Pops

Michiko Kakutani reviews the new biography of Louis Armstrong — Pops. It’s a positive review of what appears to be a significant addition to the Armstrong literature from Terry Teachout. Kakutani leads with: Louis Armstrong, a k a Satchmo, a k a Pops, was to music what Picasso was to painting, what Joyce was to fiction: an innovator who changed the face of his art form, a fecund and endlessly inventive pioneer whose discovery of his own voice helped remake 20th-century culture.

Reading the review reminded me of a quotation from Gary Giddins in his Visions of Jazz.

On November 12, 1925, in Chicago, Armstrong embarked on the most influential recording project in jazz, perhaps in American music. Over the next three years, he produced the sixty-five sides … generally known as the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. If Armstrong had put music aside after the December 12, 1928, session, he would not have exerted the full measure of his charisma as a singer; would not have recorded the dozens of nonpareil big band performances; would not have enjoyed the pop hits and movies; would not have matured and mellowed over time into an even more expressive instrumentalist and singer; would not have achieved international renown; would not even have earned the nickname Satchmo. But he would still be the most imminent figure in jazz history.

“When I blow I think of times and things from outa the past that gives me an image of the tune. Like moving pictures passing in front of my eyes. A town, a chick somewhere back down the line, an old man with no name you seen once in a place you don’t remember.” Louis Armstrong