Jazz dialogue: Gary Giddins in conversation Jazz.com Noted jazz critic Gary Giddins discusses Louis Armstrong's legacy and more.
Big Easy is still tops for music Canada.com Armstrong's love of music was developed on the street when he revelled in the sights and sounds of parades and funerals.
Behind Every Great Man: Lil Hardin and Louis Armstrong KUAR Who knows if Louis Armstrong's genius would have touched the world as it did without the tireless effort and steadfast vision of Lil Hardin Armstrong.
Paris for jazz lovers Times of London Jazz is everywhere in the French capital - you just need to know where to look, says Robert Ryan
July 04, 2008
Busy, busy day. You've got weenies to roast, bottle rockets to fire, baseball games to watch, and flags to salute.
But we'd like you to carve out a couple of minutes this Independence Day to observe the other great institution that came into being on July 4 -- Louis Armstrong.
Yes, recent experiments in public records archaeology suggest that Satchmo may have been misled when told he was born on July 4, 1900. But that's when he, I and fellow Louisphiles such as comedian/trombonist Mal Sharpe have always celebrated the jazz titan's birthday, and rightly so. Few other figures have embodied the promise and peril of America, our best qualities and worst challenges, as did the man who established jazz as the great national art form.
Born to a poor family in New Orleans two generation removed from slavery, Armstrong came into the world with all the baggage and limited expectations that accompanied being black and Southern at the time, expectations he no doubt seemed ready to live up to with his multiple visits to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs. Yet, besides a certain talent for delinquency, he had an incredible ear, a seemingly errorless feel for rhythm, and an absolutely undeniable personality.
With little formal training, he took up the cornet and quickly rose through the ranks of New Orleans' nascent jazz scene. Within a decade or so, he had transformed jazz for good from purely ensemble playing into a solo art form and busted it out of the ghetto of "race music." Invented jazz singing, too.
Try to imagine an America without Louis Armstrong. Would we have survived the Depression psychologically without his music, the national antidepressant in the days before pharmaceutical intervention? Would the rest of the world still regard us as a bunch of dour Puritans without Armstrong's decades of serving, in both formal and informal capacities, as our national ambassador?
And would we have a vision of living up to the "all men are created equal" charge if Armstrong, at a time when institutionalized racism was the norm, hadn't whistled past racial barriers with equal parts confidence and indifference? (And not by being an Uncle Tom, as so many have charged. Listen to "Black and Blue" and read his response to the Little Rock school segregation fiasco if you still think that.)
Critic Leonard Feather said it as well as anyone: "Americans, unknowingly, live part of every day in the house that Satch built."
Which is why we think it's entirely appropriate that, sometime after the fireworks, you put on a recording of "Muskrat Ramble" or "Dinah" and lift a toast (bourbon, of course) to the man who helped form the foundation of American culture.
A 1920s version of "dancing with the stars" may have influenced jazz music 123 Idaho Music professor Brian Harker shows that a partnership with a jittering, jiving, dancing duo may have heavily influenced the rhythms of Louis Armstrong.
America’s Jazz Ambassadors The DC Traveler A new exhibit chronicles the U.S. State Department's use of musicians such as Louis Armstrong as roving cultural ambassadors
Louis Armstrong’s Other Artistry Afrobella The more I listen to his music, and learn about his quirky personality, the more I love him. Louis Armstrong had so many endearing wacky-uncle traits.
Home The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong Armstrong’s recording of the tune came during those wonderful OKeh big band days of the early 1930s.
Which musician represents America best?
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Gone To Texas said...
Just heard Satchmo's duet with Bing Crosby "Gone Fishin" again the other day and thought of how it is an early example of racial equality in the US. The fondness of one for the other shines through.
I'll be sitting down with my family later in the day and reading through the Declaration of Independence with them. Little John will squirm and my wife may get a little impatient before we're through, but those self-evident truths are what the day is all about.
The reason I voted for Satchmo in the poll is because folk music exists everywhere and rock-n-roll is international as well. Classical music has its roots in Europe. But jazz is a wholly American invention. It's played elsewhere now but it is our export.
With all respect to my dear Satchmo, I hope to walk most places today on the shady side of the street.
I could say that if I had saved all those quarters I put in the jukebox to play "What a Wonderful World" I'd be a wealthy man today, but the truth is, I'm so much richer just from hearing this great music man sing it so many times. I still stop whatever I'm doing when I hear it played and just close my eyes, listen, and be totally in the moment.
DreadPirate, I voted like you. Jazz and Louis Armstrong have been representing America in France now for years.
(message from yesterday, please excuse me Mr. Peterman)
ExPat,
I had a great, healthy vacation. Lots of hiking, snorkeling and good food. Everyone should see Bonifacio at least once in a lifetime!
MACKDADDY1 said...
Gone to a family picnic. Have a safe and happy 4th everyone.
SSJ: "What a wonderful World" was played as my kids pre school graduation as they walked down the isle. I cried when I heard in in that context, and I cry everytime I hear it now, thinking of them. There is another version of the song teamed with "Somewhere over the Rainbow" sung by a deceased Hawaiian by the name of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Its just as moving. Please give it an ear.
DPirateR is correct. Jazz is a truly owned American export. Jazz is a Southern American invention. In the 1890's, the earliest forms of jazz began to emerge in New Orleans. Creole musicians were combining the elements of West African work songs, slave spirituals, minstrel and vaudeville shows, and rural blues expression with the European brass band instruments and harmonies. This was a newly born hybrid music
Many inspirational musicians in America's jazz history have been from North Carolina. Thelonius Monk, Percy Heath, Billy Taylor, Max Roach and John Coltrane,were all born in the state. North Carolina also has connections to Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Branford Marsalis, and Nneena Freelon
Sorry for being late to the party today. I actually took the entire day off, the first in over a year...no cell phone, no work on the laptop (till now).
Tonight, I'm riding my mountain bike up to the local dam/recreation center to watch a laser light show. The first they've held. Every year for decades it's been fireworks, but because of the fire danger this year it's laser lights.
When I return to my home I'll listen to some Satchmo and check Peterman's Eye.
To: Heiress,
Thanks......I've noted Bonifacio in my list of "things I must do..."