What was so important about Louis Armstrong? Louis Armstrong, who passed away 45 years ago, is the most famous jazz musician of all time. He is remembered as one of the most lovable and humorous character who can be seen in a dozen Hollywood films and on a variety of television appearances that show up on You Tube. Louis Armstrong developed into a major musical force and innovator as a trumpeter, singer and an entertainer. Although he was not the first jazz musician, he permanently changed the music early in its development. When one considers his very humble beginnings, just the fact that he grew up to become an adult could be considered beating the odds.
Armstrong was born in the poorest area of New Orleans. As a youth, he often sang on the streets in a vocal group for pennies. Life looked bleak for the youngster but music turned out to be his salvation. The disciplined atmosphere and the Waif’s home inspired young Louis Armstrong to work hard on mastering the cornet. When he was released two years later, he was considered a promising musician. Armstrong idolized cornetist Joe “King” Oliver, one of New Orleans’ top musicians who became a father figure for the teenager. When Oliver moved up North in 1918, he recommended that the youngster get his spot with trombonist Kid Ory’s pacesetting band. Armstrong improved rapidly, learning to read music while playing on riverboats with Fate Marable’s group. In 1922 when King Oliver decided to add a second cornetist to his Creole Jazz Band which was based at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago, he sent for his protégé. By then, Louis Armstrong had a beautiful tone, a wide range, and an exciting style on the cornet. Early New Orleans jazz was primarily an ensemble-oriented music. Armstrong was mostly featured playing harmonies in ensembles, adding to the power of the group while going out of his way not to outshine its leader. However it was soon apparent to the other musicians, including pianist Lil Harden (who would soon become Armstrong’s second of four wives), that he would not be the second cornetist to anyone for long.
In 1924 Lil Armstrong persuaded her new husband to accept an offer to go to New York and join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. Henderson had the top black band of the era although his orchestra, while possessing fine musicians and excellent sight-readers, had not yet learned how to swing. This is where Louis Armstrong began to change the direction of jazz. At the time, most jazz soloists only made brief statements, emphasizing staccato phrases, staying close to the melody, and often punctuating their solos with double-time phrases that were repetitive and full of effects. At Armstrong’s first rehearsal with Henderson, the other musicians initially looked down on the newcomer because of his out-of-date clothes and rural manners. But their opinions changed as soon as Louis played his first notes. As a cornetist (he would switch permanently to trumpet in 1926), Armstrong’s utilized legato rather than staccato phrasing. He made every note count, used space dramatically, built up his solos to a climax, and “told a story” in his playing. In addition, he put a blues feeling into every song, his expressive style was voice-like, and his tone was so beautiful that he helped to define the sound of the trumpet itself.
It was largely due to Louis Armstrong powerful playing that jazz changed into a music that put the focus on brilliant and adventurous soloists. During his year with Henderson, Armstrong became a major influence not only on other brass players but on musicians of all instruments. His swinging solos were emulated by others and, by the time he moved back to Chicago in late-1925, jazz had moved a decade ahead of where it was in 1923. Soon there were many trumpeters who sounded like relatives of Armstrong. It was not until the bebop era began twenty years later that jazz trumpeters, inspired by Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, moved beyond Armstrong to look for other musical role models.
During 1925-28, Louis Armstrong’s recordings with his small groups revolutionized jazz, containing some of his most brilliant trumpet playing. Those timeless sessions also introduced Armstrong as a singer. Before Louis, most vocalists who recorded were chosen due to their volume and ability to articulate lyrics clearly, singing in a very straight and square manner. In contrast, Armstrong’s gravelly tone was distinctive from the start and he phrased like one of his horn solos. “Heebies Jeebies,” from 1926, while not the very first recording of scat-singing (which utilizes nonsense syllables instead of words), greatly popularized scatting. The legend was that, after singing a chorus of the lyrics during the recording session, Armstrong dropped the music and had to make up sounds instead since he had not memorized the words, thereby inventing scat singing. It is a great story but the smoothness of Armstrong’s singing throughout the record (there is never a sense of panic) makes one think that the mishap happened on an earlier version of the song and it was decided to keep it in the routine.
While his small group recordings of 1925-28 made Louis Armstrong a sensation among instrumentalists and singers, altering the course of jazz, it was in a third area that Armstrong became world famous. In 1929 he began recording regularly with a big band and was usually heard in that setting up until 1947. As the dominant star of his performances and recordings, Armstrong was free to display his humorous personality much more. When it came to being an entertainer, Louis Armstrong (who became universally known as “Satchmo”) was impossible to top. He could steal the show from anyone with his comedic abilities, lovable personality and musical brilliance. He became an international star, a household name who visited Europe a few times during the 1930s. When he broke up his big band in 1947, he formed a sextet called The Louis Armstrong All-Stars that made it possible economically for him to become a world traveler. His popularity grew steadily during his last 24 years and Louis Armstrong became famous as jazz’s goodwill ambassador, even being nicknamed Ambassador Satch.
Although jazz once shared the stage with tawdry elements, the argued, it ultimately sloughed off these connections to become a purely musical art worthy of the European classical tradition, and did so largely through the efforts of one man: Louis Armstrong. Armstrong, being an instrumentalist instead of a dancer, automatically commanded a lower profile; but among black musicians and audiences he too had amassed considerable celebrity.
Learning of Armstrong’s death, Duke Ellington said, “If anybody was Mr. Jazz, it was Louis Armstrong. He was the epitome of jazz and always will be. He is what I call an American standard, an American original.”
Timbral effects such as shakes, glissandi and slides, bends, turns or flips, and falls, while common in instrumental jazz, originated in a vocal performance tradition. Gunther Schuller in his book Early Jazz states that Louis Armstrong, who pioneered the “shake” (an exaggerated vibrato), sought to imitate his or others’ vocal techniques. Timbral effects are usually indicated by the composer in the score but may also be added by the performer as an accepted performance practice.
“Louis Armstrong is jazz. He represents what the music is all about.” — Wynton Marsalis.
Armstrong’s life and triumphant six-decade career epitomizes the American success story. His trumpet playing revolutionized the world of music, and he became one of our century’s most recognized and best loved entertainers. Now, thirty years after his death, Armstrong’s work as an instrumentalist and vocalist continue to have a profound impact on American music. As a black man living and working in a segregated society, he symbolized the civil rights struggle that was part of the changing America in which he lived.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Armstrong maintained one of the most grueling continual tours of all time. He began playing with the large bands that were popular at the time, but soon realized that his style was better suited to a smaller ensemble. With the help of manager, Joe Glaser, he formed Louis Armstrong and His All Stars. The band, which had a rotating cast of “all stars,” first included Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Earl Hines, and Big Sid Catlett. Though many believed the 40s marked the beginning of a decline of Armstrong’s playing, the recordings bear out his continued technical proficiency, spirited interpretations, and the depth and soul of his playing during these years.
The 1950s proved to be a regeneration for Armstrong as both a musician and a public figure. Though he had been singing since his early days in Chicago, it was not until the 1950s that audiences recognized his remarkable skill as a singer as well. His rough and throaty voice became, almost instantly, the internationally recognized voice of jazz itself. His 1956 recording with Ella Fitzgerald of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” was one of the most popular and best loved duets of the 1950s. With his increasing fame, however, came the criticism of a black community that felt he was not living up to the responsibilities of the times. The late fifties brought with them the civil rights movement, and many blacks saw Armstrong as an “uncle tom,” playing for primarily white audiences around the world. Though adamant that these claims were unjust, Armstrong was then in his sixties and primarily concerned with continuing to travel and perform.
Armstrong spent the final decade of his life in the same way that he had spent the four previous — entertaining audiences throughout the world. In 1971, he died of a heart attack in New York City. Though the history of jazz is filled with many exceptional and innovative musicians, it is hard to find anyone who has had as profound an influence on the movement as Louis Armstrong. Armstrong’s legacy is more than simply his virtuoso trumpet playing, but his great formal innovations as well. His commitment to the search for new forms in jazz and his continued heartfelt performances will remain a major symbol not only of the musical life, but of the entire cultural life of 20th-century America.
By 1932, Armstrong had begun appearing in movies and made his first tour of England. While he was beloved by musicians, he was too wild for most critics, who gave him some of the most racist and harsh reviews of his career. Armstrong didn’t let the criticism stop him, however, and he returned an even bigger star when he began a longer tour throughout Europe in 1933. In a strange turn of events, it was during this tour that Armstrong’s career fell apart: Years of blowing high notes had taken a toll on Armstrong’s lips, and, following a fight with his manager, Johnny Collins—who already managed to get Armstrong into trouble with the American mob—he was left stranded overseas by Collins. Armstrong decided to take some time off soon after the incident, and spent much of 1934 relaxing in Europe and resting his lip. When Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1935, he had no band, no engagements and no recording contract.
During the African-American ‘Firsts’ period, Armstrong set a number of African-American “firsts.” In 1936, he became the first African-American jazz musician to write an autobiography: Swing That Music. That same year, he became the first African-American to get featured billing in a major Hollywood movie with his turn in Pennies from Heaven, starring Bing Crosby. Additionally, he became the first African-American entertainer to host a nationally sponsored radio show in 1937, when he took over Rudy Vallee’s Fleischmann’s Yeast Show for 12 weeks.
Though his popularity was hitting new highs in the 1950s, and despite breaking down so many barriers for his race and being a hero to the African-American community for so many years, Armstrong began losing his standing with two segments of his audience: Modern jazz fans and young African-Americans. Bebop, a new form of jazz, had blossomed in the 1940s. Featuring young geniuses such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, the younger generation of musicians saw themselves as artists, not as entertainers; they saw Armstrong’s stage persona and music as old-fashioned and criticized him in the press. Armstrong fought back, but for many young jazz fans, he was regarded as an out-of-date performer with his best days behind him.
For these many reasons Louis Armstrong was the most important performer or the swing jazz style. By many he was jazz. Even though in the late 50’s he wasn’t as popular with th teens and younger generation, he was still the ‘king’ of jazz.