[Dixielandjazz] Armstrong

[Steve Barbone]

 Marek Boym <nmboym at 012.net.il>
 
> Hello Listmates
> During his "All Stars" years, Armstrong made excellent recordings of many
> songs not usually in his repertoire.
> For his "Musical Authobiography" he recorded many of the Hot Five, Hot 7 and
> big band numbers; with the Dukes of Dixieland he recorded "Dixie," "Washington
> and Lee Swing," etc.  On his Tribute to King Oliver (later reissued by Audio
> fidelity as "The Best of Louis Armstrong"), he recorded Dr. Jazz and othe
> Oliver-related tunes, and "My Old Kentucky Home" (giving as a reason - "Joe
> Oliver might have played it.").  Yet, with the All Stars, he played an
> unchanging repertoire of standards, plus some hits he added, such as "Hello,
> Dolly," "Mack the Knife" and "The Happy Hussar."  Does anybody know why?

Dear Marek:

My guess would be that he did so because that is the program to which the
audience responded. Prior to his formation of the All Stars, circa 1947, his
16 piece band was getting about $350 to $600 per performance and the
audiences were sparse. The All Stars changed that dramatically.

After 1947, his single performance rate escalated past $4000 for 6 or 7
piece band as, for the most part, the audience came out in droves. I think
Louis Armstrong realized he had an audience winning formula of "good old
good ones", mixed with current pop hits and just stuck with it. He was
certainly audience driven.

He was doing mostly road concerts, over 300 per year, and the audiences were
new each time. So why change the formula that worked? Listen to the European
audience response on "Ambassador Satch" as an example.

His audiences in Australia dwarfed those in the USA. Like 20 concerts in 10
days, all sell-outs with audiences from 12,000 to 26,000.

Funny thing is that many purists scoff at a tune like "Hello Dolly". I've
always wondered why, as the song contains some fine Louis improvisation.
Perhaps because to the purist, it is politically correct to scoff at Louis
and pop tunes? Now that's even funnier because all those "Dixieland" bands
of the 20s and 30s played pop tunes and yet those same purists revere them
as "Art". 

Cheers,
Steve Barbone