[Dixielandjazz] Oliver and Armstrong - relative "loudness"

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

This thread touches on one of the best-known incidents in jazz history -
the claimed "loudness" of Louis Armstrong at the 5 and/or 6 April 1923
recordings of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band at Richmond, Indiana. But how
much is fact and how much is myth?

First, let's get Louis' account of the incident right. 

Steve Barbone wrote <  Louis' own words say: "When we made those Gennett
records, Joe wasn't in his prime like before he sent for me. To show you
how much louder I was in those days, those were acoustical records, with
those big horns. Joe would be playing right in the horn, blowing, and I
would be standing back in the door playing second trumpet." > 

Close, but not accurate.

What Louis actually said was 'When we made those "Gennett" records Joe
wasn't in his prime, like he was before he sent for me. To show you how
much stronger (sic) I was than Joe: those were acoustical records, with
those big horns; Joe would be right in the horn blowing and I would be
standing back in the door playing second trumpet'. ("Joe Oliver is still
king", The Record Changer, July-August 1950).

The key difference is that Louis used "stronger", not "louder". Also note
that he was using the comparative form of the word.

Jim Beebe responded to Steve with <  Well, I can't argue with the master
himself. You got me there. >

Let's now take into account what we know about acoustical recording in
general and the set-up at the Gennett Richmond studio in particular.

The acoustic process had both a narrow frequency response and a small
dynamic range. Some voices recorded better than others and it was not
uncommon for wind and brass instruments to replace strings in recordings of
orchestral music. Despite its limitations (perhaps because of them), the
acoustic process did reproduce sonic perspective. This is highly relevant
in considering how far apart Armstrong and Oliver were in the recording
studio.

I know of no recording location used for the recording of early jazz which
is better documented than Gennett's at Richmond. The company photographed
many of the recording sessions! The holy grail would be a photo of the
Oliver band in April 1923 but, alas, there is none. We have to make do with
photos from 1924 and 1925 - some are reproduced very nicely in Rick
Kennedy's history of Gennett ("Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy", Indiana
University Press, 1994).

Armstrong referred to "horns" (plural) and these are shown in the photos.
There is a smaller one on the left and a larger one on the right, both
protruding through a curtain-draped hole in a wall. The photos show the
instrumental arrangement as:

Drums - centred, between the horns
Banjo - close to and either left or right of the drums
Piano - close to the right-hand horn
Reeds - close to the left-hand horn
Brass bass - left side, furthest from the horns
Cornet and trombone - right side, in the curve of the piano

This arrangement is probably, in part, a photographic set-up and I suspect
that during recording the brass would have moved more to the centre, while
maintaining their distance from the recording horns.

Another piece of information which we have is the often-quoted description
of the recording session by Lillian Hardin, pianist in the Creole Jazz Band
and soon to be Armstrong's wife and new mentor.

I've not found the original source of Miss Lil's remarks (can any list-mate
help here?) but the story is consistent - Louis stood "about fifteen feet
over in the corner, looking all sad ..." (Hardin, quoted in Jones and
Chilton "The Louis Armstrong Story", 1971). 

What are we to make of all this? First, let me say that I think Jim Beebe
capitulated too quickly on the matter of Louis' "loudness". I agree with
Jim's fundamental asssesment - Louis' sound was brilliant, not loud. Steve
will probably respond by saying that, in the case of the Gennett
recordings, "strong" means the same thing as "loud". I would agree that
such an assumption is reasonable but, in this case, incorrect. Also, don't
forget the use of the comparative form - the most Steve can say is that
Armstrong thought that he was "louder" than Oliver, not necessarily "loud"
in any  absolute sense.

As always, the records speak for themselves. Is Armstrong almost 5 metres
from the recording horns when he solos in "Chimes blues" and leads the
ensemble, after the clarinet bridge, in "Froggie Moore"? Are Oliver and
Armstrong almost 5 metres apart during their two-cornet breaks in "Snake
rag"? Highly improbable.

My view on what happened is that Gennett's recording engineer (Ezra
Wickemeyer) realised that Armstrong's fuller tone, particularly when using
mutes, recorded better than Oliver's and did indeed separate them. But by
nothing like the "15 feet" that Lil Hardin said. As James Lincoln Collier
has pointed out ("Louis Armstrong", 1983) Armstrong had been with the
Creole Jazz Band for some nine months when the recordings were made and it
is unlikely that he would not have learnt how to "measure" his playing to
Oliver's. 

Other relevant information that should be taken into consideration are Baby
Dodds' account of the recording session (given in Larry Gara, "The Baby
Dodds Story", 1959) - Armstrong was positioned behind Oliver but with
Johnny Dodds and Honore Dutray; and Armstrong's own, later, account given
to Phil Elwood (reported in Collier, 1983) - the band crowded around the
horn with Johnny Dodds in front and Armstrong standing a little behind Oliver.

Why has the "back in the door/15 feet" story been accepted for so long? It
certainly would have served Lil Hardin's plans for Louis in 1923 but its
survival to the present day is probably due to the sentimental romanticism
that accompanies the life of most great artists.

All the best
Anton