[Dixielandjazz] Willie "The Lion" (was Louis Armstrong)

[Marek Boym]

The African-American
> stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith, born four years before Satchmo, described
> his own ancestry as French, Spanish, Negro and Mohawk Indian, calling himself "an
> American pianist" in the subtitle of his autobiography.

Wille "The Lion's" business card read, inter alia, "Yiddishe Cantor."
He could speak Yiddish, as he proved on an RCA record.

Cheers

> The linkages and mixtures favored by Armstrong and the others pervade our past. A
> son of Irish immigrants, Mayor John Hynes of Boston slyly undercut fantasies of purity
> half a century ago in introducing at a rally the first Jew to become mayor of Dublin.
> "We have here with us two fine fellows -- an Irishman and a Jew," he told the crowd.
> "I give him to you now, Lord Mayor Robert Briscoe."
> Satchmo would have agreed in his consistent opposition to barriers that divide us
> into separate categories.
> As he told a group of journalists who challenged his inclusion of Israel on a tour
> of the Mideast with his All Stars, "Let me tell you something, man. That horn. You
> see that horn? That horn ain't prejudiced. A note's a note in any language."
> __________
> George Bornstein is a professor of literature emeritus at the University of Michigan
> and author of the book "The Colors of Zion: Blacks, Jews, and Irish 1845-1945," from
> Harvard University Press.
>
>
> --Bob Ringwald
> www.ringwald.com
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
> 530/ 642-9551 Office
> 916/ 806-9551 Cell
> Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV
>
> An Irish Man is sitting in the pub with his wife and he says, "I love you."
> She asks, "Is that you or the beer talking?"
> He replies, "It's me talking to the beer."
>
>
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