FREE ESSAY ON LOUIS ARMSTRONG

LOUIS ARMSTRONG

Tarenah Henriques
Dec. 10, 1998 
Period 4 
Louis Armstrong
Born in August 1901 (not Independence Day 1900, as he was always told and believed),
Louis Armstrong sang on the New Orleans streets in a boyhood quartet and in 1913 was
admitted to the Colored Waifs' home for firing a gun into the air. In the home he learned
the trumpet, and within four years was challenging every trumpet king in his home town,
from Freddie Keppard to Joe Oliver, his first father-figure, whom he replaced in Kid
Ory's band in 1919. In 1922 Oliver (by now King Oliver) invited Louis to join him in
Chicago to play second trumpet. Tempting as it is to echo Nat Gonella's incredulous
comment, I can't imagine Louis playing second trumpet to anyone, Oliver was able to teach
Armstrong a little. The regular harmonic experience of playing second (his ear, even
then, was faultless) and, above all, the importance of playing straight lead in whole
notes, as Oliver did, were lessons that Armstrong was to remember for life.
Experience was by now, however imperceptibly, toughening the young man up. His second
wife Lil Hardin helped to focus his streak of ambition and he was learning that people
could be devious - Oliver, it transpired, was creaming his sidemen's wages. Although he
loved Oliver until the end, by 1924 Armstrong had made the jump to New York and Fletcher
Henderson's orchestra. It was hot city company for a country boy, but he had the humor
and talent to counter mockery (I thought that meant 'pound plenty'!, he quipped, when the
stern Henderson ticked him off for a missed pp dynamic); somewhere along the way he
decided 
he was the best, and got ready to defend his title if necessary. Louis played the Regal
Theater in Chicago, remembers Danny Barker, and they had this fantastic trumpeter Reuben
Reeves in the pit. So in the overture they put Reuben Reeves on stage doing some of
Louis's tunes. 
Louis listened - then when he came on he said, Tiger Rag. Played about thirty choruses!
The next show? No overture!
In 1925 Armstrong, already a recording star, began OKEH dates with his Hot Five and Seven
(featuring Johnny Dodds, Kid Ory and his wife Lil, until Earl Hines replaced her). The
music on masterpieces such as Cornet Chop Suey, Potato Head Blues, Sol Blues and West End
Blues turned jazz into a soloist's art form and set new standards for trumpeters
world-wide. At the peak of his young form, Armstrong peeled off top Cs as easily as
breathing (previously they were rare) and pulled out technical tours de force which never
degenerated into notes for 
their own sake. His singing introduced individuality to popular vocals and, just for good
measure, he also invented scat singing, when he dropped the music one day at a recording
session. Best of all was his melodic inspiration: his creations were still being
analyzed, harmonized and celebrated half a century later. Rather than playing ever higher
and harder, Armstrong simplified his music, polishing each phrase to perfection, while
keeping his strength for the knockout punch.
By 1930 he was a New York star, with imitators all around him, but his business life was
at a temporary impasse. Then he found his Godfather-figure, a powerful, often ruthless
Mafia operator called Joe Glaser, who was to steer his client's fortunes for 35 years. In
1935, with Glaser's approval, Louis teamed with Luis Russell's orchestra, an aggregation
of old New Orleans friends, and for five years he was to tour and record with them: the
records are classics, and helped to get Armstrong into films such as Pennies from Heaven
(1936) and Artists and 
Models (1937).
In 1940, Glaser's office brusquely sacked the band and Louis put together another
containing younger modernists such as John Brown (alto), Dexter Gordon (tenor) and Arvell
Shaw (bass), a long Louis associate, with Velma Middleton sharing the singing. It lasted
until 
summer 1947, but big bands were on a downward slide and Armstrong found leading a
headache.
In 1947 promoter Ernie Anderson presented him with a small band (directed by Bobby
Hackett) at New York's Town Hall. The acclaim that greeted the move signaled the end of
his big-band career, and for the last 24 years of his life, Louis led his All Stars, a
six-piece band 
which featured, to begin with, a heady mixture of real stars (too many make bad friends,
said Armstrong ruefully later), including Jack Teagarden and Earl Hines. It developed
into a more controllable and supportive team featuring, at various times, Barney Bigard
and Ed Hall 
(clarinet) and, a strong right arm, Trummy Young (trombone). With his All Stars,
Armstrong presented a tightly arranged show which, right down to repertoire and solos,
seldom varied in later years, a policy which was sometimes criticized. But great records
made with the All Stars, 
such as Plays W. C. Handy, Plays Fats and At the Crescendo, became jazz anthems, and
solos such as Louis and the Good Book and its superior follow-up Louis and the Angels
revealed Armstrong at a wonderful late peak. 
At his own wish the All Stars maintained a crippling touring schedule and in 1959 he had
his first heart attack. For his last ten years, amid hit-parade successes, unabated
touring and recurring illness, Armstrong gradually slowed down: by 1969, when he visited
Britain for the last 
time, it was noticeable that though his playing was rationed (though still painfully
beautiful) and that he was looking older. He died in bed (smiling) on 6 July 1971; his
records have all remained in catalogue ever since and in l994 a late Armstrong single, We
Have All The Time In 
The World rose high in the pop charts.
It's impossible to discuss Satchmo without remembering the man: He was a very joyous
host, says Ruby Braff, even in his dressing room with fifty people standing round. It is
time to kill off the legend that Armstrong's big-heartedness was a pose: says Barney
Bigard, There never was any hidden side to him. He came 'as is'. Another legend deserves
demolition: that Louis was simply the lucky one of countless talents in and around New
Orleans (Jabbo Smith and Punch Miller are two cited contenders): the records prove
otherwise. More recently it's been suggested that recurrent lip trouble (which Armstrong
certainly suffered) caused a musical decline from the 1930s on: again, his performances
demonstrate a continuing achievement.
He left an undying testimony to the human condition in the America of his time: Wynton
Marsalis's way of saying, in 1985, that Louis was simply the greatest jazz trumpeter ever
and, with Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington, the most influential jazzman of the classic
era.
Bibliography 
Bergreen, Laurence. Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. New York : Broadway Books,
1998.
Louis Armstrong *censored*http://www.capecodonline.com/primetime/armstrong.htm*censored*

Satchmo *censored*http://www.satchmo.com*censored*
Woog, Adam. Louis Armstrong. Detroit : Lucent Books, 1995