1926 Weepin’ Willie
(William Lorenzo Robinson)*
1944 Joey Gilmore*
1971 Louis Armstrong+
1977 Little G Weevil*
1986
Gráinne Louica Duffy*
1992 Rachelle Plas*
2002 Jimmie Lee Robinson+
2004 Cal Green+
2017 Melvyn "Deacon"
Jones+
Happy Birthday
Joey Gilmore *06.07.1944
Born in Ocala on July 6, 1944, Joey Gilmore came to South Florida in the ’60s and has been there ever since. Gilmore found his niche playing behind all the great soul, blues and R&B stars that passed through town, as well as leading his own successful bands and recording along the way. Joey is a true Blues and R & B master who incorporates new and varied styles in his music performing original compositions mixed with traditional standards in his high energy live show. His tenor/baritone vocals belt out tunes with a loss abandon reminiscent of Blues Legends from the 1940’s and 1950’s. This Blues man’s major influences are apparent without sacrificing his unique style. Artists Joey has shared the stage with include; James Brown, Etta James, Bobby Bland, Little Milton, Johnny Taylor and numerous others. In January 2006 Joey traveled to Memphis to compete in The International BLUES Challenge. This is the most distinguished and internationally coveted award in all of blues. The Joey Gilmore Band outscored all bands worldwide while showcasing his amazing talent at a blues industry event as the best unsigned band on the planet. Joey is proud to represent the BLUES FOUNDATION as the winner at every sponsored event, being an ambassador of the BLUES for the Foundation and Blues Community. In 2008 Joey was awarded the Blewzzy award for best song, ALL OVER YOU.
Rachelle Plas *06.07.1992
Rachelle Plas ist eine der vielversprechendsten, jungen Mundharmonika-Künstlerinnen aus Frankreich. Sie ist Schülerin des großartigen Greg Zlap, entwickelte aber rasch ihren eigenen, einzigartigen Stil zwischen Blues, Jazz, Country und Gospel. Im November 2009 überraschte sie die internationale Harp-Szene mit ihren Kesselhaus-Sessions beim "World Harmonica Festival". Seither ist sie einer der großen Namen, wenn es um die Zukunftsgeneration der diatonischen Mundharmonika-Spieler geht.
Im Alter von 20, nachdem sie Vizeweltmeisterin im Judo wurde, veröffentlichte sie ihrer erstes Album "Profile", ein facettenreiches modernes Bluesalbum, das ihre starke Persönlichkeit ausstrahlt und mit einem explosiven Mix, neuen Sound und einer Entschlossenheit die Ohren der Zuhörer verzückt.
Die Mundharmonika liegt ihr quasi in den Adern, sie spielt sie nicht nur, sondern sie lebt sie. Sie ist wie eine zweite Stimme, die die Freude ihrer Seele ausdrückt. Rachelle ist auch eine wunderbare Sängerin, die mit ihren tiefen Stimme die Seele aus den Liedern rauskitzelt.
Die Mundharmonika liegt ihr quasi in den Adern, sie spielt sie nicht nur, sondern sie lebt sie. Sie ist wie eine zweite Stimme, die die Freude ihrer Seele ausdrückt. Rachelle ist auch eine wunderbare Sängerin, die mit ihren tiefen Stimme die Seele aus den Liedern rauskitzelt.
festiv ete 2013 rachelle plas ( orange blossom special )
BRUSH WITH THE BLUES (Rachelle Plas)
Gráinne Louica Duffy *06.07.1986
Grainne Duffy ist ein unvergleichliches Talent, roh und ausdrucksstark, energisch, eigenwillig und elegant. Aufgewachsen in Co. Monaghan, Irland hat sie durch das Plattenhören mit ihrer älteren Schwester schon sehr frühzeitig die intensive Energie der Musik von so bedeutenden Bands wie den Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac und den Pretenders aufgesogen und so schon bald ihren eigenen Musikgeschmack entwickelt. So richtig begonnen hat es als sie das feine Gitarrenspiel von Peter Green auf seinen Songs „Need Your Love So Bad“ und „Albatross“ gehört hat, was Grainne wiederum den Weg geöffnet hat, sich auch andere Gitarristen wie B. B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughn und natürlich Rory Gallagher anzuhören.
Diese starke Faszination hat Grainne dazu gebracht sich eine Gitarre zu besorgen und mit dem zu beginnen, was man den Anfang ihrer musikalischen Reise nennen kann.
In ihrer jungen Karriere, haben Grainne und ihre Band immerhin schon 3 x die Bühne des berühmten Glastonbury Festivals gerockt, sie touren kreuz und quer durch Europa und haben sogar den Nordpol besucht; als einzige irische Band hat sie zweimal beim Dark Season Festival in Svalbard gespielt. Sie wurde eingeladen um als opening act für Paul Brady zur Eröffnung der neu renovierten Ulster Hall in Belfast zu spielen und erst kürzlich hat Grainne 3 shows von Jools Holland als support band eröffnet und mit ihrer Band eine überwältigende Resonanz beim
Jools Publikum ausgelöst. Ganz aktuell ist sie auf das renommierte Blue Balls Festival in die Schweiz und eines der besten Bluesfestivals von Europa nach Notodden in Norwegen eingeladen!
Diese besonderen Performances unterstreichen Grainne`s Stellenwert und ihr besonderes Talent weist eindeutig den Weg zu Größerem und weiterem Aufstieg. Mit dem wundervollen Mix aus Blues, Rock und Soul in ihren eigenen Stücken und ihrer Art wie sie einige sorgfältig ausgewählte Standards, aufgeladen mit wahrer Emotion und Gänsehaut Feeling interpretiert, gewinnt sie jedes Publikum, das begeistert nach mehr verlangt. Mit ihrer Leidenschaft, die wirklich niemand leugnen kann, der sie singen hört, ist sie ein selten wahrhaftes Talent, dem man nicht so oft begegnet.
Gráinne Louica Duffy is an Irish singer-songwriter from Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, Ireland. All Access Magazine described her music as a "powerhouse of soul and inspiration mixed with desire and passion".[1] Her Success has led her to play 3 days on the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury Festival 2008, UK.[2] and Blues on the Bay Festival 2008 in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland, which has been twice headlined by Van Morrison.[3] Grainne Duffy has opened for many major acts including Robben Ford,[4] Dino Baptiste,[5] Shawn Jones[6] and The Yardbirds.[7] Her tracks have also made it on many BBC Radio Ulster playlists including Alan Simpson's Playlist,[8] Late Show with Cherrie[9] as well as the blog of BBC Presenter Stuart Bailie.[10] Grainne Duffy has also been asked to record Oleta Adams' Get Here if you Can for the BBC in George Martin's renowned Air Studios in London.[11]
Early career
Previous to her solo career Grainne Duffy obtained a degree in music at NUI, Maynooth and took part in session work across Italy, Sicily and France. She also toured Ireland with the band Shanco.[12]
Out of the Dark Album
Grainne Duffy's debut album Out of the Dark was recorded with Ronnie O'Flynn who also plays with Sharon Shannon,[13] Paul Sherry, Richard Nelson who played with Van Morrison[14] and John McCullagh. Grainne is currently working with Paul Charles who has managed Van Morrison, Tom Waits and Loudon Wainwright III.[15][16] as well as imaj promotions who have promoted the likes of Steve Earle, John Prine and Jackson Browne in their Irish tour dates.[17]
Comparisons and Influences
Due to Grainne Duffy's "husky voice" her sound has been compared to Bonnie Raitt[18] whom she lists as an influence. Other influences include Linda Rondstat, Keith Richards, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green and Bob Dylan.[19]
Future projects
Grainne Duffy will be opening for Little Feat at the Celtic Connections[20] Festival in Scotland in February 2009 as well as opening for Paul Brady at the Ulster Hall Belfast in March 2009.[21] Future Irish tour dates for 2008 include a solo gig in Dublins, Whelens, as well as opening for Ocean Colour Scene in Belfast .[22] Grainne is set to make TV appearances in RTÉ Other Voices (television) on 5 December 2008 and has appeared in BBC NI Blas Ceoil broadcast on 13 November 2008. [23] [24]
Currently finishing tracks for her second album, as a follow up to her debut album Out of the Dark which was released last year to warm reception which included her being asked to appear for three days at Glastonbury 2008 Festival. Grainne also appeared at many of Ireland's leading festivals and was also approached by the BBC to record a track for a T.V. promotion campaign in George Martin's Air Studio in London. She has taken part in two T.V. shows for R.T.E. One of which is for the music programme Other Voices and the second is a documentary piece for the R.T.E. series Nationwide with a featured interview with Paul Charles. Her music is also featured in Belfast director and filmmaker Carol Moore's movie "Pumpgirl".
Grainne Duffy 'I'd rather go blind' @ The Rory Gallaher Festival,Ballyshannon 2015.
Little G Weevil *06.07.1977
Seine Karriere
Little G Weevil begann als Schlagzeuger, dann im Alter von 17 er an der Gitarre Interesse gedreht. John Lee Hooker (US-amerikanischer Blues-Sänger) Musik begann, den Blues Einfluss zu spielen. Legendäre Musiker beeinflusst haben ihn wie Lightnin 'Hopkins , BB King und Chuck Berry . 1996 gründete er seine erste Band, und 1998 erschien in der Spo-Dee-O-Dee Formation, die seit Jahren in ganz Europa gereist. Im Jahr 2001 gründete er seine eigene Band, reines Blues t. Das Album, im Jahr 2004. Eine freigegeben ist Demetrius Endre Bearbeitung enthalten, Musikjournalist Beitrag von 15 zusammengebaut "303 ungarische Platte, müssen Sie hören , bevor Sie sterben" in Mengen.
In Ungarn, die er als Blues-Musiker arbeitete, widmete seine ganze Zeit in diesem Genre, aber hat Stil der Fertigstellung gehalten wird, wird die Entwicklung einer Vision benötigt. Im September 2004 zog sich das Genre in ihre Heimat, in die Vereinigten Staaten, wo zusätzlich zu Bauarbeiten zunächst seinen Lebensunterhalt verdient, indem sie regelmäßig besucht Castings (Open-Mic). Im Jahr 2005 hat der erste europäische Blues-Musiker einen Ein-Jahres-Vertrag mit dem legendären Memphis Beale Street Blues City Café unterzeichnet befindet. Vor allem zahlreiche Siege in der afro-amerikanische Sänger, Louisiana Mojo Königin bei einer gemeinsamen Formation. Auch auf den ersten Aufnahmen im Jahr 2005, Memphis erstellt.
Im Jahr 2007 zog er sich in Atlanta, Plattenlabel König Mojo Aufzeichnungen, aber ein Jahr später das erste Solo - Album wurde privat von Southern Experience - Adresse veröffentlicht. Der Auftritt wurde von einer Konzertreise in den Vereinigten Staaten, Europa und Kanada gefolgt.
Solo - Karriere für ein zweites Album, The Teaser (2011) erhielt ausgezeichnete weltweite Kritik. Die Scheibe waren zahlreiche amerikanische und internationale Blues-Charts Podium und führte die Blues-Charts in Frankreich für einen Monat. Das renommierte britische Magazin Mojo wählte die zehn besten Alben des Jahres.
lttle G Weevil im Januar 2013 von der Blues Foundation (Blues WHO) jährlich / Duo auf der Internationalen Blues Challenge (International Blues Challenge) Wettbewerbskategorie gehalten gewonnen werden. Zugleich erwarb es die Kategorie Bester Gitarrist Auszeichnung. Die viertägige Marathon-Wettbewerb erwies sich als mehr als 200 aus 17 Ländern von Little G Weevil sein, die beste marschieren zu sein. Das Orpheum Theater z Gala veranstaltet Memphis.
Veröffentlicht am 23. Juli 2013 eine unabhängige dritte CD (die VizzTone Ausgabe von Label Group), Adresse bewegen. Der Titelsong klingt ein "langer Weg nach Georgien aus meinem süßen Balaton - See ..." Linie, die den ungarischen Wurzeln verweist. England Mojo Magazin des Jahres drei der besten Alben der Scheibe. Die weltweit Aggregat Blues Hörspiel Liste, war das Album in den Top Ten für zwei Monate; Im Oktober 2013 gipfelte auf dem dritten Platz.
Im Dezember 2013 das bekannteste Computer Blues Music Award Nominierung Blues - Genre, "Acoustic Artist of the Year" (Acoustic Artist of the Year) Kategorie.
Umzug wurde im Jahr 2014 Blues Explosion Music Award Nominierung freigegeben war "ein akustisches Album des Jahres" ausgezeichnet .
Ab Herbst 2014 im Jahre 2010 begonnen ungarischen X-Factor zeigen Fernseh Talent ein Jurymitglied, Mentor.
übersetzt mit Google:https://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=hu&u=https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_G_Weevil&prev=search
Alltagsgeschichten aus dem ländlich-weißen Amerika. Auch die sind Blues, wenn sie von einem Musiker wie Little G Weevil in Töne gesetzt werden. Mit seinem zweiten Album "The Teaser" gehört zu der 1977 geborene Songwriter und Gitarrist zu den angenehmsten Neuentdeckungen für die Redaktion im Jahre 2011.
Der Rhythmus rumpelt, man spürt förmlich die Schlaglöcher. Die Bluesharp schreit. Es geht unerbittlich vorwärts. Der "Highway 78" ist weit entfernt von der sonnig-kalifornischen "Route 66" der Reiseveranstalter. Nein, diese Straße geht im Lied von Little G Weevil durch Ecken Amerikas, die für Touristen eher uninteressant sein dürften. Und doch, so merkt man in jeder Note - das hier ist mehr Amerika als Miami Beach oder das sonnige Südkalifornien. Hier ist das Leben härter und verlangt alle Kraft. Auch wenn Little G über die Geschichte seines Vaters auf einer ländlichen Farm singt ("Dad's Story") oder über Gespräche am lokalen Schnapsladen, sind das Bluesgeschichten fernab aller Klischees.
Es sind Lieder wie dieses, die "The Teaser" zu einem ganz besonderen Blues-Album machen. Und dabei ist die Musik, ist die Band des 1977 geborenen Musikers so traditionell wie nur denkbar: Das ist Blues in Großbuchstaben, dass sind Boogies in der Nachfolge von John Lee Hooker, Roadsongs, wie sie auch schon die ersten Bluesmen auf ihren Reisen durchs Delta gespielt haben. Man spürt richtig, wie die Vorbilder Weevils (Hooker, Chuck Berry, Albert Collins oder der große Geschichtenerzähler Lightnin Hopkins) in der Seele Weevils nachschwingen, wenn er seine Gitarre spielt. Und auch die Bluesharp von Maurice Nazzaro, das Piano von Bob Page und die Rhythmusgruppe (John McKnight - dr, Bill Burke - bg) spielt frisch und unverbraucht - aber völlig ohne Modernismen. Man sollte Little G Weevil als Songwriter neben Leute wie Mike Zito stellen. Nur dass er eben ohne die Rückendeckung von Rockismen in seinen Songs auskommt. Einfach nur hörenswert! Und so wahr: Echte Männer tanzen einfach nicht! Bestenfalls schauen sie zu oder stehen hinter dem DJ-Pult. Das meint jedenfalls der Nörgler von der Wasser-Prawda.
Der Rhythmus rumpelt, man spürt förmlich die Schlaglöcher. Die Bluesharp schreit. Es geht unerbittlich vorwärts. Der "Highway 78" ist weit entfernt von der sonnig-kalifornischen "Route 66" der Reiseveranstalter. Nein, diese Straße geht im Lied von Little G Weevil durch Ecken Amerikas, die für Touristen eher uninteressant sein dürften. Und doch, so merkt man in jeder Note - das hier ist mehr Amerika als Miami Beach oder das sonnige Südkalifornien. Hier ist das Leben härter und verlangt alle Kraft. Auch wenn Little G über die Geschichte seines Vaters auf einer ländlichen Farm singt ("Dad's Story") oder über Gespräche am lokalen Schnapsladen, sind das Bluesgeschichten fernab aller Klischees.
Es sind Lieder wie dieses, die "The Teaser" zu einem ganz besonderen Blues-Album machen. Und dabei ist die Musik, ist die Band des 1977 geborenen Musikers so traditionell wie nur denkbar: Das ist Blues in Großbuchstaben, dass sind Boogies in der Nachfolge von John Lee Hooker, Roadsongs, wie sie auch schon die ersten Bluesmen auf ihren Reisen durchs Delta gespielt haben. Man spürt richtig, wie die Vorbilder Weevils (Hooker, Chuck Berry, Albert Collins oder der große Geschichtenerzähler Lightnin Hopkins) in der Seele Weevils nachschwingen, wenn er seine Gitarre spielt. Und auch die Bluesharp von Maurice Nazzaro, das Piano von Bob Page und die Rhythmusgruppe (John McKnight - dr, Bill Burke - bg) spielt frisch und unverbraucht - aber völlig ohne Modernismen. Man sollte Little G Weevil als Songwriter neben Leute wie Mike Zito stellen. Nur dass er eben ohne die Rückendeckung von Rockismen in seinen Songs auskommt. Einfach nur hörenswert! Und so wahr: Echte Männer tanzen einfach nicht! Bestenfalls schauen sie zu oder stehen hinter dem DJ-Pult. Das meint jedenfalls der Nörgler von der Wasser-Prawda.
Atlanta, GA based multi-award-winning Little G Weevil is one of the most deeply moving entertainers on the American music scene today. International Blues Challenge Winner, US Blues Music Award Nominee, Blues Blast Music Award Nominee guitarist, singer and songwriter has three highly acclaimed solo albums under his belt and he featured on a dozen more. He developed a style unmistakably on his own, mixing old school southern blues with his original ideas, modern beats and rocking guitar chords.
“He somehow delivers intact the spirit and sound of Blues legends from 80 years ago…A new Blues star is here, he proves it.”
– Bob Margolin
Little G Weevil was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. He started out as a drummer and began playing the guitar at 17. He was introduced and captivated by the music scene through listening to legendary musicians such as John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Albert Collins, B.B. King and Chuck Berry. Ever since he started his career he has focused solely on the music of the American South and this can be clearly heard in his compositions.
He established his own band in 1998. After years of touring mostly European countries with different bands he immigrated to the United States in 2004, living in Birmingham, AL, later downtown Memphis, TN. He has performed on numerous occasions in Beale Street's famous blues clubs and has made his debut tours in the USA on his own and as a side man of soul blues singer Louisiana Mojo Queen. His first solo recordings were also produced in Memphis.
In 2007, Little G signed up with King Mojo Records out of Atlanta. A year later he left the label for Apic Records and released his very first solo album, the critically acclaimed "Southern Experience". Album supporting tours took place in the US, Canada and Europe.
In 2009 he relocated to the Atlanta metro area where he has been based since.
His first worldwide recognition came with his second solo work "The Teaser" (2012). The album quickly climbed global blues music charts and the international music media highly praised it as well. It was ranked Top 10 best blues album of the year by Mojo, the elite England based publication.
In January 2013 Little G Weevil represented the Atlanta Blues Society at the Blues Foundation`s International Blues Challenge in the solo/duo category. He finished the competition in first place. He was also awarded as “Best Guitarist” in his category. The ceremony was held in the beautiful Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, TN. Following the success he has signed up with Vizztone Label Group.
On July 23, 2013 his third CD, first full length acoustic album “Moving” was released on Vizztone. The album was Top 3 “Best Album of the Year” (Mojo). Roots Music Worldwide Internet Radio Airplay Chart listed “Moving” in the top 10 for over two months in a row peaking #3 in October, 2013.
“…recalling the foot banging percussion of John Lee Hooker, the directness of Mississippi John Hurt and the string bending, slide acumen of so many greats. All this and he’s a white boy from Hungary. … any lover of the canonized, traditional old time blues cats will go nuts for this set. It’s loaded with so much heart and heat that you can’t help but stuff the ballot boxes for any blues awards he might be up for. Killer stuff.”
– Chris Spector, Midwest Record
The year of 2014 has brought even more recognition to G Weevil. He`s nominated for the highest accolade afforded musicians and songwriters in blues music the USA Blues Music Award as “Acoustic Artist of the Year”. His latest album “Moving” was nominated for Blues Blast Music Award “Acoustic Album of the Year".
The news of his worldwide success finally made it to his home country thanks to a film documentary by one of the mainstream online magazines in Hungary. The film was produced by G`s brother Laszlo Szucs. Journalists followed G on the road for a week in the US, breaking down his life story and musical career from the very beginning. The documentary is one of the most successful films in the magazine`s history.
In May, Little G was invited to join the judging panel of the popular television music talent show X-Factor in Hungary for the 5th season.
In September 2014 he was awarded by HANOSZ "Musician of the Year".
“He somehow delivers intact the spirit and sound of Blues legends from 80 years ago…A new Blues star is here, he proves it.”
– Bob Margolin
Little G Weevil was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. He started out as a drummer and began playing the guitar at 17. He was introduced and captivated by the music scene through listening to legendary musicians such as John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Albert Collins, B.B. King and Chuck Berry. Ever since he started his career he has focused solely on the music of the American South and this can be clearly heard in his compositions.
He established his own band in 1998. After years of touring mostly European countries with different bands he immigrated to the United States in 2004, living in Birmingham, AL, later downtown Memphis, TN. He has performed on numerous occasions in Beale Street's famous blues clubs and has made his debut tours in the USA on his own and as a side man of soul blues singer Louisiana Mojo Queen. His first solo recordings were also produced in Memphis.
In 2007, Little G signed up with King Mojo Records out of Atlanta. A year later he left the label for Apic Records and released his very first solo album, the critically acclaimed "Southern Experience". Album supporting tours took place in the US, Canada and Europe.
In 2009 he relocated to the Atlanta metro area where he has been based since.
His first worldwide recognition came with his second solo work "The Teaser" (2012). The album quickly climbed global blues music charts and the international music media highly praised it as well. It was ranked Top 10 best blues album of the year by Mojo, the elite England based publication.
In January 2013 Little G Weevil represented the Atlanta Blues Society at the Blues Foundation`s International Blues Challenge in the solo/duo category. He finished the competition in first place. He was also awarded as “Best Guitarist” in his category. The ceremony was held in the beautiful Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, TN. Following the success he has signed up with Vizztone Label Group.
On July 23, 2013 his third CD, first full length acoustic album “Moving” was released on Vizztone. The album was Top 3 “Best Album of the Year” (Mojo). Roots Music Worldwide Internet Radio Airplay Chart listed “Moving” in the top 10 for over two months in a row peaking #3 in October, 2013.
“…recalling the foot banging percussion of John Lee Hooker, the directness of Mississippi John Hurt and the string bending, slide acumen of so many greats. All this and he’s a white boy from Hungary. … any lover of the canonized, traditional old time blues cats will go nuts for this set. It’s loaded with so much heart and heat that you can’t help but stuff the ballot boxes for any blues awards he might be up for. Killer stuff.”
– Chris Spector, Midwest Record
The year of 2014 has brought even more recognition to G Weevil. He`s nominated for the highest accolade afforded musicians and songwriters in blues music the USA Blues Music Award as “Acoustic Artist of the Year”. His latest album “Moving” was nominated for Blues Blast Music Award “Acoustic Album of the Year".
The news of his worldwide success finally made it to his home country thanks to a film documentary by one of the mainstream online magazines in Hungary. The film was produced by G`s brother Laszlo Szucs. Journalists followed G on the road for a week in the US, breaking down his life story and musical career from the very beginning. The documentary is one of the most successful films in the magazine`s history.
In May, Little G was invited to join the judging panel of the popular television music talent show X-Factor in Hungary for the 5th season.
In September 2014 he was awarded by HANOSZ "Musician of the Year".
Little G. Weevil: Nobody Loves The Blues But Me
2013-08-10 Little G Weevil "On My Way to Memphis"
Weepin’ Willie (William Lorenzo Robinson) *06.07.1926
Known as "Boston's Elder Statesman of the Blues," vocalist Weepin' Willie decided on a music career after getting hooked on the polished, urban blues style pioneered by the likes of B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and Joe Williams. Remarkably, it took Willie 50 years of working the clubs as an MC and singer before he got his first record deal (with APO) in 1998. The resulting album, At Last, on Time, was co-produced by Mighty Sam McClain and its release garnered Willie some belated recognition for his hard-earned life as a bluesman.
Born William Lorenzo Robinson in Atlanta, GA, in 1926, Willie grew up as a field worker drifting from farm to farm along the East Coast. After finishing a three-year stint in the army in 1948, Willie moved to Trenton, NJ, where he began MCing jazz and R&B gigs under the name Willie the Weeper. Over the next decade he warmed up the stage for a long line of entertainers passing through Trenton, including B.B. King, Lloyd Price, Titus Turner, and Bill Doggett. At the same time, Willie also discovered his own talent as a singer and he began fronting a blues combo led by saxophonist Jimmy Taylor.
In 1959, Willie moved to Boston and changed his stage name to Weepin' Willie. Through the '60s he found steady work as an MC, including a regular gig opening for R&B singer Tommy Hunt. When Hunt decided to move to England, Willie stayed behind and joined forces with bassist Buddy Johnson to form the Buddy Johnson/Weepin' Willie All-Star Band, which lasted until Johnson's death in 1998. Willie subsequently took over the band, which then became known as Weepin' Willie and the All-Star Blues Band. Notable All-Star alumni include sax players Gordon "Sax" Beadle (of the Duke Robillard Band), Lynwood Cooke (of Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson's Magic Rockers, and Emmett Simmons (a former James Brown sideman who has performed with Willie on and off since 1964).
Prior to 1999's At Last, on Time, Willie had only recorded once, cutting "Can't Go Wrong Woman" for the 1991 Tone-Cool compilation Boston Blues Blast, Vol. 1.
Weepin' Willie - Hangin' On To My Hangover - JUSTIFIED OST
R.I.P.
Jimmie Lee Robinson +06.07.2002
Unlike many of his Chicago blues contemporaries, Jimmie Lee Robinson wasn't a Mississippi Delta emigre. The guitarist was born and raised right in the Windy City -- not far from Maxwell Street, the fabled open-air market on the near West side where the blues veritably teemed during the 1940s and '50s.
Robinson learned his lessons well. He formed a partnership with guitarist Freddy King in 1952 for four years (they met outside the local welfare office), later doing sideman work with Elmore James and Little Walter and cutting sessions on guitar and bass behind Little Walter, Eddie Taylor, Shakey Jake, and St. Louis Jimmy Oden. Robinson cut three singles for the tiny Bandera label circa 1959-1960; the haunting "All My Life" packed enough power to be heard over in England, where John Mayall faithfully covered it. Another Bandera standout, "Lonely Traveller," was revived as the title track for Robinson's 1994 Delmark comeback album.
Europe enjoyed a glimpse of Robinson when he hit the continent as part of Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau's 1965 American Folk Blues Festival alongside John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, and Big Mama Thornton. After that, his mother died, and times grew tough. Robinson worked as a cabbie and security guard for the Board of Education for a quarter century or so until the members of the Ice Cream Men -- a young local band with an overriding passion for '50s blues -- convinced Robinson that he was much too young to be retired. His comeback was documented by his first full-length record, Lonely Traveller, being released on Delmark in 1994. In the mid-'90s he released Guns, Gangs and Drugs on his own Amina label. The beginning of 1998 found Robinson back in the studio working on a set of mostly original songs that became his second album, Remember Me, which was released in 2000 on the APO label. At the end of 1998, Robinson began what ended up to be a 91-day fast to protest the tearing down of the historic Maxwell Street area. He was a member of Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition and wrote their theme song, "The Maxwell Street Tear Down Blues," but decided a more direct action needed to be taken. The fast brought attention to the cause, including a front-page story in The New York Times, but ultimately the area was almost completely demolished so that the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) campus could expand. In 1999, Robinson recorded All My Life which was released in 2001. On July 6, 2002, he took his own life following a long bout with stomach cancer.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/jimmie-lee-robinson-mn0000849781/biography
Jimmie Lee Robinson at the American Folk and Blues Festival 1965
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU2HvJ2J5eM#t=94
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU2HvJ2J5eM#t=94
Louis Armstrong +06.07.1971
Louis Daniel „Satchmo“ Armstrong (* 4. August 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana; † 6. Juli 1971 in New York City, New York) war ein amerikanischer Jazztrompeter und Sänger.Jugend in New Orleans
Louis Armstrong selbst gab stets den 4. Juli, also den Unabhängigkeitstag der Vereinigten Staaten, des Jahres 1900 als sein Geburtsdatum an. Dies war insbesondere beim afroamerikanischen Teil der Bevölkerung der Vereinigten Staaten oft üblich, wenn das eigene Geburtsdatum und die Geburtsumstände nicht bekannt waren oder nicht den gesellschaftlichen Vorstellungen entsprachen. Dazu passt ebenfalls, dass er sich ein Jahr älter machte und seine Geburt in das Jahr der Jahrhundertwende vorverlegte, was ihm als Jugendlichem den Zutritt zu den Etablissements von Storyville, dem Vergnügungsviertel von New Orleans, erleichterte. Erst aus seinem 1983 entdeckten Taufschein geht das wirkliche Geburtsdatum, der 4. August 1901, hervor.
Armstrong wurde in ärmlichsten Verhältnissen geboren und wuchs nur zeitweilig bei seiner Mutter auf. Als Siebenjähriger musste er Zeitungen verkaufen. Anfang 1913 wurde er wegen Unruhestiftung in das Colored Waif’s Home for Boys, eine Anstalt für obdachlose schwarze Jugendliche, eingewiesen, nachdem er in der Silvesternacht mit dem Revolver seines Onkels in die Luft geschossen hatte.
In der streng organisierten Anstalt erlernte Armstrong die Grundlagen des Kornettspiels. Bis 1918 schlug er sich mit kleinen Jobs und ersten Auftritten als Musiker im Rotlichtmilieu der Stadt durch.
Anfänge als Musiker
1918 bis 1919 spielte Armstrong regelmäßig in der Band von Fate Marable auf einem Mississippi-Dampfer, welche die Passagiere auf den langen Fahrten flussaufwärts unterhielt. 1918 soll ihn dabei der 15-jährige Bix Beiderbecke in Davenport gehört haben. 1918 ersetzte Armstrong den Trompeter King Oliver in der Band, die dieser zusammen mit dem Posaunisten Kid Ory leitete. Als Oliver nach Chicago zog, folgte Armstrong ihm 1922 nach und stieß als 2. Trompeter zu King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, die damals im Lincoln Gardens Café in der South Side von Chicago spielte. Aus dieser Zeit gibt es bereits erste bemerkenswerte Tondokumente. Insbesondere bei seinen Live-Auftritten soll das Duo Oliver/Armstrong mit seinen zweistimmigen Break-Improvisationen nach zahlreichen Berichten von Zeitzeugen Musikgeschichte geschrieben haben. 1924 heiratete Armstrong Lilian „Lil“ Hardin, die aus Memphis stammende Pianistin der Band. Kurz darauf wechselte er auf ihr Anraten hin in die Band von Fletcher Henderson, wo er rasch zum Starsolisten avancierte und nicht mehr im Schatten seines Lehrmeisters Oliver stehen musste.
Die Hot Five und Hot Seven
Armstrong verließ die Henderson-Band 1925. Ab diesem Jahr entstanden zahlreiche Aufnahmen, die Lil und er hauptsächlich mit kleinen Formationen machten, die sich Hot Five und Hot Seven nannten. Viele dieser Aufnahmen haben bis heute den Charakter von absoluten Meilensteinen der Jazzgeschichte. In diesen Jahren entstanden legendäre und richtungsweisende Aufnahmen, wie West End Blues (von Jazzkritikern zur Jazzplatte des Jahrhunderts gewählt), Potato Head Blues, Wild Man Blues, Fireworks und Heebie Jeebies. Auf diesen Aufnahmen stellte Armstrong auch sein einzigartiges Talent als Sänger, insbesondere beim Scat-Gesang, unter Beweis. Bemerkenswert ist auch Armstrongs Zusammenarbeit mit dem Pianisten Earl Hines in den späten 1920er Jahren. Im Jahre 1927 wechselte er sein Instrument vom Kornett zur Trompete.
Der Weltstar
Bereits 1926 gelang ihm mit Kid Orys Muskrat Ramble (#8) sein erster Hit in den Billboard-Charts, dem bis 1966 noch 78 weitere folgen sollten. Im Februar 1932 gelang ihm der erste Nummer-1-Hit mit einer Version von All of Me. In den 1930er Jahren, als sich der neue Jazz-Stil des Swing entwickelte, trat Louis Armstrong dem neuen Stil entsprechend, vorwiegend in Big Bands auf (u. a. dem Orchester von Luis Russell) und wurde rasch innerhalb und außerhalb der Vereinigten Staaten bekannt. Ab 1932 führten ihn zahlreiche Tourneen nach Europa, später in die ganze Welt. 1947 löste Armstrong seine Big Band auf und kehrte wieder zu seinen Ursprüngen, dem New Orleans Jazz und den kleinen Formationen zurück (Louis Armstrong and his All Stars feat. Velma Middleton). In den 1950er und 1960er Jahren war es insbesondere Armstrongs Talent als Sänger und Entertainer, das ihn zum Weltstar machte. Eine weitere Steigerung seiner Popularität erzielte er durch die Hollywoodfilme, bei denen er mitwirkte, wie z. B. Die Glenn Miller Story, Die oberen Zehntausend und Hello, Dolly!.
Nicht zuletzt aufgrund seiner weltweiten Berühmtheit wurde Louis Armstrong in der Hochzeit des Kalten Krieges in den 50er Jahren von der US-Regierung als musikalischer Mobilmacher in den Ost-West-Konflikt entsandt. Ab 1956 reiste er zusammen mit Künstlern wie Benny Goodman in den Ostblock sowie die sowohl von den Vereinigten Staaten als auch der UdSSR umworbenen Staaten in Afrika und Asien. So kamen 1956 im heutigen Ghana 100.000 Menschen in ein Stadion, um ihn zu erleben. Zusammen mit weiteren Stars des Jazz wie Dizzy Gillespie und Duke Ellington nutzte Armstrong seine Popularität auf seinen Tourneen auch, um für die Afro-Amerikaner Menschen- und Bürgerrechte einzufordern. So weigerte sich Armstrong 1957 aufgrund der Rassentrennung in den Vereinigten Staaten, im Auftrag des US-State-Departments in die UdSSR zu reisen.
Seine unermüdliche Energie und seine vielen Auftritte forderten schon früh gesundheitlichen Tribut. Auf Grund mehrerer ernsthafter Krisen rieten die Ärzte Armstrong vom Trompetespielen ab, um seine Gesundheit zu schonen. Dem Publikum und seinem Ehrgeiz verpflichtet, verlegte sich Armstrong seit dieser Zeit mehr auf den Gesang. Im Jahre 1969 interpretierte er den Song We have all the Time in the World von John Barry und Hal David zum James-Bond-Film Im Geheimdienst Ihrer Majestät mit George Lazenby als 007. In dieser Zeit konnte er jedoch, von Ausnahmen abgesehen (u. a. die Gesangsduette mit Ella Fitzgerald, zum Beispiel auf Ella and Louis), wegen seiner körperlichen Schwäche nicht mehr an die bahnbrechenden Leistungen der 1920er und 1930er Jahre als Jazztrompeter und Jazzsänger anknüpfen.
Louis Armstrong starb am 6. Juli 1971 in New York an einem Herzinfarkt. Sein Grab befindet sich auf dem Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York City.[1]
Bedeutung und Nachwirkung
Armstrong hatte seine musikalischen Wurzeln im New-Orleans-Jazz. Er hat maßgeblichen Anteil an der Entwicklung dieser Stilrichtung weg von der Kollektivimprovisation hin zu dem herausgestellten Solo und begründete das „Starsolistentum“ im Jazz. Auch technisch hat Armstrong insbesondere in den 1920er Jahren praktisch sämtliche Maßstäbe für Jazztrompeter gesetzt. Er kann als einer der bedeutendsten Instrumentalsolisten des Jazz überhaupt angesehen werden.
Armstrong hat stilistisch fast alle nachkommenden Trompeter der traditionellen Jazzstile entschieden beeinflusst. Armstrongs Einfluss ist auch heute noch (oder vielleicht wieder) bei jüngeren Musikern, wie etwa Wynton Marsalis, spürbar.
Darüber hinaus ist Armstrong neben Billie Holiday und Ella Fitzgerald einer der bekanntesten Sänger des Jazz, dessen unverwechselbare Stimme seine weltweite Popularität begründete.
Armstrong erhielt 1960 einen Stern auf dem Hollywood Walk of Fame. Unter Mitbegründung von Phoebe Jacobs entstand nach Armstrongs Tod die Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. Der zweitgrößte Tenniscourt in Flushing Meadows (US Open) ist ebenso nach ihm benannt wie der Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans sowie der im 19 km entfernten Kenner liegende internationale Flughafen, der Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
Bekannte Stücke
Der St. Louis Blues von W. C. Handy sowie das romantische What a Wonderful World von George David Weiss und Bob Thiele besitzen kaum mehr Jazzanklänge. Armstrong bediente sich auch Musicalmelodien; Mack the Knife (Mackie Messer) aus Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenoper und Hello Dolly werden vermutlich häufiger in Armstrongs Interpretation gespielt als in der Originalfassung für die Theaterbühne.
Spitzname
Armstrongs Spitzname „Satchmo“ ist eine Verkürzung von satchel mouth (zu deutsch etwa „Taschenmund“), eine Anspielung auf die Größe seines Mundes. Als Kind wurde er auch gate mouth genannt. Eine weitere Variante seiner Spitznamen in der Frühzeit war „Dippermouth“ (zu deutsch „Schöpflöffelmund“). Dieser Name inspirierte ihn zu dem Titel Dippermouth Blues.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971),[1] nicknamed Satchmo[2] or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and an influential figure in jazz music.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for black men.
Early life
Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900,[3][4] a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records.[5] Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
After dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. But he also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans,[6] although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans... It has given me something to live for.”[7]
He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him as almost a family member, knowing he lived without a father, and would feed and nurture him.[8] He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for."[9] Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination."[10] The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience."[11]
Armstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones)[12] instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career.[13] At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
He played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.
In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.[14]
Career
Through all his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and he started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances.[15] In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was teeming with jobs for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.
Oliver's band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to “cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who could blow two hundred high C’s in a row.[16] Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.
Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York, Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he created his most important early recordings.[17] Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the day. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.
Armstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers.[18] The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.
During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.
Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife.[19] He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.
The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded . . . always did his best to feature each individual."[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing, Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"[21]
Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly," which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.[22]
After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers,[23] though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.[24]
Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.[25]
Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows,[26] and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.
Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down." In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong "scat singing".
As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.
The Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.[27]
Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence.[28] He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[29] Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret Nine” and had a cigar named after him.[30] But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.
After returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.[31]
After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.
During the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.
The All Stars
Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.
This group was called Louis Armstrong and his All Stars and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg and the Filipino-American percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine, on February 21, 1949.
In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival where Suzy Delair sang for the first time in public "C'est si bon" by Henri Betti and André Hornez. With the publihers' permission, Armstrong recorded the first American version of "C'est si bon" on June 26, 1950, in New York with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. On its release, the disc was a worldwide success.[citation needed]
In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person ever to accomplish that feat. In the process, he dislodged the Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[32]
Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch " and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors.[33]
While failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those limitations he continued playing until the day he died.
Death
Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday,[34] 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room.[35] He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death.[36] He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.[37] His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost.[38] Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy.[39]
Personal life
Pronunciation of name
The Louis Armstrong House Museum website states:
Judging from home recorded tapes now in our Museum Collections, Louis pronounced his own name as “Lewis.” On his 1964 record “Hello, Dolly,” he sings, “This is Lewis, Dolly” but in 1933 he made a record called “Laughin’ Louie.” Many broadcast announcers, fans, and acquaintances called him “Louie” and in a videotaped interview from 1983 Lucille Armstrong calls her late husband “Louie” as well. Musicians and close friends usually called him “Pops.”[40]
In a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong states, "All white folks call me Louie," suggesting that he himself did not.[41] That said, Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called "Louie" on stage, such as on the 1952 "Can Anyone Explain?" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that "Lewie" is the French pronunciation of "Louis" and is commonly used in Louisiana.
Family
On March 19, 1918, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana.[42] They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis' cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him.[43] Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.
On February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith.[44] His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in 1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971.[45]
Armstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children.[46] However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to be his daughter, from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille "Sweets" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club.[47] In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child.[48]
Personality
Armstrong was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His own biography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of telling tales, particularly of his early childhood, when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack consistency.
He was not only an entertainer, Armstrong was also a leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public that gave even the greatest African American performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able to live a private life of access and privilege accorded to few other African Americans during that era.
He generally remained politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Era of U.S. history.
Nicknames
The nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth. Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname has many possible origins.
The most common tale that biographers tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal them from him. Someone dubbed him "satchel mouth" for his mouth acting as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed "satchel mouth" which became shortened to Satchmo.
Early on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues.[49] and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.
The nickname Pops came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply call them "pops" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout.They also called him the king of jazz.
Armstrong and race
Armstrong was largely accepted into white society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional talent or fair skin tone. As his fame grew, so did his access to the finer things in life usually denied to a black man, even a famous one. His renown was such that he dined in the best restaurants and stayed in hotels usually exclusively for whites.[50]
It was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians.
That still did not prevent members of the African-American community, particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."[51]
He was criticized for accepting the title of "King of The Zulus" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes.
Some musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the civil rights movement.[52]
The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him "two-faced" and "gutless" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news.
As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department saying "The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell" and that he could not represent his government abroad when it was in conflict with its own people.[53] Six days after Armstrong's comments, Eisenhower ordered Federal troops to Little Rock to escort students into the school.[54]
The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.[55]
Religion
When asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope.[56] Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans,[56] and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI, though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic. Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but also found humor in them.
Personal habits
Purging
Armstrong was also greatly concerned with his health. He made frequent use of laxatives as a means of controlling his weight, a practice he advocated both to personal acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss. He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family. (Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, cards that he had printed to send out to friends; the cards bore a picture of him sitting on a toilet—as viewed through a keyhole—with the slogan "Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'")[57] The cards have sometimes been incorrectly described as ads for Swiss Kriss.[58]
In a live recording of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Velma Middleton, he changes the lyric from "Put another record on while I pour" to "Take some Swiss Kriss while I pour."[59]
Love of food
The concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food, reflected in such songs as "Cheesecake", "Cornet Chop Suey,"[60] though "Struttin’ with Some Barbecue" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food.[61] He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, "Red beans and ricely yours..."[62]
Writings
Armstrong’s gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly, sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand, recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his heavy "medicinal" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described.[63] He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.
Social organizations
Louis Armstrong was not, as is often claimed, a Freemason. Although he is usually listed as being a member of Montgomery Lodge No. 18 (Prince Hall) in New York, no such lodge has ever existed. Armstrong states in his autobiography, however, that he was a member of the Knights of Pythias, which is not a Masonic group.[64]
Music
Horn playing and early jazz
In his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years can be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records, as well as the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations were daring and sophisticated for the time, while often subtle and melodic.
He often essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more interesting. Armstrong's playing is filled with original melodies, creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In these records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.
Armstrong's work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of his abilities. The Hot Five records, especially, often have minor flubs and missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment since the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the mid-1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what he could do and carrying out his ideas to perfection.
He was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse and record along with his older recordings or the radio.[65]
Vocal popularity
As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it. He had a hit with his playing and scat singing on "Heebie Jeebies" when, according to some legends, the sheet music fell on the floor and he simply started singing nonsense syllables. Armstrong stated in his memoirs that this actually occurred. He also sang out "I done forgot the words" in the middle of recording "I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas."
Such records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.
Colleagues and followers
During his long career he played and sang with some of the most important instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, the singing brakeman Jimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald.
His influence upon Bing Crosby is particularly important with regard to the subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably "Just One More Chance" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name:
Crosby... was important in introducing into the mainstream of popular singing an Afro-American concept of song as a lyrical extension of speech... His techniques—easing the weight of the breath on the vocal cords, passing into a head voice at a low register, using forward production to aid distinct enunciation, singing on consonants (a practice of black singers), and making discreet use of appoggiaturas, mordents, and slurs to emphasize the text—were emulated by nearly all later popular singers.
Armstrong recorded two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gerswhin brothers' masterpiece.
His recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two albums - "The Great Summit" and "The Great Reunion" (now together as a single disc) with Duke Ellington. The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features "Summer Song," one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.
In 1964 his recording of the song "Hello Dolly" went to number one. An album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also shot to number one (knocking The Beatles off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the year, quickly going "Gold" (500,000). His performance of "Hello Dolly" won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.
Hits and later career
Armstrong had many hit records including "Stardust", "What a Wonderful World", "When The Saints Go Marching In", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "You Rascal You", and "Stompin' at the Savoy". "We Have All the Time in the World" was featured on the soundtrack of the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and enjoyed renewed popularity in the UK in 1994 when it featured on a Guinness advert. It reached number 3 in the charts on being re-released.
In 1964, Armstrong knocked The Beatles off the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with "Hello, Dolly!", which gave the 63-year-old performer a U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a number one song. His 1964 song "Bout Time" was later featured in the film Bewitched.
Armstrong performed in Italy at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival where he sang "Mi Va di Cantare"[66] alongside his friend, the Eritrean-born Italian singer Lara Saint Paul.[67] In February 1968, he also appeared with Lara Saint Paul on the Italian RAI television channel where he performed "Grassa e Bella," a track he sang in Italian for the Italian market and C.D.I. label.[68]
In 1968, Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with "What a Wonderful World", which topped the British charts for a month; however, the single did not chart at all in America. The song gained greater currency in the popular consciousness when it was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, its subsequent re-release topping many charts around the world. Armstrong even appeared on the October 28, 1970, Johnny Cash Show, where he sang Nat King Cole's hit "Rambling Rose" and joined Cash to re-create his performance backing Jimmie Rodgers on "Blue Yodel No. 9".
Stylistic range
Armstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera. Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of "St. Louis Blues" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.
Literature, radio, films and TV
Armstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on "Now You Has Jazz". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago.[69] In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye Armstrong performed a duet of "When the Saints Go Marching In" during which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time.
He was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of "Hello, Dolly!" is one of his most recognizable performances.
He was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Many of Armstrong's recordings remain popular. More than four decades since his death, a larger number of his recordings from all periods of his career are more widely available than at any time during his lifetime. His songs are broadcast and listened to every day throughout the world, and are honored in various movies, TV series, commercials, and even anime and video games. "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" was included in the video game Fallout 2, accompanying the intro cinematic. It was also used in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle and the 2005 film Lord of War. "Melancholy Blues," performed by Armstrong and his Hot Seven was included on the Voyager Golden Record sent into outer space to represent one of the greatest achievements of humanity. Most familiar to modern listeners is his ubiquitous rendition of "What a Wonderful World". In 2008, Armstrong's recording of Edith Piaf's famous "La Vie En Rose" was used in a scene of the popular Disney/Pixar film WALL-E. The song was also used in parts, especially the opening trumpets, in the French film Jeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare.)
Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar once called Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (The Great Cronopio).
Armstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards.
There is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's "Stardust" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany.[70] The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love with an ill-advised woman.[71]
Terry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.
Awards and honors
Grammy Awards
Armstrong was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972 by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for black men.
Early life
Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900,[3][4] a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records.[5] Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
After dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money. But he also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans,[6] although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans... It has given me something to live for.”[7]
He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him as almost a family member, knowing he lived without a father, and would feed and nurture him.[8] He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks' nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for."[9] Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination."[10] The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience."[11]
Armstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones)[12] instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen-year-old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career.[13] At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
He played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable, which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.
In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.[14]
Career
Through all his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and he started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances.[15] In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was teeming with jobs for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.
Oliver's band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to “cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who could blow two hundred high C’s in a row.[16] Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.
Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York, Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he created his most important early recordings.[17] Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the day. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.
Armstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers.[18] The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.
During this time, Armstrong made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.
Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At first, he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife.[19] He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.
The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed working with him, and he was very broad-minded . . . always did his best to feature each individual."[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing, Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"[21]
Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as "Madame Butterfly," which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.[22]
After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers,[23] though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.[24]
Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.[25]
Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows,[26] and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.
Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns, memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down." In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong "scat singing".
As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.
The Great Depression of the early 1930s was especially hard on the jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral, and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New Orleans and raised chickens.[27]
Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence.[28] He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town,[29] Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret Nine” and had a cigar named after him.[30] But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.
After returning to the United States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.[31]
After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.
During the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.
The All Stars
Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.
This group was called Louis Armstrong and his All Stars and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems, Joe Darensbourg and the Filipino-American percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine, on February 21, 1949.
In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival where Suzy Delair sang for the first time in public "C'est si bon" by Henri Betti and André Hornez. With the publihers' permission, Armstrong recorded the first American version of "C'est si bon" on June 26, 1950, in New York with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. On its release, the disc was a worldwide success.[citation needed]
In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person ever to accomplish that feat. In the process, he dislodged the Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[32]
Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch " and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors.[33]
While failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those limitations he continued playing until the day he died.
Death
Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday,[34] 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room.[35] He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death.[36] He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.[37] His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost.[38] Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy.[39]
Personal life
Pronunciation of name
The Louis Armstrong House Museum website states:
Judging from home recorded tapes now in our Museum Collections, Louis pronounced his own name as “Lewis.” On his 1964 record “Hello, Dolly,” he sings, “This is Lewis, Dolly” but in 1933 he made a record called “Laughin’ Louie.” Many broadcast announcers, fans, and acquaintances called him “Louie” and in a videotaped interview from 1983 Lucille Armstrong calls her late husband “Louie” as well. Musicians and close friends usually called him “Pops.”[40]
In a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong states, "All white folks call me Louie," suggesting that he himself did not.[41] That said, Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called "Louie" on stage, such as on the 1952 "Can Anyone Explain?" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that "Lewie" is the French pronunciation of "Louis" and is commonly used in Louisiana.
Family
On March 19, 1918, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana.[42] They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis' cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him.[43] Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.
On February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith.[44] His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in 1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971.[45]
Armstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children.[46] However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to be his daughter, from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille "Sweets" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club.[47] In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child.[48]
Personality
Armstrong was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His own biography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of telling tales, particularly of his early childhood, when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack consistency.
He was not only an entertainer, Armstrong was also a leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public that gave even the greatest African American performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able to live a private life of access and privilege accorded to few other African Americans during that era.
He generally remained politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Era of U.S. history.
Nicknames
The nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth. Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname has many possible origins.
The most common tale that biographers tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal them from him. Someone dubbed him "satchel mouth" for his mouth acting as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed "satchel mouth" which became shortened to Satchmo.
Early on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues.[49] and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.
The nickname Pops came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply call them "pops" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout.They also called him the king of jazz.
Armstrong and race
Armstrong was largely accepted into white society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional talent or fair skin tone. As his fame grew, so did his access to the finer things in life usually denied to a black man, even a famous one. His renown was such that he dined in the best restaurants and stayed in hotels usually exclusively for whites.[50]
It was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians.
That still did not prevent members of the African-American community, particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."[51]
He was criticized for accepting the title of "King of The Zulus" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes.
Some musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the civil rights movement.[52]
The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him "two-faced" and "gutless" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news.
As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department saying "The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell" and that he could not represent his government abroad when it was in conflict with its own people.[53] Six days after Armstrong's comments, Eisenhower ordered Federal troops to Little Rock to escort students into the school.[54]
The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.[55]
Religion
When asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope.[56] Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans,[56] and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI, though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic. Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but also found humor in them.
Personal habits
Purging
Armstrong was also greatly concerned with his health. He made frequent use of laxatives as a means of controlling his weight, a practice he advocated both to personal acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss. He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family. (Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, cards that he had printed to send out to friends; the cards bore a picture of him sitting on a toilet—as viewed through a keyhole—with the slogan "Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'")[57] The cards have sometimes been incorrectly described as ads for Swiss Kriss.[58]
In a live recording of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Velma Middleton, he changes the lyric from "Put another record on while I pour" to "Take some Swiss Kriss while I pour."[59]
Love of food
The concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food, reflected in such songs as "Cheesecake", "Cornet Chop Suey,"[60] though "Struttin’ with Some Barbecue" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food.[61] He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, "Red beans and ricely yours..."[62]
Writings
Armstrong’s gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly, sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand, recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his heavy "medicinal" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described.[63] He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.
Social organizations
Louis Armstrong was not, as is often claimed, a Freemason. Although he is usually listed as being a member of Montgomery Lodge No. 18 (Prince Hall) in New York, no such lodge has ever existed. Armstrong states in his autobiography, however, that he was a member of the Knights of Pythias, which is not a Masonic group.[64]
Music
Horn playing and early jazz
In his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years can be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records, as well as the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations were daring and sophisticated for the time, while often subtle and melodic.
He often essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more interesting. Armstrong's playing is filled with original melodies, creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In these records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.
Armstrong's work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of his abilities. The Hot Five records, especially, often have minor flubs and missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment since the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the mid-1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what he could do and carrying out his ideas to perfection.
He was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself. Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse and record along with his older recordings or the radio.[65]
Vocal popularity
As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it. He had a hit with his playing and scat singing on "Heebie Jeebies" when, according to some legends, the sheet music fell on the floor and he simply started singing nonsense syllables. Armstrong stated in his memoirs that this actually occurred. He also sang out "I done forgot the words" in the middle of recording "I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas."
Such records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.
Colleagues and followers
During his long career he played and sang with some of the most important instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, the singing brakeman Jimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald.
His influence upon Bing Crosby is particularly important with regard to the subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably "Just One More Chance" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name:
Crosby... was important in introducing into the mainstream of popular singing an Afro-American concept of song as a lyrical extension of speech... His techniques—easing the weight of the breath on the vocal cords, passing into a head voice at a low register, using forward production to aid distinct enunciation, singing on consonants (a practice of black singers), and making discreet use of appoggiaturas, mordents, and slurs to emphasize the text—were emulated by nearly all later popular singers.
Armstrong recorded two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gerswhin brothers' masterpiece.
His recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two albums - "The Great Summit" and "The Great Reunion" (now together as a single disc) with Duke Ellington. The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features "Summer Song," one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.
In 1964 his recording of the song "Hello Dolly" went to number one. An album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also shot to number one (knocking The Beatles off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the year, quickly going "Gold" (500,000). His performance of "Hello Dolly" won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.
Hits and later career
Armstrong had many hit records including "Stardust", "What a Wonderful World", "When The Saints Go Marching In", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "You Rascal You", and "Stompin' at the Savoy". "We Have All the Time in the World" was featured on the soundtrack of the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and enjoyed renewed popularity in the UK in 1994 when it featured on a Guinness advert. It reached number 3 in the charts on being re-released.
In 1964, Armstrong knocked The Beatles off the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with "Hello, Dolly!", which gave the 63-year-old performer a U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a number one song. His 1964 song "Bout Time" was later featured in the film Bewitched.
Armstrong performed in Italy at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival where he sang "Mi Va di Cantare"[66] alongside his friend, the Eritrean-born Italian singer Lara Saint Paul.[67] In February 1968, he also appeared with Lara Saint Paul on the Italian RAI television channel where he performed "Grassa e Bella," a track he sang in Italian for the Italian market and C.D.I. label.[68]
In 1968, Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with "What a Wonderful World", which topped the British charts for a month; however, the single did not chart at all in America. The song gained greater currency in the popular consciousness when it was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, its subsequent re-release topping many charts around the world. Armstrong even appeared on the October 28, 1970, Johnny Cash Show, where he sang Nat King Cole's hit "Rambling Rose" and joined Cash to re-create his performance backing Jimmie Rodgers on "Blue Yodel No. 9".
Stylistic range
Armstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera. Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of "St. Louis Blues" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.
Literature, radio, films and TV
Armstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on "Now You Has Jazz". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago.[69] In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye Armstrong performed a duet of "When the Saints Go Marching In" during which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time.
He was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of "Hello, Dolly!" is one of his most recognizable performances.
He was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Many of Armstrong's recordings remain popular. More than four decades since his death, a larger number of his recordings from all periods of his career are more widely available than at any time during his lifetime. His songs are broadcast and listened to every day throughout the world, and are honored in various movies, TV series, commercials, and even anime and video games. "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" was included in the video game Fallout 2, accompanying the intro cinematic. It was also used in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle and the 2005 film Lord of War. "Melancholy Blues," performed by Armstrong and his Hot Seven was included on the Voyager Golden Record sent into outer space to represent one of the greatest achievements of humanity. Most familiar to modern listeners is his ubiquitous rendition of "What a Wonderful World". In 2008, Armstrong's recording of Edith Piaf's famous "La Vie En Rose" was used in a scene of the popular Disney/Pixar film WALL-E. The song was also used in parts, especially the opening trumpets, in the French film Jeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare.)
Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar once called Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (The Great Cronopio).
Armstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards.
There is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's "Stardust" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany.[70] The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love with an ill-advised woman.[71]
Terry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.
Awards and honors
Grammy Awards
Armstrong was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972 by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.
Cal Green +06.07.2004
Few blues guitarists can boast the varied résumé of Texas native Cal Green. From blues to doo wop to jazz, Green has played 'em all, and done each idiom proud in the process.
Green's idol as a teenager was Lone Star wonder Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. So pervasive was Gate's sway that Green and his ninth-grade pal Roy Gaines used to stage mock guitar battles imitating their idols (Gaines was a T-Bone Walker disciple) at various Houston bars. Cal didn't have to leave the house to find worthy competition; his older brother Clarence was also an accomplished picker who cut a load of killer instrumentals (notably 1962's "Red Light") for small Lone Star label.
Cal Green played on RPM Records releases by Quinton Kimble and pianist Connie McBooker, but his main claim to fame is as the guitarist for Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, who roared through Houston in 1954 looking to replace their just-drafted axeman Arthur Porter, scooped up teenaged Green, and went on their way.
Green received plenty of solo space during his Midnighters stint. His ringing guitar provided a sturdy hook for the group's rocker "Don't Change Your Pretty Ways" and figured prominently on "Tore Up Over You" (later revived in blistering fashion by rockabilly giant Sleepy LaBeef) and "Open Up the Back Door." The Midnighters' label, Cincinnati-based Federal Records, thought enough of Green's slashing Texas licks to cut a couple of 45s on him in 1958: the double-sided instrumental "The Big Push"/"Green's Blues" and a pair of vocals, "I Can Hear My Baby Calling"/"The Search Is All Over."
White Pearl
A 1959 marijuana bust sent Green to a Texas slammer for 21 months, but he briefly rejoined The Midnighters in 1962. After that, jazz became Green's music of choice. He gigged with organists Brother Jack McDuff and Charles Kynard, and then singer Lou Rawls, eventually settling in L.A. He recorded several singles and eventually an album, Trippin' for the Los Angeles-based Mutt & Jeff label in the late '60s. An acclaimed but tough-to-find 1988 album for Double Trouble, White Pearl, showed conclusively that Green still knew his way around the blues on guitar. On July 6, 2004, he passed away at his California home. He was 69.
Cal Green
Clarence and Cal Green
Blues All Night Long
Blues All Night Long
Melvyn "Deacon" Jones +06.07.2017
Melvyn "Deacon" Jones (December 12, 1943 – July 6, 2017) was an organist and founding member of Baby Huey & the Babysitters.
Biography
In 1963 along with Johnny Ross and Jimmy Ramey, Jones formed Baby Huey & the Babysitters who went on to become a well known live attraction in Chicago. After Ramey's death in 1970 Jones embarked on a career that would see him work with Curtis Mayfield, Freddie King, and John Lee Hooker. During his career he worked with many musical luminaries, including Gregg Allman, Elvin Bishop, Lester Chambers, Albert Collins, Pappo, and Buddy Miles. His brother is the drummer Harold Jones. He is survived by his son, Jason Christopher Jones and daughter Sarah Lee Grace Jones.
1990s onwards
In 1992, the Bay Area Blues Society and the South Bay Blues Awards named Jones Keyboard Player of the Year.[1]
In 2008, Jones published his autobiography, The Blues Man: 40 Years with the Blues Legends.[2]
Death
Jones died at the age of 73 in Hollywood, California.
"Walking the Dog" Performed by "The Deacon Jones Blues Band" At The Domingo House
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