[Dixielandjazz] "Louis Armstrong: Jazz Ambassador" reviewed

Robert Ringwald rsr at ringwald.com
Sat Nov 10 20:28:41 PST 2012


Trumpeter's Voice, Onstage and Beyond
by Laurel Graeber
New York Times, November 8, 2012
One of Louis Armstrong's best-known hits is "What a Wonderful World." In "Louis Armstrong:
Jazz Ambassador," now playing at Theater 3, Jeremy Giraud Abram, in the title role,
sings it, while behind him a montage of projected images shows the Jim Crow South:
whites-only facilities, a boy in a Ku Klux Klan costume and a sign that reads, "Southern
Whites Are the Negroes' Best Friends, but No Integration." The world Armstrong lived
in was often far from wonderful.
Presented by Making Books Sing, an organization creating theater for family audiences,
"Louis Armstrong," directed by Carlos Armesto, explores the intersection of the happy
universe of Armstrong's music and the more turbulent one in which his work was heard.
While Making Books Sing usually adapts children's books, this production, intended
for ages 8 and older -- and just as entertaining to adults -- draws on the archives
of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, which collaborated on the show with the Aaron
Copland School of Music at Queens College. The Queens College Hot Six, a jazz ensemble,
plays with verve onstage, where some theatergoers can sit at tables, as if in a club.
And what an important gig. Myla Churchill's script soon makes it clear that Armstrong
(1901-71) has arrived at the gates of heaven to defend his life. So Mr. Abram, in
a tour de force solo performance, channels not only Armstrong's voice but also those
of his music teacher, his manager, his wives (there were four), a disdainful Sammy
Davis Jr. and even Orval Faubus, the segregationist governor of Arkansas from 1955
to 1967. Mr. Abram doesn't really play trumpet, but he sings, scats and dances magnificently,
calling on several audience members to join him.
But Armstrong offered more than good times. Incensed by efforts to stop the integration
of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957, he canceled a government-sponsored
tour to the Soviet Union and in a newspaper interview excoriated not only Governor
Faubus but also President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The episode created an international
stir, increasing pressure on Eisenhower to send federal troops to Little Rock.
Ms. Churchill explains the history well but bogs down when she backtracks to Armstrong's
controversial blackface performance as king of the Zulus in the 1949 New Orleans
Mardi Gras. Although the incident adds balance to the portrait, the shift proves
disorienting and undercuts the moral triumph she's just established.
Still, Armstrong emerges as much more than a jazz artist. He knew how to swing, but
he also knew how to shout.
-30



-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
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