andy Russell, Benny Goodman, Margaret Whiting, The Starlighters, Jerry Colonna, Dean Martin, Gordon MacRae, The Marvin Ash Trio, Ray Turner, Pete Kelly and His Big Seven, Maggie Jackson, Bob Crosby and His Orchestra, The Dinning Sisters, Jeanne Gayle, Joe "Fingers" Carr and His Ragtime Band, Red Nichols and His Aaugmented Pennies, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ray Anthony and His Orchestra, Bobby Hackett and His Jazz Band, Jack Teagarden, Glen Gray and His Casa Loma Orchestra, The Andrews Sisters, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Standley, Andy Griffith, and Robert Mitchum.

In the 1950s and 1960s Fatool found much work on the Dixieland jazz

Dixieland Jazz

Dixieland Jazz was a Canadian music television series which aired on CBC Television in 1954.-Premise:The series host was Trump Davidson, a cornet player. He also hosted a radio music series on CBC's Trans-Canada Network.-Scheduling:...

 revival circuit, playing with Pete Fountain

Pete Fountain

Pete Fountain , is an American clarinetist based in New Orleans. He has played jazz, Dixieland and Creole music.-Early life and education:...

 from 1962-1965 and the Dukes of Dixieland

Dukes of Dixieland

Dukes of Dixieland was a New Orleans dixieland revival band formed in 1948 by brothers Frank Assunto, trumpet; Fred Assunto, trombone; and their father Papa Jac Assunto, trombone and banjo. Their first records featured Jack Maheu, clarinet; Stanley Mendelsohn, piano; Tommy Rundell, drums; and...

. His only session as a bandleader was as the head of a septet in 1987, leading Eddie Miller, Johnny Mince

Johnny Mince

Johnny Mince was an American swing jazz clarinetist.Mince played with Joe Haymes from 1929 to 1934, and recorded with Red Norvo and Glenn Miller in 1935. He then worked with Ray Noble in 1935-37 and Bob Crosby in 1936 before joining Tommy Dorsey in 1937...

, Ernie Carson

Ernie Carson

Ernie Carson is an American Dixieland jazz revival cornetist, pianist, and singer.Carson played trumpet from elementary school, and played with the Castle Jazz Band in the mid-1950s prior to a stint in the U.S. Marines...

, and others.