Jazz birthdays can be a bit inundating: there are so many to cover, and All About Jazz and Confetta Ras do that so well already. Yet today is Louis Armstrong’s birthday (one of them anyway); the Internet can afford some more kudos…
Chances are that anyone reading this blog has a favorite Armstrong recording, performance or “good old good one.” This “Tiger Rag,” live from Copenhagen in 1932 wasn’t my first experience listening to Armstrong but it was the first time I really heard him:
“Solo” implies part of a larger performance, a section that the collective designates for the individual. In jazz, it usually implies a relation to the tune, an outgrowth of the source material via the designated soloist. Yet Armstrong’s phrases are so abstract yet absolutely melodic, so grand and deeply personal yet approachable all at once, that he might as well be crafting a sculpture in the middle of the stage. This may have been a memorized “set piece” and listeners may or may not recognize “Tiger Rag,” but his performance could well be called Fantasia In G or simply Untitled, not because it needs the prestige of classical terminology but because that performance is an independent work in its own right. “Solo” just never really captured what Armstrong accomplishes in this clip (for me anyway).
As for the rest of this “Tiger,” for many listeners its manic opening probably sounds like a textbook illustration of the relaxation, confidence and poise that Armstrong brought to jazz and American popular music as a whole. On the other hand it may just be another side of jazz, one that Armstrong was smart enough to learn from even as he continued to appreciate it. Armstrong is one alternative among many in jazz but he is one hell of an option. So why not stop converting copies of The New Yorker to toilet paper for a while and celebrate that alternative?
“It’s Only V and I But I Like It, Like It, Yes I Do…”
Time was that professional musicians could deal with audience members, fans, armchair critics and others from outside the world of professional music in the same manner that the military handled civilians. Social media now allows everyone to interact, directly and regularly, even when someone can’t even define “enharmonic.”
I can only speak as a dilettante looking to learn more about music from musicians, but hopefully the following suggestions for musicians can foster pleasant, even constructive exchanges between those who have devoted their lives to music and those looking to understand la cosa musica…
Avoid Beginning Sentences With “It’s Just A…”
Imagine someone meeting your mother for the first time. You have introduced the two of them, they had some pleasant conversation and inevitably your mother mentions some childhood accomplishment near and dear to her heart to this other person. She does not claim you were the best spelling bee contestant or Pee Wee linebacker in history; she merely expresses that you are her special scholar/athlete.
To which your companion replies, “Millions of kids do spelling bees!” or “(S)he played football? B…F…D!” That’s the equivalent of telling someone that their favorite piece of music is “just a II-V-I” or “just a bunch of pentatonic runs.”
Chances are that if someone is describing a particular song, movement or solo, it animates something inside of them so powerfully that they want to share it with another human being (hopefully without gushing over it as some moms do). They may even be looking for a trained musician to offer some unique insight, without making them feel foolish because they didn’t know that even a first-year composition major can voice a triad in root position.
Most listeners, even the ones who might play an instrument, don’t encounter music for a fraction of the amount of time that formally trained, working musicians do. It’s why we get so excited over aspects of the music that professionals have probably heard ad nauseam. That excitement occasionally spills over into some odd or even rude behavior (can I assume that musicians don’t like people thronging them for autographs the moment they put down their horn?) Yet that excitement also makes what musicians do, even the simplest things they do, seem like magic. So the next time someone praises an inane pop song as though it were Starry Night or claps like a madman at that same riff you phone in every week at your wedding gig, try to remember your mother.
Along similar lines…
Keep In Mind That “Obvious” Is A Subjective Term
After reading an interview with Lee Konitz discussing intonation and specifically Jackie McLean playing sharp, I tweeted the following:
Two incredibly musically experienced, frighteningly well-listened musicians offered the following replies:
and
I have been listening to McLean for several years now but not nearly as long or as intently as these folks (one of whom has honesty been something of a role model for me, albeit in the same way that Joan Sutherland was probably a role model for Anna Russell). Present-day Andrew didn’t feel offended or condescended to just because they pointed out something that he already knew. Sixteen-year old Andrew on the other hand might have felt downright silly.
Band directors, clarinet teachers, critics and writers he would read for hours on end as well as other revered musical authorities had drummed into sixteen-year old Andrew’s head that musicians are supposed to play in tune (“…god damn it!” per his jazz band teacher). Sixteen-year old Andrew was just beginning to listen to Jackie McLean, whose name he pronounced “Mick-Leen and whose music didn’t yet explain why Mr. McLean was doing something that Andrew had been told was “wrong.” He simply had not learned what to listen for or how to listen. Present-day Andrew still has a lot to learn, but for young Andrew, there was nothing “obvious” about the music.
Those who can hang certainly don’t have to tailor their comments for amateurs or the uninitiated who come in all ages. Yet in light of conversations about “elitism” and “museumification” of all the music that doesn’t get into Billboard’s Top 1000, occasionally doing so may be more than a matter of avoiding bruised egos. Want to grow an audience? Describe the art form as an exciting learning opportunity, not a party at some club that only admits people who know the password.
Speaking of outreach…
Consider That While Words Might Not Be The Best Tools To Describe Music, Sometimes They’re All We’ve Got
“There are no words.”
“It really cannot be spoken of.”
“I won’t discuss the music because it’s all there in the notes.”
These and similar phrases have been used to explain why musicians will not, should not or even cannot describe the music they play, the music they enjoy, the music that influences them or music, period. Yet the same musicians often describe music as a “language,” which is a much less confusing and far more stimulating idea.
“I Bet He Even LIKED The Original Dixieland Jazz Band…”
Musicians have mastered communicating with one another through pitches, rhythms and other aspects of organized sound while the rest of the world more often uses words. We can debate whether that is a good or a bad thing (though Aristotle, Milton, a few Hindu priests and The Notorious B.I.G. might want to weigh in), but the fact is that most of us are “stuck” with words. If a music listener is trying to discuss what a music player does using words, or even asking that player for words about it, that’s not because the listener is insensitive to what the player does; it’s because they are trying to communicate too.
Yet if musicians are still unconvinced, to be safe they should avoid creating press releases about their next album, sharing positive reviews about their last show or doing interviews of any kind. Further to the slippery notion of talking about music…
Remember That People Other Than Barack Obama Discuss Politics
The statement “Unless you’re a musician, you’ll never understand” has explained so many aspects of music to an unmusical type like me that its occasional overreaches stick out like a sharp second alto.
There is no teacher like experience, but people still manage to make intelligent, objective, sincere statements about things they never went to school for and don’t do on a paid basis. It’s why musicians who never served as Congressional interns can offer penetrating political analyses, or why a nation not exclusively populated by lawyers or trained philosophers can still determine how its citizens should treat one another. Commentary from outside of a discipline isn’t always helpful, but that’s just a reason to encourage sharper discourse, not close off discussion, right?
Julius Caesar noted that “experience is the teacher of all things,” but experience also has a pretty tight schedule and not everyone is fortunate enough to learn from it. Julius Caesar also famously said, “Hey Brutus, what’s that in your hand?” Which leads me to my final and most personal suggestion:
Have A $@#!ing Sense of Humor…
…so that when some pseudo-intellectual internut who needs to transpose Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto to B-flat just to sputter and die before they even reach the first movement’s development section gives you advice, take it where it comes from. Louis Armstrong always had a sense of humor, and he did alright for himself. He even replied to his fan letters and talked about politics.
In jazz, “front line” usually means trumpet, trombone and clarinet weaving collectively improvised lines through multiple strains or, in its modern parlance, at least two horns blazing through “the head” in tight unison. Of course there are exceptions that prove the rule, such as a half-dozen of Clarence Williams’s washboard sessions, waxed during the first six months of 1926, using just cornet, clarinet, found percussion and the leader’s piano to defy conventional roles for non-rhythm section players.
Ed Allen often sticks to the strong, spare lead expected from the cornet yet clarinetist Bennie Morten’s thirds under and inside that lead on “You For Me, Me For You” are a surprising touch:
There is no trombone to form the standard New Orleans triumvirate but the pair doesn’t just interact like a reduced New Orleans front line. Listen to Morten on “Wait ‘Till You See My Baby Do The Charleston”:
back-to-back with Buster Bailey on clarinet for “Yama Yama Blues” on a different Williams date:
and the difference becomes more a matter of style rather than predetermined function. Bailey played with King Oliver and knew what was expected of NOLA ensemble clarinetists: decorous, penetrating lines mostly in the upper register, dovetailing with the lead but staying out of its way. Bailey’s playing on “Yama Yama” would fit perfectly with a trombone as well as a cornet in the mix. Morten on the other hand is not just sparer but closer to Allen in terms of dynamics as well as register. He accompanies the lead more than he ornaments it.
Harmonizing on top of Allen’s lead for “My Own Blues” (a technique that historian David Sagertraces back to the Wolverines), Morten splits the difference between duetting with Allen and the type of upper register obbligato that Oliver and his Crescent City colleagues might have expected:
After the vocal, when Morten does launch into highflying descant lines, they act as rhythmic impetus as well as another texture. There’s none of the occasional monotony brought on by multiple choruses of strictly defined polyphony, even as Allen maintains that lead. This loose, airy blend may or may not have been worked out in advance and might sound effortless, even unremarkable, but it creates a unique sound and feel for the group. It is difficult to imagine Bailey or Jimmie Noone’s prodigious technique, Johnny Dodds’s earthy sound or Sidney Bechet’s sheer personality (at this stage in their careers, anyway) forging the tender, restrained “Senorita Mine,” especially its second chorus with Allen’s muted horn behind Morten’s alto sax lead:
“Boodle-Am” (here the better recorded fourth take) has a big sound and infectious rhythm that completely jettisons ideas about what “standard instrumentation” may have offered in place of two well-paired horns and rhythm:
Morten complements Allen’s powerful lead with sustained ascending high notes followed by busier fills; tension and release, accompaniment but not background, simple but very effective. On the verse right before the vocal, Morten sticks to a simpler part and leaves Allen room to stretch out.
These sessions using just(?) four players with washboard instead of the pricier full drum kit may have been an attempt by Williams to cut overhead. Yet even if he wanted to do the record cheap, he wanted to make it right. Williams consistently hired Allen for his record dates, obviously appreciating the cornetist’s ability to play as powerfully, sensitively, bluesy, or clean as needed and remain recognizable. Bennie Morten a.k.a. Morton only seems to have participated on these few sessions with Williams. This blogger can’t find any other sessions that include Morten or biographical information about him (his name being very close to that of trombonist Benny Morton doesn’t make research any easier). Whoever Morten was, he obviously had a great ear and gift for ensemble playing. Williams not only found him but also sat him next to Ed Allen in a studio. It’s not the Creole Jazz Band or Bird and Dizzy, it’s all theirs.
Heading straight into a song sans introduction is one idea that earned postwar jazz musicians their revolutionary credit, yet here it is on the Dixie Daisies’ “Papa Blues” of 1923:
Composer and piano roll powerhouse Max Kortlander may have originally written “Papa Blues” for his instrument of choice; the tune’s built-in chromatic breaks sound very pianistic. The Daisies’ clarinetist takes them on to provide an instantly recognizable hook at the outset of the recording as well as textural and comic relief. The ex nihilo gong is also pretty funny, and the novelty works as a segue into Kortlander’s second strain, here clothed in faux-Eastern robes.
Nine decades of stylistic and cultural progress may make this section sound dated or even insensitive. From a strictly musical lens, the arrangement plays off a contrast between the down home major key and ragging trumpet of the first strain with the minor key exotica and nasal, almost-oboe like tone the trumpeter assumes in the second strain. The same goes for the succeeding chorus, which pits a straight saxophone lead against runaway double-time collective improvisation. The double-time sections are particularly ingenious: the trumpet and clarinet alter their tone as well as their rhythm so that the 78rpm record sounds like it’s being played on a 156rpm machine! The last chorus swaps the clarinet’s winding breaks for commentary from each of the players, offering further contrast as well as teasing at symmetry with the first chorus.
Dixie Daisies was one of the many aliases that record companies used for their studio bands, which could include now well-known names or players who remain anonymous. The Original Memphis Five often recorded under this pseudonym but this group doesn’t sound like the OM5 (who recorded the tune on multiple occasions in a very different arrangement.) This edition of the Daisies most likely included trumpeters Hymie Farberman and/or Jules Levy Jr. as well as trombonist Ephraim Hannaford, players in Joseph Samuels’s circle who got plenty of work but whose approach was based in one of American music’s vestigial limbs. The Daisies happened to have waxed “Papa Blues” in April of 1923, the same year and month that King Oliver brought his Creole Jazz Band with young Louis Armstrong into the recording studio for the first time, setting the stage for a major shift in the sound of American music. This music was made at nearly the same time as what many historians might consider the cause of its own obsolescence.
Whoever it was on the Cameo label’s “Papa Blues,” they were there to feed a dance-greedy public with records intended as disposable commercial products. Even an intricate chart like this one was all in a day’s work for them. Past those initial expectations and beyond temporal prejudices, there’s a smart piece of music at work here. Maybe it’s even smart enough to be “jazz.”
Columbians Dance Orchestra in 1921 with Farberman and Hannaford marked. Photo from Mark Berresford.
Here is Louis Armstrong’s first recorded solo, in 1923:
Here is Gunther Schuller, describing Louis Armstrong’s first recorded solo, in 1968: [It] is a solo only in the sense that it takes place alone; it is not yet fully a solo in character and conception. It might easily have been one part of a collectively improvised chorus lifted from its background.
Here is Thomas Brothers, discussing Louis Armstrong’s first recorded solo and apparently expanding upon Schuller’s point, in 2014: “Where’s that lead?” Armstrong heard [mentor and boss King Oliver] say…and that admonition was still ringing in his ears when he soloed on “Chimes Blues”…
Here is Bob Wilber’s Wildcats, playing Louis Armstrong’s first recorded solo, in 1947:
Things really pick up after that Armstrong homage, with the whole performance taking on newfound energy and cohesion. In other words, Armstrong’s “twenty-four bars of magic” work well as a lead. Yet Wilber, pianist Dick Wellstood and the other musicians knew that, didn’t they? We are fortunate to have a variety of thinkers from a variety of perspectives, and eras, sharing their insights. Yet that band did beat those scholars to this musicological punch!
(Incidentally, “magic” is an inspired description: an incredible thing that can be analyzed and perhaps even demystified, or something that we can explain even as it continues to stupefy us. Keep listening, and for goodness sake keep talking about what you hear.)
A meandering thought from a coffee shop (not a bar) that turned into a helpful realization:
Thank you for your indulgence, whoever is out there reading this post.
“Panico made this record fifteen years ago? But I’m writing now!”
With terms like “relic, exhumed” and “corny” as well as the handy rating system, the only difference is sixty-five years (or maybe characters).
For a more nuanced i.e. lengthier portrait of Louis Panico (including several admiring comments by fellow musicians), read more here.
For what the fuss is about, check out Panico’s strong lead, clean breaks, keen sense of ensemble balance, smart use of mutes to vary his sound and understated but spurring variations on “Hula Lou” with Isham Jones’s band:
A little over two weeks from now musicians, musicologists, scholars, historians, collectors, aficionados and fans will mark the eighty-sixth anniversary of a revolution in jazz and a landmark occurrence in American music. Some of them may even discuss the remaining three minutes and ten seconds of “West End Blues,” the part after Louis Armstrong’s introductory cadenza:
Armstrong plays masterfully throughout the record but generations (rightfully) continue to focus on his cadenza. Blazing fast, encompassing the trumpet’s entire range, technically dazzling, artfully constructed and as easy on the senses as the curves of a Botticelli bathing beauty, Armstrong could have easily played just this brief free-tempo improvisation and more than satisfied most listeners.
As for his fellow trumpeters, Armstrong’s cadenza must have invited another Italian phrase, namely agita. It’s not a musical term but it is a fair description of what some players no doubt experienced after first hearing “West End Blues.” Musicians are as much working professionals with their ears open for competition as they are sensitive artists seeking inspiration. It’s easy to imagine Armstrong’s contemporaries hearing “West End Blues” as the work of a genius, a tough act to follow and even something to top. Thankfully, many of them tried, several on record.
Brian Harker describes Jabbo Smith as “the only trumpet player, according to many contemporaries, who posed a threat to Armstrong’s supremacy,” a threat that Rex Stewart described as truly “blowing.” Gunther Schuller points out that Smith “evidently worshipped Armstrong [and] imitated many of the latter’s most famous solos (particularly ‘West End Blues’).” Thomas Brothers cites Smith’s recording of “Take Me To The River” as “a response to Armstrong’s celebrated performance”:
Smith’s blistering edge and intense delivery are far removed from the melodicism Armstrong maintained even in his rapid-fire excursions. That’s a statement of musical priorities rather than an evaluation (though melody often keeps listeners coming back for more, which may explain Armstrong’s longevity). Smith’s Rhythm Aces were actually the Brunswick label’s attempt to compete with Armstrong’s Hot Fives on Okeh. Not one for understatement or easing into a task, Smith picked “Jazz Battle” as the first song at his first session as a leader and started it off with an ornamental call to arms:
Smith’s introduction is less of a cadenza and more an instrumental break before the tune or the band even starts up. Armstrong is majestic while Smith is defiant; Armstrong pulls the audience in but Smith dares them not to blink. Equally telling is how instead of easing into a relaxed air, Smith bursts into a racehorse display. He may have “worshipped” Armstrong but doesn’t sound like he’s ready to serve in heaven.
Reuben Reeves also admired Armstrong even as he sought to knock him down a few pegs. Reeves’s high note displays had impressed Chicago audiences, and bandleader/promoter/journalist Dave Peyton had advocated for Reeves as a classically schooled, more respectable alternative to Armstrong. By the time that Vocalion set up Reuben “River” Reeves and His River Boys a.k.a. the Hollywood Shufflers as another competitor to the Hot Fives, Armstrong and Reeves had faced off against one another at the Regal Theater a month earlier in late April, 1929.
That particular jazz battle did not end well for Reeves. Despite a showy piece arranged by Peyton to show off Reeves, Armstrong excelled in terms of musicality, stamina, technique and roaring crowds. Reeves’s defeat may explain the lack of overt references on his own dates to Armstrong’s by now well-known record. The closest thing to an Armstrongian cadenza is the mid-register, in-tempo introduction to “Blue Sweets,” which is as pastoral as Armstrong’s is urbane:
Reeves does seem to hint at and perhaps parody “West End Blues” with searing sustained high notes on “River Blues” that resemble Armstrong’s final chorus (and follow an Earl Hines-esque piano solo by Jimmy Prince):
Reeves’s upper register is steelier and more penetrating than Armstrong’s, and the answers from Omer Simeon’s clarinet are either the trumpeter’s attempt to avoid outright plagiarism or splitting his lip. Decades later it’s easy to dismiss Reeves with the knowledge that Armstrong was far more than a squeaker. Harker writes that Reeves seemed to absorb the letter but not the spirit of Armstrong’s style. That might imply a shortcoming, but “spirit” is as personal as it is important. Maybe Reeves, like Smith, was content to use Armstrong’s letters to express his own soul.
Louis Metcalf might seem to imitate Armstrong in his note-for-note rendition of “West End Blues” with the King Oliver band. Yet his departures from the original, whether deliberately subtle or entirely unintentional, make it a wholly individual statement:
The bluesy run connecting the third and fourth notes of the opening arpeggio, hesitations such as the split-second too long pause before the shaky high note or even potential clams like the slight stutters on the opening chorus all act like little signatures by Metcalf. It’s a sincere form of flattery as well as bravery: who else was willing to not just attempt this solo but to record it with none other than the inspiration for the source leading the band?
Red Allen, leading his New York Orchestra on Victor, falls between imitation and complete rejection of Armstrong’s lessons. Just a few years younger than Armstrong and a fellow New Orleanian, according to Ted Gioia Allen actually absorbed most of Armstrong’s playing through records. For his first session as a leader (and second-ever experience in a recording studio), he begins “It Should Be You” with a cadenza that does his hero proud without trying to clone him:
Speaking of this session in his solography of Allen, Jan Evensmo notes how Allen had “already found his [own] style, an open pure sound, a sparkling technique, a fantastic inventiveness, a unique sense of harmony and a rhythmic sureness…” At the same time Allen obviously loved Armstrong’s easygoing yet confident swing, declaratory phrasing and glissandi. Like Armstrong, he also seems to believe in not fixing what isn’t broke: that cadenza remains the same throughout all three takes of “It Should Be You.”
For trumpeters from the pre-Armstrong era or who were less obviously influenced by him, simply the idea of an introductory cadenza allowed them to channel their own gifts. Bill Moore’s chattering lines and tightly muted sound weave a slick, pithy epigram before the Ben Bernie band takes over on “I Want To Be Bad”:
James “King” Porter tacks a miniature cadenza onto to his lush introduction to “Between You And Me” with Curtis Mosby and His Dixieland Blue Blowers:
While on “Buffalo Rhythm” by Walter Barnes’s Royal Creolians, Cicero Thomas rushes through his introduction like a trumpeter at a bullfight with a bus to catch:
Armstrong himself would of course return to the device on record and throughout his career. His introductory cadenza on “Blue Again” is a personal favorite of this blogger:
Its poise, its subtle mixture of drama and detachment and the casual, humorous way that Armstrong “muffs” the reference to his own cadenza from “West End Blues” show that even Armstrong could look to Armstrong as a springboard to something different.
Armstrong himself was initially inspired by the tradition of concert soloists in European music and American marches. He didn’t play the first cadenza at the start of a piece or a record but it likely seemed that way for many trumpeters. All of “West End Blues” is a marvel but its elevation of a single musical device within the jazz community is equally impressive.
With the exception of the Reeves sides (July and May of 1929) and “Blue Again” (1931) all of these records were made just seven or eight months after Armstrong cut “West End Blues.” Allowing for time between Armstrong recording and Okeh distributing it, “West End Blues” must have been fresh enough to convince trumpeters, and record executives, that they needed a flashy cadenza. Eleven seconds generated enough creative curiosity, professional jealousy and/or commercial trendiness to inspire several individual contrafacts, and of course there are more out there and to come. That really is an amazing introduction.
The following is the first I have ever heard of Colin Hancock, but what an introduction:
Mr. Hancock plays all of the instruments and Mr. Jorni Budich made this (beautiful) acoustic transfer of the music. The result is impressive and (for this listener) at times a little eery, like looking just a little too long at a wax sculpture of a good friend.
Having said that, I hope they both continue to make these recordings and post them on YouTube. Their work lets us consider both this style and this recording technology as more than just a historical compromise.
The Pop of Yestercentury 
