[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong

[Steve Voce]

Poor old James Lincoln C was metaphorically beaten up by the Ellington community when he produced a book on Duke
which was, shall we say, highly controversial.

Steve Voce


On 13/09/2011 08:33, Eric Holroyd wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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