[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong book reviewed - Master of Modernism' by Thomas Brothers

[Marek Boym]

Armstron's statement  that "you needed a white man to get along" was
probably true in those days.  Sure, there were "black" labels, but hose
could not make a musician a star.  In order to become a star, a black
musician indeed neede a white promoter, whether we like it or not.  Hence,
saying that "Such details conform to the image of Armstrong as the docile
African-American" seem out fo the historical and sociological context.
Cheers


On 2 February 2014 20:32, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:

> Book Review: 'Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism' by Thomas Brothers.
> Norton, 594
> pages, $39.95.
> by David Freeland
> Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2014
> Last year the former Connie's Inn, at the corner of 131st Street and
> Seventh Avenue
> in Harlem, was torn down. The demolition of this landmark of 1920s jazz
> closed a
> rare window into the life of legendary trumpeter and cornetist Louis
> Armstrong, who
> performed there early in his career. Armstrong shaped his playing in
> response to
> the dynamics of space, and Connie's Inn, like many Prohibition-era clubs,
> was nestled
> in a tiny basement away from public view. Patrons, musicians and dancers
> all jostled
> together to a pulsing beat. Such spaces fostered the culture of
> improvisation and
> experiment that became standard in jazz -- and these qualities worked
> their way into
> the recordings now enshrined in the popular consciousness. Such discs
> stand on their
> own as artistic statements, but they only tell part of the story if we are
> going
> to understand the forces that gave rise to jazz as a performance medium.
> One of Thomas Brothers's goals in "Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism"
> is "to relate
> the recordings to what was going on nightly, in Armstrong's working gigs."
> In one
> especially fascinating section, he connects the jazz tradition of "breaks"
> -- brief
> instrumental solos carved out of a larger performance, accompanied by only
> the rhythm
> section -- to the stop-time effects used in African-American dance
> routines. In this
> way, Armstrong's "hot" trumpet solos, so much a part of his recorded
> legacy, tie
> in directly with the kinetic floor shows of Connie's Inn and other
> cabarets. During
> stop-time sequences, Armstrong and a dance team would riff together
> against a steady
> drumbeat, in an integration of music and movement that Mr. Brothers, a
> jazz historian
> and professor of music at Duke University, traces to African performance
> traditions.
> When discussing Armstrong's 1929 recording of "Ain't Misbehavin'," Mr.
> Brothers describes
> the vocal as "barking, explosive," in contrast to a softer, "mellow"
> quality that
> the artist had been cultivating on discs. What accounts for the
> difference? At the
> time, Armstrong was in the midst of delivering this song nightly to signal
> the end
> of a noisy intermission, from the pit of Broadway's Hudson Theater, during
> his stint
> in the African-American musical show "Hot Chocolates." Mr. Brothers notes:
> "We can
> only imagine how loudly he had to sing to get everyone's attention and be
> heard.
> There was certainly no microphone."
> Mr. Brothers follows the germ of creation as it moved from the outside
> world -- cabarets,
> nightclubs and theaters -- into the bounded realm of the studio. There it
> was transformed
> by many factors: a three-minute time limit, engineers who positioned the
> musicians
> in unfamiliar configurations and, in the years before electric recording,
> the need
> for players to direct their solos into a large, stationary megaphone. But
> in time
> these recordings, first issued as breakable platters of shellac, became
> the sole
> surviving witnesses to the jazz miracle and, because of their adaptability
> to new
> technologies, continued to offer "priceless access to a monumental musical
> achievement."
> They are, as Mr. Brothers notes, a stilted portrait: "Commercial
> recordings were
> merely a sideshow for Armstrong, while for us they are the main event." In
> the overall
> context of music making, we should understand them as an "entwined
> supplement," one
> that captures Armstrong's melodic invention, if not his onstage vitality
> and presence.
> Conceived as a follow-up to his 2006 "Louis Armstrong's New Orleans,"
> which drew
> similar connections between music and the larger environment, Mr.
> Brothers's book
> is less a conventional biography than a rigorous work of social and
> musicological
> analysis, organized chronologically. It centers on the years between 1922
> and 1932,
> when the young musician, raised in poverty in New Orleans, traveled to
> Chicago and
> New York and slowly, through a combination of hard work and talent, forged
> a reputation
> as one of the greatest players in jazz. General readers may find the many
> references
> to chords, intervals and "harmonic dislocations" challenging, but Mr.
> Brothers makes
> a good argument for their inclusion: "A precise investigation of musical
> style can
> demonstrate how music accomplishes cultural work at a very deep level,
> deep enough
> for long-lasting results."
> Such a rarefied approach has drawbacks, though. Mr. Brothers situates
> Armstrong's
> musical performances within their socio-historical context but does not
> always illumine
> what those same performances may be able to tell us about Armstrong as a
> human being.
> We read about the artist's "flexibility of mind" and "musical and social
> intelligence"
> but gain little understanding about how those qualities informed his life
> choices.
> As a result, Louis Armstrong in this account remains a somewhat elusive
> figure, even
> as his artistic world is depicted with clarity and precision.
> The chasm between artist and man is widest when Mr. Brothers tries to make
> sense
> of Armstrong's contradictions with regard to race. At times, Armstrong
> could be intrepid,
> even foolish: On one occasion, in 1931, he dedicated a live performance of
> "I'll
> Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You" to the Memphis policemen, seated
> in the
> audience at the elegant Peabody Hotel, who had arrested him the night
> before for
> talking to a white woman in the front seats of his band's chartered bus.
> But more
> often he was accommodating. He appeared in racist films for Paramount in
> 1932 and
> once remarked that "you needed a white man to get along." Such details
> conform to
> the image of Armstrong as the docile African-American and would later make
> him the
> target of scholarly and intellectual opprobrium. In the end, Mr. Brothers
> implies,
> the most judicious way to approach Louis Armstrong is through his music.
> The ultimate value of "Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism," which may
> best be read
> in connection with Terry Teachout's more biographical and accessible
> "Pops" (2009),
> lies in its presentation of the artistic enterprise. Armstrong excelled in
> manipulation
> of the "fixed and variable model," through which the melody dips and
> circles in relation
> to a solid, unchanging base. Mr. Brothers mirrors this relationship in the
> structure
> of his book: The "fixed" historical context, uncovered so painstakingly,
> is offset
> by the "variable," free-ranging interpretation of Armstrong's music. What
> made Armstrong
> modern was his ability to combine the most lucent elements from African
> and European
> traditions, creating in the process a new American music that, like all
> great art,
> both reflects its era and transcends it.
> __________
> Mr. Freeland is the author of "Ladies of Soul" and "Automats, Taxi Dances
> and Vaudeville:
> Excavating Manhattan's Lost Places of Leisure."
> -30
>
>
> -Bob Ringwald K6YBV
> www.ringwald.com
> 916/ 806-9551
>
> "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."
> --Lawrence Peter (Yogi) Berra
>
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz
> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>