[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong

[Eric Holroyd]

I recently acquired a copy of ‘Louis Armstrong’ by James Lincoln Collier – a
book which bears upon its cover ‘Well researched, informative, perceptive,
gripping... A very, very good book. Humphrey Lyttelton’.

My copy was published in 1985 by Pan Books Ltd. Cavaye Place, London SW10
9PG. England.

It certainly does appear to be ‘well researched’ and I very much enjoyed the
stories about Louis that I had not previously heard.

And the author confirms that Louis preferred his name to be pronounced
correctly, ie with the ‘s’ being sounded (as in Lewis). He apparently didn’t
like being
called ‘Louie’.

What I didn’t care for was the clinical dissection of most of his recordings
and the often flowery prose used to describe them.

On page 292 his recording of ‘The Music Goes Round and Around’  is described
thus:

...he plays two high happy choruses with an easy swing, free of half-valving
and other excesses. In the third bar he introduces a sawtoothed fillip on
the first beat, a parallel one on the fourth beat, once again shifting the
meter, and follows this with a dark, woody downward plunge, which contrast
neatly with the airy paraphrase of the previous chorus.

I am no stranger to the beautiful English language, but have difficulty in
understanding the terms ‘sawtoothed fillip’ and ‘airy paraphrase’ in the
context of a jazz solo.

I’d be happy to have them explained to me by someone more erudite...

I have been unable to learn anything about James Lincoln Collier apart from
what is shown about him on Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lincoln_Collier

He is apparently widely known as a writer of children’s books, and has also
written biographies of other well known musicians.

The Wikipedia description ends with ‘In addition to his writing, Collier is
an accomplished jazz musician who plays the trombone professionally.’

He does mention in the Louis book about his playing trombone and being a
working musician.

But I've been unable to find any more detail about his musicality.

I'm particularly interested in that aspect, as he makes ridiculous
statements about 'Cornet Chop Suey' when discussing the Hot Five recordings.

On page 173 he says:

(Cornet Chop Suey) It opens with a four-bar a cappella introduction by
Armstrong, a good example of his method. It begins with a series of triplet
figures patterned after the standard clarinet chorus of 'High Society'
developed by Alphonse Picou, except that where the Picou figures proceed
upward in a regular fashion, Armstrong's rise and then fall.

What utter rubbish!

The four-bar introduction does indeed start with a triplet with six quavers 
completing that bar, then follow two bars of eight quavers each, then the 
last bar has three crotchets and a crotchet rest. To my musically educated 
ears, the only similarity with Picou's solo is the first five notes of the 
first bar!

NB: I'm using the British note values terminology - with which I grew up - 
in preference to the American ones of: Whole note; half note; quarter note, 
sixteenth note etc.  Quaver being an eighth note and Crotchet being a 
quarter note.

Then follows the sixteen bar verse, which contains not a single triplet.

The very next (and only) triplet occurs in Bar 8 of the 32 bar chorus.

Then follows a 4 bar banjo and bass interlude with leads into Louis' solo on 
the first half of the final chorus - which contains no triplets at all, nor 
does it resemble Picou's High Society solo in the least.

There is ONE more triplet, and that occurs on the 7th bar of the second half 
of the final chorus and that's it!

Even Louis' magnificent 8 bar coda doesn't have a triplet in it.

So what is Mr Collier going on about with his 'series of triplet figures'?

This makes me think that he is much more a student of English than he is of 
music, in fact I felt so let down when reading through his Cornet Chop Suey 
dissertation that it de-valued the rest of the book, and I began to wonder 
how much of that was a figment of Mr Collier's imagination...

There are many similar dissections of various solos, and frankly they became 
boring to me as I viewed them with suspicion after reading the Cornet Chop 
Suey one.

Frankly I'm surprised at Humphrey Lyttleton's glowing front cover 
recommendation of this book and wonder how many people bought it on the 
strength of that?

Finallyl, If anyone wants a PDF of Cornet Chop Suey from me just ask.

But be warned. I DO expect people who email me to observe the Netiquette 
requested in every issue of DJML by Bob Ringwald.

In other words, only include in your email to me those parts which are 
relevant to your message.

Any emails I receive which contain ALL of my original post will be deleted 
unread.

I can't abide laziness in emailing any more than I could when playing jazz.

Eric Holroyd

Sydney, Australia