Miles Davis and Clifford Brown modeled their sound on Theodore ‘Fats’ Navarro, yet his career lasted less than a decade, he died at 26, and he lay in an unmarked grave in New Jersey for more than half a century. This episode follows his rise from Key West, Florida, where he was born in 1923 to a family of Cuban, African and Chinese descent, grew up bilingual, started piano lessons at six, and picked up trumpet at 13 while also mastering tenor saxophone. After high school in 1941 he joined Sol Albright’s band in Orlando, played Midwest territory bands like Snookum Russell’s, where he influenced a young J.J. Johnson, and worked the big-band assembly line for Andy Kirk, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton and Billy Eckstine, whose band served as a stealth laboratory for bebop.

Settling in New York in 1946, he dominated small groups with Kenny Clarke and Bud Powell, famously turned down Charlie Parker’s band over salary, joined Tadd Dameron at the Royal Roost, and won the 1948 Metronome poll. The hosts explore the pragmatist behind the nickname Fat Girl, Dizzy Gillespie calling him sweet, his volatility including swinging a trumpet at Bud Powell, and Carmen McRae’s observation that he was explicitly opposed to narcotics. When money dried up in 1948 he returned to Hampton’s touring band, fell ill, and was diagnosed with tuberculosis, after which he developed a heroin addiction. Even as his body failed he recorded with Max Roach, mentored an 18-year-old Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis, and helped shape the cool jazz template. He died July 7, 1950, days after his final performance at Birdland with Parker, and was buried as grave number 414 in Linden, New Jersey, until a headstone was dedicated in 2002.

• How Afro-Cuban polyrhythms in Key West shaped his approach to bebop timing
• The grueling anonymity of 1940s big bands and their hidden role as bebop incubators
• Why turning down Charlie Parker over money shattered the starving-artist myth
• Tuberculosis, heroin and the brutal trap of the mid-century jazz lifestyle
• The DownBeat Hall of Fame induction in 1982 and the 52-year wait for a headstone