By Daniel Kassell
Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong
Terry Teachout
Hardcover; 496 pages
ISBN: 978-0-15-101089-9
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2010
Terry Teachout explained in the Afterward that he's the first jazz bassist to produce a fully researched biography prepared recently as an exercise in synthesis.
The Prologue is a summary of Pops life, an essay titled “The Cause of Happiness," the book is chronological. Hundreds of phrases, quotes, recollections, remembrances, dozens of authors musings, bits and pieces from Armstrong's own autobiographical writings that Teachout amassed and organized into 382 pages that include 164 Bibliography listings, 28 Photo Credits, 52 pages of Source Notes, 30 Key Recordings and a 24-page Index that document every quotation and reference. The back matter, an enormous undertaking, is well worth perusing as you read.
In an attempt to convey the method and flavor of Mr. Teachout's synthesis the following quotes are offered in summary (the author's in quotes, Mr. Armstrong's in italics).
“It goes without saying--or should that Louis Armstrong's music was the most important thing about him. Yet his personal story, in addition to shedding light on the wellspring of his art, is important in its own right, and no less in need of a historically aware interpretation."
“He was a child of his time, not ours. . . To understand him now (2007), we must see him as he was, a black man born at the turn of the century in the poorest quarter of New Orleans who by the end of his life was known and loved in every corner of the earth."
“To all those hearing Armstrong for the first time, it's the combination of hurtling momentum and expansive lyricism that propelled his playing and singing alike."
“The melodies he loved took on a new tint when passed through the prism of his vast experience." I seen everthin' from a child comin' up, he said. Nothin' happen I ain't never seen before." . . . when I blow I think of times and things from outa the past that gives me an image of the time. Like moving pictures passing in front of my eyes. A town, a chick somewhere down the line, an old man with no name you don't remember.
“He knew who he was, what he had done, and how far he had come, and the was fiercely proud of it all. He admitted that his music mattered more to him than anything else." When I pick up that horn, that's all. The world's behind me, and I don't concentrate on nothin' but it. . . . That my livin' and my life. I love them notes. That why I try to make 'em right. See?
Of Pops entertaining style, criticized by many younger musicians for pandering in a class-divided society, Joe Oliver, an early mentor, advised, You have to learn to never wear the trouble in your face.
How did LA improvise? Well, I tell you . . . the first chorus I plays the melody. The second chorus I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus I routines. Today young musicians are using Pops secret by applying the same sequence.
“And if you wonder why he turned out so good his mother Mayann's dying memorabilia:" Son--Carry on, you're a good boy--treats everybody right. And everybody--White and Colored Loves you--you have a good heart. --You can't miss.
One of the few instances Mr. Teachout analyzes a performance from a musician point of view is Harold Arlen's “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues." “One of Armstrong's immortal masterpieces . . . in a departure from his customary practice on ballads, dispenses almost completely with Arlen's melody, substituting instead a series of rhythmically free phrases that lead upward toward a high B-flat. Four times he falls of from that shining note--and then comes the fifth fall, at the bottom if which he changes course and swoops gracefully upward to a full-throated high D whose vibrancy was perfectly caught by Victor's recording engineer. Armstrong seems to have broken through to a realm of abstract lyricism that transcends ordinary human emotion. Only then does he condescend to ease back to the vicinity of the tune, returning the bedazzled listener to the everyday world."
To Columbia's inspired producer of Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, Louis told George Avakian, I can't remember when I felt as good about making a record.
Late in his life a new generation was listening and he was touring a lot at the insistence of this long time manager Joe Glaser, a known underworld associate, and it was taking its toll. Joe Muranyi, the last clarinetist, remembered, that's cruel. There was no need for it--but in a way , Louis invited it, . . . it would have meant admitting his mortality.
At his 1971 funeral an unidentified black women spoke of Armstrong while he lay in state that he had been a friend to all people, all colors, all nations that's what he was the Ambassador of love.
His legacy will live on as the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation that publicist, admirer, secretary to wife Lucille Armstrong, Phoebe Jacobs set up, then arranged for a Louis Armstrong Archive at Queens College/CUNY now directed by Michael Cogswell that contains friend and photographer Jack Bradley's proudly collected memorabilia in addition to homemade tape recordings, writings and household possessions.
Mrs. Armstrong willed his house in Corona, a suburb in Queens, New York, to the City of New York. At the opening ceremony I witnessed Armstrong's surviving musicians Larry Lucie-guitarist, Johnny Blowers-drummer and guitarist Al Casey as they and other Armstrong influenced players performed happy blues for cognoscenti as members of The Harlem Blues and Jazz Band.
Throughout POPS Terry Teachout showed his admiration for Louis Armstrong--and American original.
Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong Terry Teachout
Hardcover; 496 pages
ISBN: 978-0-15-101089-9
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
2010
Terry Teachout explained in the Afterward that he's the first jazz bassist to produce a fully researched biography prepared recently as an exercise in synthesis.
The Prologue is a summary of Pops life, an essay titled “The Cause of Happiness," the book is chronological. Hundreds of phrases, quotes, recollections, remembrances, dozens of authors musings, bits and pieces from Armstrong's own autobiographical writings that Teachout amassed and organized into 382 pages that include 164 Bibliography listings, 28 Photo Credits, 52 pages of Source Notes, 30 Key Recordings and a 24-page Index that document every quotation and reference. The back matter, an enormous undertaking, is well worth perusing as you read.
In an attempt to convey the method and flavor of Mr. Teachout's synthesis the following quotes are offered in summary (the author's in quotes, Mr. Armstrong's in italics).
“It goes without saying--or should that Louis Armstrong's music was the most important thing about him. Yet his personal story, in addition to shedding light on the wellspring of his art, is important in its own right, and no less in need of a historically aware interpretation."
“He was a child of his time, not ours. . . To understand him now (2007), we must see him as he was, a black man born at the turn of the century in the poorest quarter of New Orleans who by the end of his life was known and loved in every corner of the earth."
“To all those hearing Armstrong for the first time, it's the combination of hurtling momentum and expansive lyricism that propelled his playing and singing alike."
“The melodies he loved took on a new tint when passed through the prism of his vast experience." I seen everthin' from a child comin' up, he said. Nothin' happen I ain't never seen before." . . . when I blow I think of times and things from outa the past that gives me an image of the time. Like moving pictures passing in front of my eyes. A town, a chick somewhere down the line, an old man with no name you don't remember.
“He knew who he was, what he had done, and how far he had come, and the was fiercely proud of it all. He admitted that his music mattered more to him than anything else." When I pick up that horn, that's all. The world's behind me, and I don't concentrate on nothin' but it. . . . That my livin' and my life. I love them notes. That why I try to make 'em right. See?
Of Pops entertaining style, criticized by many younger musicians for pandering in a class-divided society, Joe Oliver, an early mentor, advised, You have to learn to never wear the trouble in your face.
How did LA improvise? Well, I tell you . . . the first chorus I plays the melody. The second chorus I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus I routines. Today young musicians are using Pops secret by applying the same sequence.
“And if you wonder why he turned out so good his mother Mayann's dying memorabilia:" Son--Carry on, you're a good boy--treats everybody right. And everybody--White and Colored Loves you--you have a good heart. --You can't miss.
One of the few instances Mr. Teachout analyzes a performance from a musician point of view is Harold Arlen's “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues." “One of Armstrong's immortal masterpieces . . . in a departure from his customary practice on ballads, dispenses almost completely with Arlen's melody, substituting instead a series of rhythmically free phrases that lead upward toward a high B-flat. Four times he falls of from that shining note--and then comes the fifth fall, at the bottom if which he changes course and swoops gracefully upward to a full-throated high D whose vibrancy was perfectly caught by Victor's recording engineer. Armstrong seems to have broken through to a realm of abstract lyricism that transcends ordinary human emotion. Only then does he condescend to ease back to the vicinity of the tune, returning the bedazzled listener to the everyday world."
To Columbia's inspired producer of Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy, Louis told George Avakian, I can't remember when I felt as good about making a record.
Late in his life a new generation was listening and he was touring a lot at the insistence of this long time manager Joe Glaser, a known underworld associate, and it was taking its toll. Joe Muranyi, the last clarinetist, remembered, that's cruel. There was no need for it--but in a way , Louis invited it, . . . it would have meant admitting his mortality.
At his 1971 funeral an unidentified black women spoke of Armstrong while he lay in state that he had been a friend to all people, all colors, all nations that's what he was the Ambassador of love.
His legacy will live on as the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation that publicist, admirer, secretary to wife Lucille Armstrong, Phoebe Jacobs set up, then arranged for a Louis Armstrong Archive at Queens College/CUNY now directed by Michael Cogswell that contains friend and photographer Jack Bradley's proudly collected memorabilia in addition to homemade tape recordings, writings and household possessions.
Mrs. Armstrong willed his house in Corona, a suburb in Queens, New York, to the City of New York. At the opening ceremony I witnessed Armstrong's surviving musicians Larry Lucie-guitarist, Johnny Blowers-drummer and guitarist Al Casey as they and other Armstrong influenced players performed happy blues for cognoscenti as members of The Harlem Blues and Jazz Band.
Throughout POPS Terry Teachout showed his admiration for Louis Armstrong--and American original.
