[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong's private tapes & other memorabilia.

[Stan Brager]

I can't agree with you this time, Steve. If Louis didn't want the tapes to 
be made public, he would have either erased them, asked Lucille or someone 
to destroy them, or asked Lucille to keep them private. Lacking those 
instructions, I feel that he knew that they would be made public at some 
time.

He surely had a sense of history and that would have been why he made the 
tapes in the first place.

Why would he have made them otherwise?

Stan
Stan Brager
Trombonist-in-Training
-----Original Message-----
From:	Stephen Barbone [SMTP:barbonestreet@earthlink.net]
Sent:	Monday, September 30, 2002 11:59 AM
To:	Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
Subject:	[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong's private tapes & other 
memorabilia.

List Mates:

Many of us feel that Louis Armstrong's personal tapes should not have
been made public. Well, blame it on Lucille because the recordings,
along with Armstrong's home and its contents, were left to the New York
City Department of Cultural Affairs by Armstrong's wife, Lucille, upon
her death in 1983.

Was this what Louis wanted? I don't know but he left everything to her
and she left the writings and records etc. to New York City. They are at
Queens College in Queens County, NYC and available to the public.

He was, as most of us know, a prolific writer as well as the generator
of some 650 reel to reel tapes. Perhaps the most prolific writer in
Jazz? Did he have his eyes and ears on his place in the history of Jazz?
And so decide to codify his thoughts for future generations? Maybe so.

Cheers,
Steve

PS Each tape is about 4 hours long. That's 2600 hours of priceless
information and music  from this unique and wonderful man.

PPS. For additional insight on Louis the man, you might want to read
"Louis Armstrong In His Own Words", by Thomas Brothers, associate
professor of M usic at Duke University. (Oxford Press) It is a
collections of writings by Pops which as part of that memorabilia, were
previously unpublished and is an interesting read.