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Louis Armstrong’s Last Laugh – The New York Times


Thrilling, revealing, painful tapes: the warm voice of Louis Armstrong, perhaps the most famous voice of the 20th century, speaks harsh truths about American racism, about the hatred for humanity he and millions of others endure in a world he still has. , to the end, the affirmation is great. He tells stories – about a fan declaring “I don’t like Blacks” in front of him; of a prankster on set who treated him with disrespect that no white star could face – with renewed outrage and Do you believe this? weariness.

He also speaks to them with his humor and full expressive artistry, his musicality evident in his swearing rhythm.

These stories can be heard by the public, privately recorded by Armstrong as part of his lifelong self-documenting project, in Sacha Jenkins’ documentary “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues” (streaming on Apple TV +). Often, Armstrong recalls getting the last laugh to those who disrespected him – he badmouthed that idiot and the studio as a whole, telling both places to stick their films.

It is not revealed that a Black man born less than 40 years after the abolition of slavery suffered severe racism, or that star parity with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra offered him no exemption. Armstrong faced backlash in 1957 for speaking out against discrimination, and for donating to the Civil Rights movement. Usually, however, he avoids controversy.

By the 1960s, Armstrong’s reservations – as well as the musical’s grinning, eye-rolling performance style – inspired the most painful, backlash against jazz musicians. young people who revered his 1920s recordings as the source of jazz music.

That backlash has since been quashed entirely, with critics often splitting Armstrong’s legacy in two. On the one hand: the young genius-artist-virtuoso, who perfected the art of swinging, gliding, and impromptu solos, hitting trumpets high enough to tickle God’s toes. On the other hand: global entertainer with six-decade hits and a penchant for sentimental pop music and edgy tunes like “When It Sleepy Time Down South.”

During this millennium, the defense in Armstrong’s later years was, well, defensive. But Jenkins’ film, following the lead of Ricky Riccardi’s 2012 biography “Wonderful World: The Miracle of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years,” based on Armstrong’s archives to make a decisive argument, often in Armstrong’s words, that the man known as Pops was deeply committed to the cause of racial justice.

“The story of Armstrong has been around for years – and has been misunderstood for years,” Jenkins said in an interview with Zoom. “America is going through something. In many ways, things have remained unchanged, and in many ways, things have gone backwards.”

At the same time as the film’s release, the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens, was preparing for its 20th anniversary and opening this spring its new Louis Armstrong Center. The museum’s CEO, Regina Bain, said that the center will exponentially increase the museum’s access to education, a core mission rooted in Armstrong’s personal growth – he has received his first formal musical training as a teenager at the Colored Waifs Home for Boys in New Orleans. The center will also host concerts, exhibit Armstrong archives and showcase the Armstrong Now program, which brings artists into dialogue with Armstrong’s legacy.

Bain acknowledges the complexity of that legacy. “When you look at him,” she said over the phone, “you see what most people see: an icon and a musical genius with a gorgeous smile and a cheerful personality. fun. And you should also see the racial terror that he and those around him have gone through, that has affected his life and his body, and that he is still able to get through.”

“It’s extremely important to tell your story in a way that’s free from any tampering or tampering,” says Jeremy Pelt, one of today’s leading trumpeters, composers and bands. . He published two books interviewing black jazz musicians (“Griot” volumes 1 and 2) just for this reason. “To be able to express yourself and deal with what you’ve been through – that’s necessary and liberating, even in the final chorus of your life.”

For 23 years, David Ostwald has led the eternal band Louis Armstrong, playing weekly gigs at Birdland. Ostwald has long supported Armstrong as a civil rights pioneer, making the case in 1991 New York Times guest essay Armstrong, as early as 1929, was really addressing race in his music. His example: “Black & Blue,” the song on which the title of the Jenkins film plays. On it, Armstrong sings, “I’m white, but that doesn’t help my case/’cause I can’t hide what’s on my face.”

When asked how he felt when he saw that argument go mainstream, Ostwald offered an affirmation. “Finally,” he said.

Ostwald credits Wynton Marsalis for making Armstrong “OK again” in the jazz world. In the film, Marsalis describes growing up hating “with an unbelievable passion” the “Uncle Tomming” of which Armstrong is often accused. But listening closely to Armstrong’s trumpet startled Marsalis, the future artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, who championed Armstrong. In the documentary, he said that Armstrong was “trying to use his music to transform, reform, and lead the country closer to his ideals”.

Armstrong’s musical legacy is also disputed. His solos, especially from the 1920s, have long been celebrated – in one of Pelt’s “Griots”. In interviews, saxophonist JD Allen said that for jazz players, “all roads lead to Pops”. But Ostwald recalls being considered “weird” playing traditional and age-old jazz in New York in the ’70s and ’80s. “People said music was going to die, but I’ve always felt that Armstrong was a the motivation is too strong to never go away, even if some people misunderstand him.”

Today, young musicians increasingly feel free to seek inspiration throughout Armstrong’s career. Like most Juilliard jazz graduates, emerging trombonist, composer, and bandleader Kalia Vandever studied Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens recordings in the 1920s. But she’s also awarded for his 1950s duets with Ella Fitzgerald: “I liked the way he transitioned from singing to playing,” she said. “It’s seamless and like a voice.” Listen to Vandever playing on her “Regrowth” album, and you can feel the connection, even though the music doesn’t sound like “Heebie Jeebies.”

With each new look at Armstrong’s life and influence, perhaps the old artist/artist distinction is fading. In a video introduction screened ahead of a highly emotional tour of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Bain offers a third way to think of Armstrong: as “one of the founding figures of jazz and America’s first black popular music icon”. Message: He is both. And both problems.

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