JAZZ JOTTINGS: Remembering Louis

A short while ago, I was having a look at the Site Meter record of visitors to my blog pages and I noticed that someone had been brought here after he Googled “Louis Armstrong Wonderful World Lyrics”.  In my posting about composer versions I had used all those words, though not in the order he listed them and most certainly not in the sense that he was intending.  I would ever waste time or effort writing out the lyrics to that dreadful song.  What A Wonderful World was just about the last thing Louis Armstrong recorded before he died in 1971, and it is a piece of crap.  Such a shame it is, that he is so widely remembered for it.  Now, readers of my previous postings may, if they are good at reading between the lines, have discerned that I am very, very fond of vintage jazz.  It is a pity that more people aren’t.  Jazz, and the ragtime that spawned it, were the first original American art forms, and as such are the heritage of everyone in this country.  But if you go to just about any music store and look at the jazz section in the CD department, you will see very little from the first fifty years of the genre, and most of what is there will be unsuitable.  It’s a sure fire certainty you’ll find several offerings of Glenn Miller, but folks, Moonlight Serenade isn’t jazz!  Neither is Perfidia.  Just run of the mill dance music.  Now, Glenn Miller played with some excellent jazz bands before he led his own orchestra (Red Nichols, Ben Pollack, for example), but you’ll be lucky to find examples of those.  And then there’s Louis.  Probably – no, make that definitely – the best black jazz musician ever.  How will he be represented?  By CDs containing Wonderful World, Hello Dolly and Mac The Knife. Singing them, mind you, not playing his trumpet. This man was the supreme jazz trumpeter of all time.  His West End Blues is a work of utter genius, and since the day it was first issued in 1927 it has never been unavailable – on 78, then LP, and now on CD.  But probably not in stores. You have to go and hunt through the specialist labels for it now.  The recordings Louis made in the 1920s and 1930s are uniformly brilliant – don’t take my word for it,  have a look here for example, and take your pick – and it is a travesty that most people know him for a second rate show tune and a bit of schmaltz.

Comments

[Wylie Kinson]

I plead ignorance! I know the words to Wonderful World only because my kidlet has a beautifully illustrated picture book inspired by the song. I'm so ashamed...
But I do like ragtime, big band (guess there's a bit of jazz there, no?), and have worn out my Billy Holiday CDs.

Your most recent comment on my blog re characters had me chuckling... Thanks for your insights!

[PJ]

As I've studied the history of popular music and jazz I'm slightly more aware of Armstrong's legacy than the average listener. I agree that it is a shame that the mainstream community isn't more aware of his genius as a trumpeter. Armstrong was an early pioneer of jazz music, and he had an incredible influence on the evolution of jazz and popular music in general.

Other jazz musicians whom I feel were also highly influential include Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. You might be able to tell that I'm somewhat of a Sax aficionado; I even wrote an essay discussing the significance of the Saxophone in the development of jazz a few years ago.