[Dixielandjazz] Armstrong & Jazz

[Stephen G Barbone]

> Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
>
> It might be my obstinacy, but I have not noticed that Armstrong ever
> stopped playing jazz - until he had to stop playing and could only
> sing (like "The Wonderful World").  Sure, he turned out top ten hits,
> such as "Mack the Knife" or "Hello Dolly," but to say they were not
> jazz would be far fetched.
> And yes, occasionally he did show in non-jazz contescts from time to
> time (I went to see a lousy film "The Beat Generation" because of
> Armstrong, and he sang a lousy number "Oh You Beat Generation"), but
> those were just deviations.

Dear Marek:

I am not taking sides here, but there are a fair number of fans and  
musicians here in the USA that claim Armstrong first stopped  
innovating in a jazz sense from about 1935 forward, give or take a few  
years. Then secondly, they will claim that he stopped creating solos,  
but rather repeated his previous work. Etc., etc., etc.

Some will claim that Hello Dolly, Blueberry Hill, Give Me a Kiss to  
Build a Dream On etc., are not real jazz but simply a sort of jazzy  
version of Pop. They claim there is a difference. They then go on to  
say that with the All Stars from 1947 on, he simply repeated what he  
had been playing in the past. And to those folks, that's not jazz  
either.

Are they right or wrong? Who cares. Folks like you and I will always  
find some genius in whatever Armstrong did.

However, like those who fault Armstrong for supposedly not playing  
jazz, you and I will disagree about John Coltrane or Miles Davis, whom  
you say do not play jazz but rather just make noise. <grin>

Kind of the same stuff, just a different day.

Cheers,