[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong book reviewed

[Joe Carbery]

You could also object to his bad English. "Unique" cannot be qualified (as
in "one of the most unique".) Something or someone is either unique or not.
There are no gradations.

Regards,

Joe Carbery.

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:

> I don't agree with the last paragraph.
>
> --Bob Ringwald
>
>
> "What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years." Ricky
> Riccardi.
> Pantheon, 400 pp., $28.95.
> by Benjamin Ivry
> Newark Star-Ledger, June 26, 2011
> Toms River resident and pianist Ricky Riccardi launched a blog (
> http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/
>  ) to express his love for Louis Armstrong and works as project archivist
> for the
> Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens.
> Riccardi has drawn from this archival material to explain the mature
> Armstrong, whose
> performances were often criticized by jazz purists. Compared to
> genre-defining 1920s
> and '30s recordings with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, Armstrong's
> hits from
> the 1960s (such as "Hello, Dolly!" and the pop song adopted as this book's
> title)
> are Satchmo being Satchmo, not a founding father of jazz. Riccardi stresses
> that
> such late records still offer delights, and Armstrong's jazz ensembles in
> the 1950s
> also produced superb material.
> This may seem obvious to Louis-lovers everywhere, but Riccardi quotes
> contemporary
> journalists dismissing Armstrong as "shoddy jazz" and "vaudeville." Even
> colleague
> Dizzy Gillespie called Armstrong a "plantation character." Yet the serious
> Armstrong
> comes through clearly here, as a ferocious opponent of segregation during
> the 1957
> Little Rock crisis: "When I see on television and read about a crowd in
> Arkansas
> spitting on a little colored girl -- I think I have a right to get sore."
> Riccardi delivers a valuable account, marred only by an introduction full
> of meaningless
> banalities ("one of the most unique human beings to ever grace the planet")
> and sloppy
> English.
>
>
> --Bob Ringwald
> www.ringwald.com
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
> 530/ 642-9551 Office
> 916/ 806-9551 Cell
> Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV
>
> "Politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason."
>
>
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