Friday Night Jazz: Louis Armstrong
I have been so crazy busy working on EVERYTHING — the office, the market, the blog and the book — that FNJ is one of the things that fell thru the cracks.
Well, given what a mad week/month this has been, and how overdue this is, its that time: Without further adieu, Satchmo:
~~~
I’m sure you’ve heard a Louis song or three: Hello Dolly, When the Saints, What a Wonderful
World.
If that’s all you know of Satchmo, you are missing out. Considering his innovations as an artist — amazing song-writing skills, unique vocals, mastery of the Coronet and the Trumpet, especially his stratospheric solos — these well known ditties are practically boring.
Oh, and after he forgot
the lyrics on the 1927 song "Heebie Jeebies," he invented Scat singing.
He was one of the most influential musicians in jazz history, setting new standards for originality and invention.
There are a couple of ways to get to know the works of Louis Armstrong:
The most basic is to grab one the Best Of discs. For those of you who want to go this way, try the The Definitive Collection.
The collector types are more inclined to go for the complete earlier years, including his various ensembles known in this box set: The Hot Fives & Sevens. (Note that Columbia version is considered a much inferior remastering: The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings).
But of all of the Louis Armstrong works out there, none are more delightful than the many duets he recorded with Ella Fitzgerald. Aside from the small fact that her voice is incomparable to any female jazz singer before or since, there is a strange and beautiful complementary combination that is so unique and incredible. I can listen to these all day long — they are unique works of art.
I highly recommend the first two: Ella and Louis (1956), and Ella & Louis Again (1957). Both are astonishing works of gentle beauty.
You can also check out Porgy & Bess soundtrack, but that is more for fans of that show.
(NOTE: There are all manners of different variations of these, so look at the song list before buying variations of the same album.)
From a WSJ article this past summer:
"From 1925 to 1928, bandleader and trumpeter Louis Armstrong led a recording group, known as the Hot Five and Hot Seven, through nearly 90 recordings. These tracks are now considered among the most seminal, enduring and influential recordings not only in jazz but in American music and include "Big Butter and Egg Man," "Hotter Than That," "Struttin’ With Some Barbecue," "Potato Head Blues," and "S.O.L. Blues." In these dozens of sides, Armstrong abandoned the traditional collective improvisation of New Orleans-style jazz and almost single-handedly transformed the music from a group art into an art form for the soloist. He left behind two- and four-bar breaks of earlier jazz in favor of entire choruses of improvisation. In the 1920s, Armstrong would, more than anyone else, take the role of soloist to new heights in American music.
Besides his technical mastery, what else set him apart? His big, beautiful tone; his rich imagination as a soloist; his perfect sense of time; his deep understanding of the blues; his projection and authority; and the force of his musical personality.
And he boasted a gift for personalizing the material he recorded, transforming it into music that is unmistakably his in sound and style and ownership. The essence of jazz — making something new out of something old, making something personal out of something shared — has no finer exemplar than Armstrong."
Summertime – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
What a Wonderful World
Louis Armstrong – Danny Kaye: When the Saints Go Marchin In
Dream a Little Dream
Dean Martin & Louis Armstrong Medley
West End Blues
A Rhapsody in Black and Blue
Instrumental
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Louis Armstrong – Tight like This |  |
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Found at bee mp3 search engine |  |
Sources:
You Tube: Ella & Louis
Louis Armstrong, Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong
Louis Armstrong, Red Hot Jazz
http://www.redhotjazz.com/louie.html
Satchmo.net
official website for Louis Armstrong House
http://www.satchmo.net/
Louis Armstrong’s Revolution
The 80th anniversary of a celebrated American recording
JOHN EDWARD HASSE
WSJ, June 14, 2008; Page W16
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121338811823972983.html
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October 10th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Glad to see the music return. The markets have been all too consuming lately. Who knows if we will ever return to “normal times”?
October 10th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Ella and Louis – the perfect tonic for a nutcase week. These two albums are simply wonderful. Think I’ll go listen. Thanks Barry.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Thanks I just now dug this out of basement(cassette!!!)
October 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Barry — Glad you haven’t lost track of the essential things in life. Thanks for reminding the rest of us! — Monica
October 10th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CcAD_seww
Also, I felt a little Django when my trades went thru this mornin ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS2ylPAUxzA
October 10th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Was he the guy that sang while Rome burned? Or was that Nero? Perhaps Busho???
October 10th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Barry –
I found your site years ago via Bob Lefsetz citing your music/music industry writing. I’ve stayed for the excellent economic commentary (even if I do not understand much of it; I am learning *a lot*). No one who reads your site should be at all surprised by recent events.
Glad to see you writing about music again. Definitely a welcome respite in these turbulent times – and a reminder that there is more to life than money.
And kudos for plugging the JSP mastering over the shoddy (and overpriced) Columbia set of the Hot 5s & 7s. The JSP set sounds as good as 78s can sound and sells for around $25 brand new for 5 packed CDs. Essential music and a tremendous bargain.
Best wishes.
–rgc
October 10th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Oh! all you Lefty music lovers make me sick. Your the ones that bought the big Mic Mansions, thinking Miles Davis lived next door…lol.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Oh! all you Lefty music lovers make me sick. Your the ones that bought the big Mic Mansions, thinking Miles Davis lived next door…lol.
Oh Please, lefties all think Miles sold out when he went Fusion with _Bitches Brew_, and when Dylan went electric..
TRUE arugula-slurping sandal-smoking commie pinkos are into the Ornette Coleman….
October 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I think the rock song Louie Louie was named in honor of Armstrong.
And politically speaking, American liberals are the actual American conservatives. What calls itself “conservative” in America is actually the radical make-over party
Don’t like Shinseki’s plan, do the totally rad Rumsfield plan.
Don’t like the constraits from Volcker central banking, do the totally rad Greenspan/Wall St “we are genius” banking
And it goes on and on
October 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Great suggestions for relaxation and enjoyment of live, especially as we have finally found and comnirmed the market bottom today!
October 10th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Not to diminish the conversation too far, but this reminds me of a nice bit of snark Richard Thompson wrote after Pat Metheny’s critique of Kenny G’s ‘duet’ over ‘Wonderful World’ (mp3 available at RT’s site):
I agree with Pat Metheny
Kenny’s talents are too teeny
He deserves the crap he’s going to get
‘Overdubbed himself on Louis
What a musical chop suey
Raised his head above the parapet
Now Louis Armstrong was the king
He practically invented swing
Hero of the twentieth century
‘Did duets with many a fella
“Fatha” Hines, Bing, Hoagy, Ella
Strange he never thought of Kenny G
October 10th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I knew I’d pull up my reader and see Friday Night Jazz in my number one blog position!
Barry, you’re the best!
Cheers…
“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” ~ Plato
October 10th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Woody Allen’s homage to Potato Head Blues (in Manhattan?, I think) notwithstanding, I’ve got 6 words. West End Blues. Tight Like This. Totally awe-inspiring, and it being a Friday night, Tight Like This as an aural representation of love-making, his then-wife the pianist Lil Hardin providing the vocals, makes stuff like the Stones’ Goin Home pale in comparison.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
A return to Normalcy. Thanks BR!
October 10th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
BR, thanks for jogging the memory; Festival Hall, Melbourne, Australia, 1963! Louis, Arvell Shaw, Trummy Young (forgot the others) Gee, the world and I were young then and both unleveraged.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=1355842&song=Tight+like+This
October 10th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Thanks for the videos of Louis, especially “It’s a Wonderful World.” So nice to see his beautiful old face reminding us you can live through hard times and still be happy.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
In response to an comment upthread, I have to mention that JSP has also just finished their superb series of (incredibly inexpensive) Django Reinhardt sets now totaling 18 CDs…Django was superhuman even though he essentially crippled. He could do more with “two fingers and a thumb” than most guitarists can do with all five digits. God-like.
–rgc
October 10th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Nobody did more than Pops to bring jazz to the world, the whole wide world.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I think “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue” is just about the funnest song ever recorded. But all the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens are fabulous – you can’t go wrong. Any of Barry’s readers who’ve never listened to Satchmo shouold take Barry’s recommendations to heart.
I do want to put in a good word for Louis’ often underrated big band recordings from the early to mid thirties, with a variety of different bands. There’s the classic versions of “Stardust,” “Blck and Blue,” and “Body and Soul,” the wonderful “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You,” and sweet songs like “Love, You Funny Thing,” “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” and “I Surrender Dear.”
I once heard a story that prior to appearing in Memphis Louis was arrested on some trumped up charge or other. He was finally bailed out and invited the sheriff to the show. When the sheriff appeared, Louis recognized him from the stage, to the sheriff’s great deligh — and then played “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You.” Oh, and his great recordings backing up Bessie Smith, too — one of the few artists who could hold his own with the Empress of the Blues — and with Earl Hines.
Phil Schaap on Columbia University’s radio station WKCR once played Louis doing “Them There Eyes,” followed immediately by Billie Holiday doing the same song but with the pitch lowered, and you could barely tell them apart. And just today I was listening to Ethel Waters doing “Am I Blue,” and right in the middle of it she breaks into a hilarious impersonation of Satchmo.
Anyway, good choice BR – Pops truly is tops!
Hopefully next week we won’t all be singing “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It.”
October 10th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Ella + Louis = Perfection
October 10th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
US to buy stake in banks.
Now that’s a game changer.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
My earliest musical memories were three songs: “Hello Dolly”, She Loves You”, and “Downtown”
October 10th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Ahhhh…Friday Night Jazz is back. Thanks Barry, I’ve missed it. After reading 2 weeks of Doom and Gloom about the markets, this is indeed refreshing.
Wayne
October 10th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
What a wonderful choice to end this week’s insanity. Thank you Barry.
P.S. I think “JustinTheSkeptic” must be from the back hills of Utah (or equivalent). What a shame to trash such a great person.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Thanks Barry
Big fan of the oldies here.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Wow,
That Danny Kaye duet WHOAA!
Are there dvd’s of these duets?
October 11th, 2008 at 2:45 am
If the coming depression can give us a Sacthmo then maybe things will work out after all.
“oh what did I do, to be so black and blue”
October 11th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I already had nothing but respect for your opinions and now, well,I just say we couldn’t be in more agreement on Mr. Armstrong. One of the greatest human beings that ever lived. I could go on and on for pages but won’t except for this- listening to Mr Armstrong is always rewarding, he is “The Real American Ambassador” and my prized material possesion is a Wash DC rail ticket autographed by him. I carry it everywhere and when I open my wallet I am always just a little encourage to know that someone like him was actually part of this world.
Thanks.
October 11th, 2008 at 6:48 am
“He was born poor, died rich and didn’t hurt anybody in the process.” Duke Ellington
October 11th, 2008 at 7:03 am
What a Wonderful World is a fav.
The death of a consumption-based economy funded by debt may involve what we think of as “reduced living standards”: deferred gratification, no McMansions or the latest ipods, or trips to target for fingernail polish and to Starbuck’s every day for the daughters. But, the sun will still rise, life will go on, and lives will be simpler. Maybe family life will improve.
After Katrina we had to put most of our stuff in storage because we mostly live in a place half the size in Houston. Other than books and some pots and pans, we don’t miss it.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:08 am
BR: Luis is a treasure, but there is only one Ella. Last night was a night for Ella.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Excellent! Thanks, Dude.
Rod
October 11th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Barry, Here is the epigraph on Jackson Pollock’s tombstone:
ARTISTS AND POETS ARE THE RAW
NERVE ENDS OF HUMANITY
BY THEMSELVES THEY CAN DO
LITTLE TO SAVE HUMANITY
WITHOUT THEM THERE WOULD BE
LITTLE WORTH SAVING
Thanks for being so aware of this. Rod
October 11th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
For all the Louis fans.Check out Mosaic Records.They have,had? A Boxed set of the Complete Decca Studio recordings Of Louis Armstrong and his All Stars. Complete with Discography and lots of great photos! A-1 Stuff… AND then Check out the other innovator Coleman Hawkins, He did with the Sax what Louis did with the trumpet. Check out his version of Body and Soul. First time a Sax improvised at least on record. Every Saxman since owes Coleman a thank you.Barry great job you are doing here.
October 11th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Louis was not only the greatest Jazz soloist of the century, his playing is so distinctive that anyone who knows even a tiny bit about jazz can recognize him from the fluidity of his legato. No one else comes close.
He had to endure the insult of being called a “Tom” in the Sixties. How ironic, since it was in no small part his speaking out against the passivity of Eisenhower that shamed the President to send the National Guard to enforce the integration of the schools in Little Rock. That’s the sort of bravery we use some more of these days.
October 12th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Thanks, Barry, it’s great to have FNJ back again, perspective is what we all need. Those Ella and Louis albums are burned into my brain and it’s great to hear them again.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
How Young Reporter Got That Famous 1957 ‘Satchmo’ Scoop
Courtesy of the Louis Armstrong House Museum/Queens College
Louis Armstrong, in the 1950s.
By Barbara Bedway
Published: October 12, 2007 12:25 PM ET
NEW YORK In September 1957, Larry Lubenow, a journalism student and part-time reporter for the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald, escorted a lobster dinner into jazz great Louis Armstrong’s hotel room and walked out with one of the biggest stories of the year.
In what turned out to be a historic interview, Lubenow set down how the famously good-tempered Armstrong, long considered quiescent on the subject of race relations, lacerated President Eisenhower for his handling of the Little Rock school integration crisis and set off a diplomatic firestorm by calling off a planned State Department-sponsored tour of Russia in protest.
Precisely 50 years later, Lubenow himself was interviewed in Queens, N.Y., on Sept. 18 by Vanity Fair writer David Margolick as part of the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s program, “Louis Armstrong and Little Rock.”
“It was a shock, really, to get that call from Margolick,” acknowledges Lubenow, now head of Larry Lubenow & Associates, a public relations firm in Cedar Park, Texas. “I hadn’t realized it was the 50th anniversary of Little Rock — I don’t feel that old. And I haven’t told very many people about the Armstrong story.”
The story begins with that crustacean: “I knew the bell captain at the Dakota Hotel, and he walked me in with the lobster,” recounts Lubenow, who’d been told Armstrong would only speak to the press after the concert. Once the earnest cub reporter had won Armstrong over with his plea that he’d get fired if he didn’t get a pre-concert interview, the popular “Ambassador of Jazz,” dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, gamely began talking about his jazz favorites.
But his tone changed abruptly when Lubenow mentioned that Grand Forks was the hometown of Judge Ronald Davies, whose ruling in support of integration of Central High School in Little Rock had just led to Gov. Orval Faubus’ deployment of the Arkansas National Guard to bar nine black students from entering. “He just exploded,” Lubenow recalls. “He said he’d traveled all over the world for this country, and the way they were treating black men, he felt like he didn’t have any country.”
Armstrong accused President Eisenhower of having “no guts” and called Gov. Faubus “an uneducated plow boy. ” When he proclaimed he was canceling the State Department-sponsored tour of Russia in protest over what he called President Eisenhower’s “two-faced” response to the crisis, Lubenow knew he had a scoop.
After cleaning up some of the musician’s vivid phrasing (“He sang ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ with the words, ‘Oh say, can you mother——s see by the dawn’s early light”) he turned in the story, but his colleagues were reluctant to move on it.
“It was nighttime, there was nobody around with any authority, and everybody left was afraid of the story,” he recalls. “I wanted it to go out on the wire, and they wanted to hold it until the next day, until I got a picture of Louis and me together.” So Lubenow, who’d worked at the Herald every summer for four years, decided to file the story with the Associated Press in Minneapolis on his own. Then he waited for all hell to break loose.
It did, but not locally. “The editor didn’t seem to realize that I had a great national and international story,” he says. “I thought I was the only one in the world who thought it was a good story until the next night, when it was on the CBS and NBC news.”
Suddenly it seemed that every black entertainer was being asked for a response about Little Rock, including Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte, and Sammy Davis Jr. (the latter criticized Armstrong for playing to segregated audiences in the past). But Armstrong’s passionate outburst did not signal a fundamental shift in his feelings about where his true role lay as a musician and an African American, notes Michael Cogswell, director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum.
“Louis was not known for speaking out, but he was keenly aware of the civil rights movement and was a victim of vicious racial discrimination himself,” says Cogswell. “Louis did not, in general, speak out more forcefully, more often after Little Rock. He continued to break down racial barriers by the profundity of his art and the innate goodness of his personality. That had always been his way.” Because Armstrong’s public outburst on Little Rock was so unique, he asserts, “Lubenow must have approached Louis in just the right way at just the right time.”
Yet Armstrong never backed away from his stance. State Department officials called, asking Armstrong, perhaps the most influential American musician of the century, to reconsider the trip. Gary Giddins writes in his biography Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong that his road manager told reporters while Armstrong was asleep that “Louis was sorry he spouted off,” but when Armstrong woke up, he fired the manager and told the press, “I think I have a right to get sore … do you dig me when I still say I have a right to blow my top over injustice?”
Lubenow, indeed, confirmed the quotes the next day, when the Herald’s editors insisted he go to the musician’s hotel to be photographed with him as he shaved. He brought along a copy of the AP story to show him, and a delighted Armstrong wrote at the bottom of the folded yellow copy paper, in No. 2 pencil: “SOLID. Louis Satchmo Armstrong.”
The Herald finally ran the story the following day, with a photo caption that read: “Louis Satchmo Armstrong, who got all lathered up about segregation here Wednesday, is shown getting ready to shave shortly before leaving Grand Forks for Montevideo.” Lubenow was cropped out.
A statewide television program sponsored by the Farmers’ Union invited the young reporter to discuss the controversy, but his editor told him to refuse, alleging that the Farmers Union was a Communist organization. “But being a good liberal Democrat, I said the hell with them, and I quit,” says Lubenow, who went on the program anyway.
The fallout for Armstrong continued for a year, with cancelled engagements and a call for a boycott of Armstrong’s concerts from Jim Bishop, the famous columnist for the New York Journal-American. Armstrong was somewhat mollified after Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock. Armstrong sent a telegram to the White House that read, “If you decide to walk in to the schools with the little colored kids, take me along, Daddy.”
Years later, in one of many notebooks Armstrong kept, he wrote: “I think I have always done great things about uplifting my race, but wasn’t appreciated. I am just a musician, and still remember the time, as an American citizen, I spoke up for my people during a big integration riot — Little Rock, remember?”
Lubenow did not stay in touch with his legendary subject. He moved on to the Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune, went into the Army as an officer, and served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He eventually joined the renowned New York public relations firm Carl Byoir & Associates, and never again worked for a newspaper. Upon hearing that Armstrong kept a copy of the AP story in one of his cherished notebooks — laminated in the special Armstrong style, with Scotch tape — he admits to being proud he helped in the story’s genesis: “I was a small part of it. In a way all I did was hold the mirror up — and Louis shined.”