[Dixielandjazz] Satchmo '69-'71

[Phil Person]

Hello all,

I'm a life long Louis nut so I thought I'd chime in on his playing  
during the '69-'71 period. On the 10/28/69 session, his only 1969 gig,  
Pops recorded "We Have All The Time In The World" for the James Bond  
movie soundtrack. At the same session he recorded a new arrangement of  
"Pretty Little Missy", which was only released as a single. He plays a  
half chorus trumpet solo, the first half of the 2nd chorus. I view it  
as triumphant in that he'd almost died twice early in the year. He'd  
been out of the hospital for a little over 6 months. As soon as he was  
feeling better he started practicing the trumpet. The half chorus is  
beautiful & although he's somewhat weakened, he struggles a bit with a  
high concert A, B on the trumpet, there's no mistaking who's playing.  
There's a photo from the session in which you see that he's got his  
horn. In early '70 he started making TV appearances again. By the way,  
this session took place in New York, not London. The first day,  
1/13/70, he was on the Today show. He played & sang "Someday" back up  
by a big band. That night he appeared on the Dick Cavett show &  
performed "Someday" again as well as the new version of "Pretty Little  
Missy". I've never heard the Today show appearance but the two tunes  
from the Cavett show were on a CD on the Moon label called "Someday".  
He's really having a hard time on the Cavett show, barely able to play  
G above the staff(concert F). He's having trouble just producing a  
tone. He clearly wasn't ready to be performing on the horn at that  
point. He kept practicing at home but didn't play in pubic again until  
Sept. of '70, when he shared the bill in Las Vegas with Pearl Bailey.  
He had his All Stars back with him & it was a two week engagement. The  
following month he appeared on the Johnny Cash show, singing a medley  
of 2 tunes he had recorded two months earlier on his last studio  
album," Louis "Country & Western" Armstrong". Then he sat down with  
Johnny & they recreated Louis' 1930 recording with Jimmie Rogers,  
"Blue Yodel #9". Pops plays behind Cash & sounds beautiful, reminds  
one of his old blues accompaniments from the 20's. At the end of the  
month he & his trombonist Tyree Glenn flew to London to play at a  
benefit for the Playing Fields association put on by the royal family,  
hosted by David Frost, also featuring Tony Bennett. A film was shot at  
the rehearsal & performance called "Boy From New Orleans". You see &  
hear Pops playing in his hotel room, at the rehearsal playing a solo  
on "Dolly", which cuts away after the first half of the solo, & the  
new version of "Missy", on which he plays a half chorus. He sounds  
good at the rehearsal. After that you see & hear him playing in the  
Dressing room. There are only two clips from the performance that he  
plays on. At the beginning he's playing "Sleepy Time". Sometime later  
on "Dolly" he's clearly run out of steam as he gives Tyree the lead &  
plays with his back to the audience. He did 2 more weeks in Vegas at  
the end of Dec. '70 & the beginning of Jan.'71 with the All Stars &  
from all accounts things ran smoothly. On 1/20/71 he taped an  
appearance on the David Frost show that aired on 2/10/71. He played on  
"Sleepy Time" & on his duet with Tyree on "That's My Desire", a  
straight mute obbligato to Tyree's vocal. On 2/22/71, a week before  
his last engagement began,he appeared on the Cavett show with most of  
his All Stars plus a couple of ringers, Milt Hinton & Jo Jones, &  
played "Ole Miss" & "Sleepy Time". I saw the video of this at the  
Armstrong Archives at Queens College plus I had previously heard the  
audio quite a few times. His doctors were warning him at this point  
that he could drop dead while playing as his condition was  
deteriorating. It's almost as if "Ole Miss" is an act of defiance  
because he goes into the upper register a bit. It's clearly very hard  
for him but he manages one of his patented endings, holding the high  
concert Ab & sliding up to C at the end, Bb & D respectively on the  
trumpet. At the end of "Ole Miss" he can't move & he waits for Tyree &  
Dick Cavett to help him. His last TV appearance is on the Tonight Show  
with Johnny Carson on 3/1/71, the night before his last engagement  
began, which was two weeks at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. I heard  
the audio at the Armstrong Archives. He does the new version of  
"Missy" with a half chorus trumpet solo. After being interviewed he  
does "Blueberry Hill". He has his All Stars with him, Tyree, Joe  
Muranyi, Mart Napoleon, with Arvell Shaw & Danny Barcelona back on  
board. His solo on "Missy" sounds good. You should read my friend  
Ricky Riccardi's book on Louis that came out last year, "What a  
Wonderful World-The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years". It's  
excellent. Ricky is the archivist at the Armstrong Archives & also has  
an excellent blog on Pops. The Jos Willems discography, "All Of Me",  
is excellent as well. I'm attaching the Johnny Cash appearance, taped  
in Nashville on 10/10/70. I hope this was helpful.

Best wishes,
Phil Person



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