Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism

by Thomas Brothers

  102Cornet Chop Suey begins: The recording (Aug. 29, 1922) of Bugle Call Rag by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings begins with a solo bugle call. The recording (1921) of Bugle Blues by Johnny Dunn’s Jazz Hounds is slower and does not begin with a solo, but the later (March 26, 1928) Original Bugle Blues by Johnny Dunn and His Band has the solo introduction. Williams never recorded Bugle Blues.

  102Armstrong did him one better: Brothers 2006, 265; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 23; Jackson 2005, 42.

  102To call a piece Clarinet Marmalade … widely shared pleasure: Defender, Jan. 6, 1923, p. 4; Taylor 1987, 47. Chinese food every night: Hinton IJS 1976.

  103“Improving my position” … the German guy as student”: Garland WRC 1958; Russell 1994, 95 and 111. Noone WRC 1938; Dance 1977, 194; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 78. Peyton: Defender, Jan. 29, 1927, p. 6. Reeves FDC 1956. Ory: Russell 1994, 181; Ory HJA 1957.

  104This kind of training … classically trained girlfriend: Marable: Brothers 2006, 252; Russell 1994, 30.

  104Kimball Hall was … in 1925 and 1926: Warehouse: My thanks to Deborah Gillaspie for her help with this. Kimball Hall is #6 on this drawing: http://uic.edu/depts/ahaa/imagebase/intranet/chiviews/page173.html. Coverage: Defender, March 26, 1921; Light and Heebie Jeebies, Sept. 24, 1927, p. 18. Mrs. Gray: Defender, Oct. 31, 1925, p. 5, and April 1, 1922, p. 5. Hersal and George Thomas: Defender, March 26, 1921, p. 9; see also March 26, 1921, p. 4; April 23, 1921, p. 5 (with a German teacher named Adolph Weidig); June 10, 1922, p. 5; July 17, 1926, p. 6. For more on Hersal Thomas, see Taylor 1993, 75–76. It is possible that Armstrong’s lessons at Kimball Hall happened later, when he joined Erskine Tate.

  104Jones did say that Oliver studied harmony: Jones WRC ca. 1938. On Armstrong’s command of solfège, see Randolph FDC 1973; Nicholas HJA 1972.

  104Armstrong said that he learned … eye of his fiancée: “wood shed”: Armstrong 1936, 71; Ramsey 1939, 125. Anxious: Armstrong, Lillian WRC 1938. Confidence: Armstrong, Lillian 1950.

  105There are stories … picnics at St. Thomas Episcopal: “Cute guys”: Brothers 2009, 26. Davis 1990, 60.

  105Cornet Chop Suey is a showpiece … the New Orleans–Chicago train line: “We were all very fast”: Armstrong 1999, 133. “He’s showing off”: Barker 1986, 59. Brian Harker (2011, chap. 1) has explored a number of issues raised by this statement, and works with them in ways different than I do here. I find his insights into clarinet style as an alternative idiom for Armstrong useful (and I would extend those with consideration of Armstrong’s history playing “second,” which naturally involved more figuration; see Brothers 2009). But I think he exaggerates the importance of the clarinet as an obvious aural reference in Armstrong’s construction of the piece, which ultimately leads him to see Cornet Chop Suey as a demonstration of novelty.

  106Lil and Louis had each … musically and romantically: Sweet Lovin’ Man: Chevan 1999, 249–51, traces the history of this piece, with its various titles, copyright deposits, coauthors, and recordings. I Wish I Could Shimmy: Brothers 2006, 228.

  106Musicians in their circle … no reason to doubt Noone: “Have you got any”: Oliver WRC 1930. Noone in Dodds WRC ca. 1938.

  107Armstrong once mused … paraphrases popular tunes: “there will be other tunes”: Morgenstern 1965, 18. “no one created”: Armstrong 1999, 38, 65. What did he mean by this: The question is raised by Gushee 1998, 292, which is one basis for the present discussion.

  107My guess is … this kind of appropriation, too: Wright 1987, 250–58, provides a list and discussion of Oliver’s compositions. Morton and Oliver: Foster 2005, 96; Wright 1987, 340.

  107Recordings for Gennett and OKeh did not generate much cash: Kenney 1999, 118.

  108This was the chain … Lil’s and Louis’s compositions: He remembered: Armstrong 1999, 132. “We were”: Dodds 1992, 36.

  109Lillian said that … he bragged: “all the fancy runs”: Armstrong, Lillian WRC 1938; Armstrong, Louis WRC 1939; Miller HJA 1959; Jones WRC ca. 1938. “They came up whistling”: Dodds 1992, 62. Bunk Johnson: Gleason 1961, 83, 86. Ory-Oliver band: Oliver HJA 1959. De Pass: De Pass HJA 1960. Jackson: Jackson 2005, 20 and 31; Jackson HJA 1958; Jackson WRC 1938.

  110“The thing that makes jazz so interesting”: Leonard 1987, 102.

  110how much that played out in Cornet Chop Suey: Regarding the precision of chronology here, Lil told the story of Armstrong whistling different ways at different times. In the earliest version, as told to Bill Russell in 1938, she links the whistling to his frustration in playing Oliver’s solo for Dipper Mouth Blues.

  110“She didn’t want me to copy Joe”: Jones and Chilton 1971, 76.

  111Each section is different in this way: The opening two bars of Armstrong’s patter section were anticipated in his contribution, as second cornetist, to the end of Buddy’s Habit, recorded in October.

  112He throws in harmonic variety: The diminished chord G-sharp, B, D occurs in m. 49 of Chevan’s transcription (1997, 300).

  112“Where’s that lead?”: Armstrong quoting Oliver in Morgenstern 1965, 17.

  113Armstrong married … at 38th and Indiana: Parisian gown: Defender, Feb. 16, 1924, p. 9. Jackson: Jackson 2005, 59. Rice: Armstrong 1999, 65. Rented apartment: Conway 1971, 7.

  114If Oliver and the other musicians … hold at bay: Hunger: Hunter IJS 1976. “Gave me hell”: Conway 1971, 7. Devout Christian: Armstrong 1999, 65.

  114Perhaps Louis’s burgeoning … mostly about him: “He was just as sweet”: Hunter IJS 1976. “If she hadn’t run”: Armstrong 1999, 50.

  115“I remember someone told me”: Armstrong, Lillian CJA n.d.

  115“at the bottom of the ladder, holding it”: Armstrong, Lillian 1950.

  Chapter 4: The Call from Broadway

  116to swing through the midwestern states: Armstrong 1999, 92.

  116The breakup … a few recording sessions: Armstrong 1999, 62–64. Dodds, John WRC ca. 1938.

  116When the checks came in: Dodds 1992, 48. Pops Foster (Foster 2005, 96) told a story about Oliver ordering uniforms for the band in New Orleans, at $12 apiece. He then wrote a letter to the band, masking it so that it appeared to be from the Western Uniform Company, with someone mailing it from Chicago, saying that the company had burned down and “we couldn’t get our uniforms or our money back.” “Joe never did pay me and died owing me money,” insisted Foster. “That’s why I’d never make records with him.”

  116“King Oliver’s men were always talking”: Armstrong in Jones and Chilton 1971, 11; Armstrong, Lillian WRC 1938. Armstrong, Lillian 1963.

  117Zue Robertson eventually joined: Wright 1987, 39.

  117Armstrong believed … couldn’t pull it off: Armstrong 1999, 62 and 63. Chicago Defender, June 21, 1924, p. 6, and June 28, 1924, p. 8, local editions.

  117Oliver started to loosen … middle of a performance: “he decided”: Armstrong 1999, 64. Jones and Chilton 1971, 77; Armstrong 1999, 61. Brothers 2006, 231. “Help the ol’ man”: Armstrong 1999, 92 and 64. Chilton 1947, 6.

  118Rudy Jackson remembered … popular once again: Jones and Chilton 1971, 77. Chilton 1947, 5. Armstrong 1946, 42; Armstrong 1999, 72. Wright 1987, 39–41.

  118“ego and wounded vanity may hurt you”: Reich HJA 2001.

  118“I told him I didn’t want to be married”: Armstrong, Lillian CJA n.d.

  118“Sitting by [Oliver] every night”: Armstrong 1966, 29.

  119“Joe, this is the first time”: Collins 1974, 36; Collins HJA 1958.

  119Lillian didn’t want … unfortunate choice: Armstrong, Lillian 1963. Armstrong, Lillian WRC 1938.

  119In the summer of 1924 … one of them admitted: Jones WRC ca. 1938; Hennessey 1974, 24–26, 37; Kenney 1993, 113. Robinson CJA 1961. “A group of”: Defender, March 3, 1923, p. 5; Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 84; Jackson 2005, 57; Brown 1971. “Thought they were”: Travis 1981, 65.

  119Armstrong gathered … about Stewart, bitterly: Armstrong, Lillian 1963; Jones and Chilton 1971, 78. Dance 1977, 68. Milt Hinton (Hinton IJS 1976) also talked ab
out “blue veined” musicians with light skin who “hung together and got the better jobs” in Chicago; also Bernhardt 1986, 77, 138, 145, and 179. “I wasn’t”: Armstrong 1971, 211.

  120Lil suggested Ollie Powers … chance to shine: Taylor 1987, 36; Compton HJA 1959. “That’s when”: Armstrong, Lillian 1963.

  120Henderson first heard him: Allen 1973, 29; Henderson 1950a, 15; Armstrong 1936, 80; Singleton 1950.

  120Interestingly, Lillian stayed … he chortled: Armstrong 1936, 80; Armstrong, Lillian 2005, 143. “They were”: Armstrong LAHM 1970.

  121His first rehearsal with Henderson: This account of the first rehearsal based on Henderson 1950 and Armstrong 1946, 42. “I had just”: Henderson 1950a, 15.

  122After arriving in New York … appealing number for Henderson: “Your part’s”: Marshall 1943, 83. Osgood 1926, 110. On “high class” preferences of Black Swan Records, see Magee 2005, 22. As Garvin Bushell (1988, 25) put it in 1925, “Paul Whiteman had the premier orchestra in the States. No question about it. It’s like when Muhammad Ali was champion: it was undisputed.”

  122“When you was playing shows”: Henderson 1950a, 15. Jones 1989, 133.

  122For the most part … his clunky shoes: Marshall 1943 in Hodes 1977, 83. Henderson 1950. Williams 1979, 96; Scott IJS 1979. Armstrong 1966, 31; Armstrong 1999, 205; Stewart 1991, 92–96. Armstrong 1936, 80.

  122Things would improve … he wrote bluntly: Armstrong 1970 and letter published by Jones and Chilton (1971, 211).

  123In the end … personification of that: Hinton IJS 1976. “a machine town”: Russell 1999, 97–100.

  123more extensive introduction to the Harlem elite: I have drawn this description of the NAACP dance from a series of articles in the Interstate Tattler, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American, and Chicago Defender; also Lewis 1993 and 1997. “Pinnacle of posh”: Vincent 1995, 167. Hughes 1986, 94.

  125Du Bois’s position was ascendant: Lewis 1993, 261.

  125“Keep in mind that when I was born”: Travis 1981, 436.

  125Henderson (b. 1897) grew up in Cuthbert, Georgia: Early Henderson biography based on Magee 2005, chap. 1.

  125He was the deacon and superintendent: Harris 1992, 207.

  126his father continued to prohibit: Allen 1973, 3.

  126“classed with Rachmaninoff”: Magee 2005, 19.

  126regarded by Du Bois as the perfect talented-tenth model: Lewis 2000, 9.

  126one of only around 2,000 African Americans: Lewis 1993, 644, n. 51.

  126Harry Pace: Allen 1973, 7; Magee 2005, 17. A recent overview of this part of Pace’s career is given in Hurwitt 2000, esp. 214ff. See also Kenney 1999, 124.

  128Henderson became “musical director”: Allen 1973, 10; Vincent 1995, 92 and 99.

  128“Was there ever a nation”: Du Bois 1903, 45.

  128But for Du Bois … Hughes wrote: Vincent 1995, 145–46. Hughes 1986, 266.

  128“I had seen many of the important men and women”: Barker 1986, 140.

  129Pace quickly realized … Waters remembered: Waters 1951, 141 and 147.

  129In summer 1922: Shih 1959; Hennessey 1973.

  129At a white Manhattan dance hall … in white Manhattan: Allen 1973, 41 and 86. “made a nice”: Williams 1979, 95. Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan. 18, 1924, p. 12; New York Times, Jan. 18, 1924, p. 7; Albertson 2003, 25. Magee 2005, 33–35 and 8.

  130In July 1924 Henderson … Henderson’s strength: Magee 2005, 36. Armstrong 1936, 80. Charters 1962, 153. Allen 1973, 126. “Each section:” Defender, Feb. 27, 1926, p. 6.

  131In spite of the fact … “or anywhere else”: Stewart 1972, 14. Courier, Nov. 1, 1924, p. 15. According to Bushell (IJS 1977), “there was no black band on radio then, outside of Fletcher Henderson, that was a big name jazz band.” Allen 1973, 129. New York Age, April 4, 1925, p. 7. Allen 1973, 137; Amsterdam News, Sept. 9, 1925, p. 5; Wall Street Journal, Nov. 25, 1924, p. 3.

  132Jazz fans today may be surprised: For an earlier discussion along these lines, see Lyttelton 1978, 106.

  132“We have an opening”: Allen 1973, 113.

  133five different usages of “jazz”: Kenney 1993, 61–62.

  133“New Orleans hokum”: Defender, Oct. 10, 1925, p. 6.

  134“to the vile instincts in human beings”: Savran 2009, 194.

  134Irving Berlin’s Everybody Step: Magee 2006.

  135A writer in Etude: Magee 2006, 698–700. Magee’s identification of the bass pattern with blues can be strengthened by the view that the flat 4/4 accompaniment style was used for blues and church music in New Orleans and found its way into dance music there; see Brothers 2006, 43, 227, and 285.

  135“using the word ‘jazz’ and the word ‘Berlin’ as interchangeable terms”: Magee 2006, 697.

  135“The simple fact is”: Savran 2009, 70.

  135Jazz was … “We just called it great music”: Osgood 1926, 27. Kenney 1993, 81 and 78. Deffaa 1990, 40.

  135Osgood nods briefly: Osgood 1926, 89.

  136the African-American antecedents had no importance at all: Sudhalter 1999 is a recent study that comes close to this position, even though it is not clearly articulated and only hinted at indirectly.

  136the most sublime blues chord ever heard: Billboard, May 31, 1924, p. 60.

  136“vulgarities and crudities”: Rogers 1968, 221.

  136disdain for Henderson’s early work: The paradox (but not this solution to it) is articulated by Magee 2005, 33. Magee is certainly right (p. 27) to critique the binary oppositions of writers like Panassié and Schuller and their reliance on formulas like “true and false jazz.” The current discussion turns the analysis toward competing definitions of jazz.

  136Some insisted that symphonic jazz … like Henderson: A March 28, 1925, article in the New York Age is the earliest application of “symphonic jazz” to Henderson’s band that I have seen. Howland 2009, 2.

  138Henderson, on the other hand … the Roseland Ballroom: “jazzy fox trots”: Defender, March 29, 1924, p. 3. “nightly”: Afro-American, May 30, 1924, p. 2.

  138Ever since the dance craze … in August 1925: Stearns and Stearns 1994, 95; Erenberg 1981, 153; Sanjek 1983. Osgood 1926, 42. Allen 1973,136.

  139the only black band to record these tunes: Two black bands with similar aspirations were those run by Sam Wooding, who recorded Shanghai Shuffle and Alabamy Bound, and Sammy Stewart, who recorded Manda and Copenhagen.

  139Like many bandleaders … cluttered and overblown: “The new”: Berrett 2004, 49. “stodgy”: Meyer CJA, box 83.

  139“He’d give me 16 bars, the most, to get off with”: Armstrong LAHM 1970.

  139Henderson got what he wanted … the entire black community: Bushell 1988, 87. Defender, Feb. 27, 1926, p. 6; Aug. 27, 1927, p. 6.

  141Baby Dodds claimed … Armstrong remembered: Dodds 1992, 82. Scott IJS 1979; Allen 1973, 126. “Then I had”: Henderson 1950a, 15.

  141The difference emerged … “that New Orleans stuff here”: Reports on this performance from Allen 1973, 126; Henderson 1950a, p. 15; Armstrong 1946, 42. Scott IJS 1979; Scott’s comment is not explicitly directed toward the performance of Tiger Rag.

  142“brassy, broad and aggressively dramatic”: Baraka [Jones] 1963, 154.

  143In paraphrase solos: Transcription of the solo from Go Long Mule in Magee 2005, 77.

  143musicologist Jeffrey Magee has shown: The present analysis is an attempt to build on and extend the excellent work in Magee 1995.

  144“This arrangement is RED HOT as written”: Magee 1995, 52.

  144He only needed to tweak the notated lines slightly: Oliver 1970, 64.

  145“an artistic reformulation of black folkways”: Quoted and discussed, from a different point of view, in Magee 2005, 5.

  145With his strong, confident playing … he explained: “so good”: Shapiro and Hentoff 1955, 206. Bernhardt 1968, 46; Bernhardt FDC 1974.

  146Smith’s solo on Alone at Last: The recording was made by the Henderson band with white singer Billy Jones, under the name the Southern Se
renaders, on Aug. 7 and released on the Harmony label. Presumably, the pseudonym was necessary to hide the racial integration of the session.

  146with Armstrong taking the riskier path: In her study of the 1920s, Ann Douglas (1995, 428) is trapped by much later images of Armstrong when she writes: “whatever the effort, even pain of performance, his aim was always to free the listener from worry and trouble, from any sense of the ‘serious’; grinning, cajoling, grimacing, and alive, he wanted his considerable labor to appear the easiest, the most effortless in the world.” Related to this is her incorrect suggestion (p. 427) that James Brown’s self-promotion as “the hardest-working man in show business” reflects a sensibility that had no place in the 1920s and 1930s.

  147thinking in terms of a break: Armstrong had done the same thing earlier, with Oliver, in Froggie Moore. See the transcription of his solo in Harker 2003, 148.

  147In Words, a break effectively launches his solo: Transcription in Magee 1992, 135.

  148Moving in and out of phase: Brothers 1994.

  148superior sense of melodic coherence: Schuller 1968; Harker 1999; Gushee 1998, 294.

  149a hit at the Roseland: Drummer Kaiser Marshall claimed that when Armstrong left, the owner of the ballroom loaned him some money for a down payment on a house in Chicago; if that seems hard to believe, it probably indicates, at least, a level of success and appreciation. Marshall 1943, 85.

  149One milestone for the band … “made Fletcher Henderson nationally known”: Condon 1947, 111. Allen 1973, 134.

  150the clearest harbinger of the Henderson band’s future: Magee 2005, 90–96.

  150His year with Henderson … in New Orleans: Jones and Chilton 1971, 99. Courier, Aug. 29, 1925, p. 10.

  151There were also … heard Armstrong sing: Information in this paragraph from Marshall 1943, 83.

  151Henderson claimed … he concluded: Armstrong 1999, 64; Armstrong 1970; Reich HJA 2001; Armstrong IJS 1965. King 1967, 68; Armstrong IJS 1965. The biggest offender may have been Hawkins; see Scott IJS 1979. “big prima donna”: Armstrong 1971, 211; Williams 1979, 97. “too much”: Armstrong LAHM 1970; Armstrong 1971, 211. Armstrong, Lillian WRC 1938. “I personally”: Armstrong LAHM 1970.