Louis Armstrong & His All Stars - booklet.pdf

(1983 KB) Pobierz

July 6. 1971, and it was impossible to believe that Louis

Armstrong was dead. Musicians and Jazz lovers alike felt a

sense of desperate personal loss, which to this day is undimin-

ished. For Louis Armstrong seemed, somehow, to be immortal.

And it was impossible that his trumpet, which had showered

Jazz with musical gifts of unaccountable worth was stilled,

that the generous man from New Orleans, whose love of life

and humankind was inexhaustible had finally had to go away for

ever. “Guys like Louis were part of my history”, Bobby Hackett

told Max Jones (Melody Maker June 19, 76) “and so a little of

you dies with’em each time. You can’t help but feel like that”.

And so, with recordings like these we can return with love to a

younger day and for a little time live with Louis again.

On this beautifully recorded LP, Louis Armstrong and his All-

Stars are heard doing what they loved and did best; playing Jazz

of a quality that defies description and, as Louis would have

said “pleasing the people”. There’s proof to spare that “pleas-

ing the people” was fundamental to Louis; a pointer to the deep

compassion for mankind which he felt and which brought him

as much love as his consummate faultless artistry as a trumpet

player. And for this writer at least, the two characteristics are

inter-dependent.

It’s inevitable perhaps that since Armstrong’s death critics (and

even some musicians) have cast doubts upon the genuinity of

his apparently inexhaustible love of life, and snatched upon

isolated disenchanted remarks and bursts of temper as indica-

tions that Armstrong was really just another mortal, filled with

pent-up frustrations and carefully concealed disenchantment

with his role. A considered look at the large part of Armstrong’s

existence, however, leads this writer to view such opinions with

(as Humphrey Lyttleton once termed it) a large hunk of rock salt.

Louis Armstrong happened to be, quite arguably, the greatest

trumpeter of his time in the world blessed with a technique that

enabled him to exercise his unbounded musical inspiration to

the full. The artistic fulfilment he must have derived from such a

situation, coupled with a natural good spirit filled him, I suspect,

with the kind of love of life that few lesser mortals experience.

And if, as has been suggested, he appeared sometimes to be approachable but impenetrable this was,

conceivably, because the joy of consummate talent – like that heard in these recordings – made deep rev-

elations of hidden feelings redundant. For simply – beyond peaceful self-satisfaction – there were none

to reveal. And it’s significant, I think, that the few much vaunted Armstrong outbursts made themselves

felt only when advancing age and deteriorating health threw a late and unaccustomed question mark over

his physical ability to play as he knew he was once able.

These recordings, happily, capture Louis and his cohorts at the glorious height of their powers during two

engagements (broadcast from the Downbeat and Hangover clubs in San Francisco) of the kind that often

formed the All-Stars’ nightly round. The band pursued a punishing schedule of dates that stretched their

physical and mental powers to the ultimate and frequently left every member exhausted, though seldom

uninspired. Guttridge and Smith (in their 1960 biography “Jack

Teagarden”)

have described the “stretches

of hollow showmanship, vexing periods of dullness, sleazy hotels and noisy audiences” that assailed the

All-Stars during their Teagarden-Hines period. But this later unit, paradoxically, seemed to thrive on the

pressures of constant travel. “This band plays best when it’s tired”, Trummy Young observed once and

there’ a joyful urgency in the music recorded here that makes a mockery of fatigue or over-familiarity.

Seldom, if ever, have Armstrong and his All-Stars been captured in more exultant form.

Besides Louis’ stellar work throughout, the musicians accompanying him on this recording arguably

formed the greatest All-Stars ever. In Trummy Young, Armstrong found the perfect foil; a tough durable

professional, not only a brilliant Jazzman in his own right, but the only trombonist partner whose on-stage

presence and sense of humour matched Louis’ own. And because Barney Bigard and Billy Kyle as well as

being outstanding soloists understood the (equally difficult) art of ensemble playing, the All-Stars mark

2 achieved a cohesion seldom found in the Teagarden-Hines era. Listen to ‘Back

O’Town Blues’

for con-

firmation. And it was of course these musicians who contributed so largely to recorded jazz history with

(amongst others) the W.C. Handy album (which Louis regarded as “my finest ever”), a comparable follow-

up in ‘Satch plays Fats’, and the immortal performances that graced Hollywood’s

Glenn Miller Story.

From the roars of applause that greet Louis Armstrong, every track on this album reveals the All-Stars at

the zenith of their creative powers. ‘Indiana’ the standard Louis ‘opener’ presented with a flaring urgency,

highlighted by an exultant trumpet solo is outstanding even by Armstrong standards. Renewed applause

greets Velma Middleton who mugs happily through ‘Big

Butter and Egg Man’

before Louis’ climbing trum-

pet leads the ensemble home. ‘High

Society’

with outstanding Bigard again reveals the staggering form

that Armstrong was in that night; listen, for proof, to the whiplash top C, held with luxuriant confidence for

several bars over the clarinet solo. Elsewhere there is a carefree humour, notably on ‘The

Dummy Song’

(really ‘Washington and Lee Swing’ and, incredibly, popularised in Britain my Max Bygraves and Peter

Brough), and the ‘Saints’, which shows in a nutshell how to mix hilarity and jazz of monumental worth.

Such performances as this are seminal to Jazz. They deserve the loving attention of Jazz people every-

where. For, like Louis Armstrong, music like this will never come again.

Shadrack