[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong birthday broadcast

[rahberry at comcast.net]

Louis knew when his real birthday was. He put August 4 on the form 
he filled out when he applied for a social security card. He did make himself 
a year older than he really was, however, probably for a work-related reason. 


Anyone can find his social security application on the internet. 
I gave a copy of this application to a musician friend in about 2001. He wrote 
an article about it which was published, with a photo of the application, in the 
Mississippi Rag, acknowledging me as the finder. 
-- Rae Ann 


www.sfraeann.com 
www.youtube.com/sfraeann 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Ringwald" <rsr at ringwald.com> 
To: rahberry at comcast.net 
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com> 
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 10:24:04 PM 
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong birthday broadcast 

Concert, Broadcast Honor Louis Armstrong on What He Thought Was His Birthday -- July 
4 
by Jim Beckerman 
Bergen Record, July 3, 2012 
"Born on the Fourth of July." A likely story. And yet it's been claimed by everyone 
from the hero of the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy" to Hollywood mogul Louis B. Mayer, 
who used to host big MGM studio picnics every July 4 to celebrate "his" birthday. 
Louis Armstrong really did believe he was born on the Fourth of July. 
It wasn't until years after the great jazzman's death in 1971 that newly recovered 
records established his actual birth date as Aug. 4, 1901 -- not July 4, 1900, as 
his mother had told him. 
This posed a problem for WKCR-FM (89.9), the Columbia University radio station, which 
beginning in 1970 had turned the 24-hour "Louis Armstrong Birthday Broadcast" into 
a July 4 tradition. 
John Philip Sousa might be the more popular July 4 soundtrack. But thousands of metro 
area jazz fans prefer Armstrong -- who is considered by many to be the true father 
of American music -- and blast "West End Blues" and "Struttin' With Some Barbecue" 
as they grill their July 4 hot dogs. What to do? 
These days WKCR hosts two birthday broadcasts -- one on Armstrong's actual birthday, 
Aug. 4, and one on his "traditional" birthday -- Wednesday. Armstrong, says Grammy-winning 
jazz expert and WKCR radio host Phil Schaap, is worth it. 
"I have often said on the radio that no one, including myself, has listened to enough 
Louis Armstrong," Schaap said in a 2004 interview. 
Armstrong -- who always insisted his first name was pronounced "Lewis" -- has been 
called one of the cornerstones, not just of jazz, but of American culture as well. 
The New Orleans-born trumpet player didn't invent jazz, true. But he turned the jazz 
solo into an art. He reinvented pop singing -- previously stiff and fake-operatic 
-- with his growly vocals, paving the way for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Axl 
Rose. And he elevated the idea of "swing" -- the lilt or groove that gives American 
music its kick -- to center stage. 
"Prior to him, musicians might have been a little bit stiff," says Teaneck drummer 
Chuck McPherson, who organized a "Louis Armstrong Is Forever" birthday concert at 
Teaneck's Puffin Foundation on Saturday. 
He'll be joined by Loren Daniels on piano and Reggie Pittman on trumpet, as they 
barrel through some of the great tunes in the Armstrong repertoire: "What a Wonderful 
World," "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," "When the Saints Go Marching In." 
"He loosened everybody up," McPherson says. "And he exposed African-American culture 
to the world. He was a cultural ambassador." 
McPherson had occasion to discover that himself. 
Originally from Michigan, he's a bop drummer (his father, alto sax-man Charles McPherson, 
played with Charles Mingus) who found himself, several years ago, touring Europe. 
The Wayne Shorter type of "modern" jazz they were playing wasn't going over. But 
Armstrong, he discovered, was a universal language. "All of a sudden, one night I 
said, 'Why don't we do a couple of Louis Armstrong tunes?'" McPherson recalls. "From 
that point on, we got a result. People loved it." 
Everyone loves Louis Armstrong. Even Louis loved Louis. Satchmo himself, Schaap learned, 
had been listening to the second "Louis Armstrong Birthday Broadcast" on July 4, 
1971, just 70 hours before his death. 
"Armstrong was having a Fourth of July party in his back yard," Schaap says. "They 
took the kitchen radio and just put it up on the garden wall. I guess it was good. 
He left it on, didn't he?" 
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