[Dixielandjazz] Brian Harker interviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Exploring Louis Armstrong's Hot, Sweet Musical Stylings
by Ben Fulton
Salt Lake Tribune, May 22, 2011
Brian Harker spent 15 years on and off studying and researching his new book, "Louis
Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings," published last month by Oxford University
Press.
Dipping into this book, it's easy to conclude that Harker, a professor of music at
Brigham Young University, could have spent another 15 years on the project, so deep
is his interest in the jazz legend's musical legacy.
Harker's book explores the music, more than the life, of the jazz trumpeter, and
it serves as an amiable companion to Terry Teachout's biography of last year, "Pops:
A Life of Louis Armstrong." Some of Harker's volume might be best digested by specialists,
as evidenced by many references to Armstrong's distinctive way with trumpet valves.
"Everyone can grasp the joyous sound in his playing from an almost any period in
his long career," said Harker from his Utah County home. "He's loaded with charisma.
You can hear it in his playing, his singing and his banter with audiences. That never
changed.... His attitude was that he wanted to please as many people as possible
with his music."
Q: What led you to study the music of Louis Armstrong?
A: Scholars generally try to think of the most interesting questions, and those questions
usually revolve around origins. Louis Armstrong is the granddaddy of them all. So
here was this extremely important figure, and there were dissertations that treated
him tangentially, but not one single dissertation on him solely or centrally. It
was a project crying out to be done, I think.
Q: Did that surprise you?
A: No. At the same time I started my graduate work, jazz graduate studies was just
cranking up. My adviser, Mark Tucker [professor of jazz studies at Columbia University],
did the first dissertation on Duke Ellington, and I was just about to start my dissertation
on Louis Armstrong. Today, though, I would be very surprised, because we've had 20
years of steady production in jazz scholarship since.
Q: What about the origins of his musical style most surprised you?
A: He modeled his early virtuoso playing on the clarinet style. His style was more
acrobatic, with a florid arpeggiating style. Then in the 1920s he started collaborating
with a husband-and-wife dance team. He'd play note-for-note with their dance steps.
Traditionally, the trumpet player's role was to play a variation on the melody. He
transferred the active style of clarinet style to his own playing. What I explore
in great detail was the way he assimilated the multiple styles of the day, both "hot"
and "sweet" style. "Hot" was more rhythmically intense. "Sweet" was more buttoned-down
and reserved, and more associated with white players. Armstrong was trying to bring
these elements together, fusing these styles.
Q: You say that Armstrong's talent was "transformative," rather than creating new
music out of whole cloth. What about his transformative talent set it apart from
other transformative talents?
A: He established basic dimensions of a new approach in jazz improvisation and a
set of expressive devices. Rhythmically, he provided the prototype for the entire
swing era, and the way jazz rhythm should function. He's the Beethoven of jazz. He's
the seminal figure everyone came out of. Armstrong was central to the development
of flexible and wide-ranging improvisation styles that did not exist before his time.
All the great players -- Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, Roy Eldridge,
Terry James -- and virtually anybody who distinguished themselves as a soloist during
the 1930s and beyond owed a debt to him.
Q: When jazz music fans are likely to reach first for a Miles Davis or John Coltrane
album, what do you suggest to people who have never listened to Louis Armstrong?
A: I play "What a Wonderful World" to my music classes, a song in which he's not
even playing the trumpet. When you ask to see who doesn't know that song, not a single
hand goes up. He's interesting because he has this egghead appeal, but later on appealed
to a much bigger audience. I'd recommend anyone start with what I believe are probably
his five best recorded songs: "Big Butter and Egg Man" from 1926, "Potatohead Blues"
from 1927, "West End Blues" from 1928, "Weather Bird" from 1928 and, finally, "I
Got a Right to Sing the Blues" from 1933.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
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916/ 806-9551 Cell
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