Leaders In Profile Louis Armstrong, Jazz’s Greatest Artist

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28573, 30 April 1958, Page 18

Leaders In Profile Louis Armstrong, Jazz’s Greatest Artist

[By

SIMON KAVANAUGH)

LONDON. When a Negro died in the Mississippi delta country at the turn of the century, his relatives would hire a brass band ’to play sad tunes all the way to the cemetery. But, coming back, those same tunes were hotted up to make the mourners feel happy again. That was the beginning of jazz. Then it was called “jass.” It was just about this time that a son was born to a Negro turpentine worker called Willie Armstrong and his wife, Mary-Ann, who lived in James Alley, Back o’ Town, New Orleans. The night Louie was bcm (Independence Day, 1900), there was a wild shooting affair in the alley. Two men were killed. From then on, Louis led a pretty exciting life. It was an over-ripe, honky-tonk world. And you had to be careful if you wanted to stay alive. (“It was one of the toughest joints I ever played in,” Louis has recalled. “Those guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws.”) “Satchelmouth” But Louis was happy. He had a grin that was enormous even for a Negro, so the boys in the alley called him “Gatemouth” or “Satchelmouth.” It was a sad day when the cops came and took Louis away for scaring a kid with a gun. They put him in a reformatory for a while to cool off. Talent is often discovered In unusual places and Louis Armstrong’s was no exception. For it was from that same reformatory that there issued his first trumpet blasts. Today, the deep-chested little man with the old trouper’s face is the world’s greatest trumpeter. He is approaching 58, but is as ageless, it seems, as jazz itself. His face is a rugged, corrugated ball of ebony, his voice a gravelly croak. His teeth shine whitely like a row of ivory pegs (“If they’re not all mine, at least they’re paid for”), and his lips, which can still blow the purest high C after 40-odd years of trumpet blowing, look like mangled crepe. At work on the trumpet, Armstrong’s face puckers like a prune. He perspires as freely as a coalheaver and calls every few minutes for a new stock of white handkerchiefs. Growling Voice When he sings, one wonders if his growling voice will hold out until the end of the song. But when he picks up his trumpet and starts to play no foot is still. His stage technique is rough perfection, his comedy a masterpiece of timing. Who could forget the sight of “Ole Man Jazz,” in midnight blue tuxedo, jigging into the spotlight with a grin like a refrigerator showroom and flourishing his trumpet like a flag to a wildly cheering audience? He plays with a driving controlled intensity. One minute, the notes are mellow as a ’cello. The next, they are brassy and bizarre as a New Orleans bistro. t Armstrong specialises, say some critics, in acrobatics in brass. True or not, he can smack out 300 consecutive high C’s. His lips, as plastic as india-rubber, have an embouchure that can reach and hold notes far outside the range of any other trumpet-player.

“Master of Rhythm” His dexterity in trick fingering and split notes is fabulous. And he is the supreme master of rhythm. Armstrong and jazz grew up together. (“We got born the same day. I knew jazz before it went soft with too much success too early. Saw it try to put on spats before it got used to shoes.”) And they have stuck together through many years of adversity. Like jazz, his character was moulded by a rugged popular culture, with no interference from formal education. When Armstrong was let out of reformatory, he took his trumpet to uptown joints owned by Henry Matranga and Henry Ponce. (“A mighty man. When you’re talking about real operators who really played it cooL think of Henry Ponce.”) When he wasn’t blowing his trumpet at funerals and white folks’ picnics he worked on a milk cart or in the coal yard. At night, he would put on his old “Roast Beef” (a ragged tuxedo) and let rip until sunrise. Then he played on Mississippi riverboats. (“If a guy started shooting, they played ‘Tiger Rag’.”) Big Chance His big chance came when, at 22,• he was invited to join Joe King Oliver’s creole jazz group in Chicago. At the first test, the crowd yelled, “Let the boy blow.” The boy blew himself right into big-time jazz. Six years and a number of pseudo-orchestras, showbands and guitar groups later, in Al Capone’s hey-day, crowds were responding to a downtown Chicago joint’s invitation: “Come in and See the Greatest Trumpeter in the World.” Soon were to come Armstrong’;' triumphant European tours. Jazz slumped with everything else in the thirties, but Armstrong stayed on top. His records —hp is said to be the world’s most recorded musician—were selling well everywhere. The forties saw a revival of traditional jazz, and smaller, more intimate groups appeared. But Armstrong went on as before. He was jazz, any way you cared to look at it

Since he blew his first notes, his tonal range has broadened. But his style has not softened. He cut out the frills in the forties, but does not experiment. Even his most dazzling improvisations are based on simple chord changes which were the basis of the first jazz. Simplicity What is the greatness of “Satchmo”? Experts will say it is simplicity—but sophisticated simplicity. He uses many variations, but the theme always comes first. And he is wise enough to stick to what he does best. Privately, too, Armstrong is the essence of simplicity. From the beginning, he knew he was going to be a famous musician. He regards his fame bashfully though matter-of-factly, as if it were preordained—“Ah’m just an ole melody man.” He is intoxicated with swing music, and even makes -a philosophy out of it. To him, life is simply swing. What is swing? “Cuttin’ loose and takin’ things with you.” He is superbly unselfconscious. Once, playing before King George V in London, he sent a trumpet blast towards the King with the words, “This one’s for you, Rex.” His artistry enables him to improvise a lot of fine jazz as he is playing, and this embarrasses conductors. Programmes for his performances often read: “Due to the ad lib quality of this music, no formal programme is possible.” Armstrong and his trumpet are each other’s best friencls. He feels he owes a responsibility to music, and is therefore fastidious about his health. Some time ago he weighed over 19 stone. Suddenly, he said, his trumpet told him his weight was harmful to his music. In a few months’ dieting he lost nearly eight stone. Extra Bathroom He often examines his immense lower lip for signs of cracks and carries a small mirror in his pocket for this purpose. His ablutions take so long three hours every morning and night—that his third wife, Lucille, to whom he has been married for 15 years, demanded an extra bathroom in their Long Island home. Performances really “beat me up.” He comes off stage tense and sweating, dons enormous hornrimmed spectacles, clamps a handkerchief over his damp, balding head, takes off his tuxedo and shirt, and wraps a towel around his shoulders. Then, with a patient, “Yeah. Yeah All right. Ah’m cornin’,” he receives the fans who are crowding his door. Jazzy remarks fall easily from his lips and are seized on by his alert publicity man and passed on gleefully to an adoring public. Some examples: “Rock ’n’ roll is cold soup warmed up.” His reason for wearing five religious medallions round his neck: “When they come to get me, I want to be ready.” In a telegram to President Eisenhower during the Little Rock race riots, he said: “The Government can go to hell.” But Armstrong has rarely been involved in racial disputes. His music and unaffected personality have always spoken for themselves. When recently, in the South, some fanatics hurled a bomb into the dance-hall where he was playing, his only comment was: “The horn don’t know nothin’ about it.” But Armstrong still wears a gold chain on his wrist as a memento of the old days of slavery. For although slavery was forgotten by most white people when “Satchmo” was born, it was really only a generation past. Certainly, Armstrong’s deep feeling for American Negro tradition has given pleasure all over the world—seeing, hearing and laughing with this happy, simple man who is the embodiment of jazz and the greatest artist it has yet produced.