Louis Armstrong's New Orleans

[montg]

This looks like a winner to me. The genesis of Louis Armstrong is bound to be a fascinating story. It's forthcoming at the end of the month.

Book description from publisher (Norton)

book home page

In the early twentieth century, New Orleans was a place of colliding identities and histories, and Louis Armstrong was a gifted young man of psychological nimbleness. A dark-skinned, impoverished child, he grew up under low expectations, Jim Crow legislation, and vigilante terrorism. Yet he also grew up at the center of African American vernacular traditions from the Deep South, learning the ecstatic music of the Sanctified Church, blues played by street musicians, and the plantation tradition of ragging a tune.

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans interweaves a searching account of early twentieth-century New Orleans with a narrative of the first twenty-one years of Armstrong's life. Drawing on a stunning body of first-person accounts, this book tells the rags-to-riches tale of Armstrong's early life and the social and musical forces that shaped him. The city and the musician are both extraordinary, their relationship unique, and their impact on American culture incalculable. 16 pages of illustrations.

[paul secor]

Up.

Anyone read this?

[kenny weir]

It's better than the biographies I've read. In fact, I'm soon expecting to read it again. That said, it's not without it's flaws. I feel the author really labors with some of the points he makes. And he quite often states something as fact when a more qualitfied approach would lend his arguments authority rather than detract from them. But that's just nitpicking. In terms of info on the early days of jazz in New Orleans, I found it fascinating. And putting aside the author's handiwork, much of the text is oral history, which speaks for itself. I've been a frequent visitor to New Orleans and so thought I had a reasonable handle on this sort of stuff, but there plenty of revelations in this book for me.

[montg]

Haven't read this yet, perhaps this summer. An interview with the author here:

ThomasBrothers

[AllenLowe]

bad book, in my opinion; I bought it and than returned it - two problems, as I see it -

1) a bit politically correct - reiterates the same sociological pieties/cliches over and over -

but - the biggest problem is that

2) Brothers, who says he is writing the book to help place Armstrong in the vernacular musical culture of New Orleans, knows virtually nothing about that music and culture as it relates to anything other than jazz.

I've long thought that to understand New Orleans and it's cultural significance one has to look at the big picture, and not just jazz - Brothers sets out to do that but it soon becomes clear that he knows nothign about the other streams of music, from Cajun to blues and rhtyhm and blues to string bands, that populate New Orleans. Nothing. So he ends up repeating certain cliches about African Amercan culture and history, without giving specifics, because he does not know specifics.

Sorry to come down so hard on this book, but in my opinion if you want to get a sense of why New Orleans is what it is musically, the best book I have ever read is Dr. John's autobiography -

[montg]

Sidney Bechet's book (Treat it Gentle) provided a lot of insight --or feeling--of early New Orleans. (at least for me).

[AllenLowe]

yes, amazing book -

[paul secor]

Treat It Gentle is a wonderful book. Was there some question as to whether Sidney Bechet's words were altered to be more "poetic"? I thought I read somewhere that that was perhaps true. If it's not true, I'll delete this comment.

[kenny weir]

Allen I hear you - I had/have pretty much the same problems, although I wouldn't come down "so hard" for the simple reason that once I filtered out the author's pontificating there was much fascinating hard information to satisfy myself, who is well familiar to New Orleans after numerous visits and much reading, but who still finds the whole thing a beguiling mystery.

And as I said, above, the oral hisotry stuff is cool.

I have the Bechet book at home (unread), but thanks to the recs here, it'll now be top of my "to read" pile.

Speaking of string bands, I am digging the hell out of a brand new release on American Music - Echoes of Tom Anderson's/The New Orleans String Jazz Traditions by the 6 & 7/8s String Band. One CD would've been a better fit, but man o man this is some essential stuff in my world.

http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/showo...;ProductID=5389

Sorry to come down so hard on this book,

Edited May 3, 2007 by kenny weir

[montg]

bad book, in my opinion; I bought it and than returned it - two problems, as I see it -

1) a bit politically correct - reiterates the same sociological pieties/cliches over and over -

I'm curious what 'politically correct' line is being towed in the book?

[AllenLowe]

it's been a while since I returned it, but it has a bit of a guilty-white-liberal tone to it - it just repeats and repeats things which are basically true, and after a while it's like a hammer over the head about the importance of the African-American musical tradition. It's not that this is incorrect, but it has a weird, pandering quality to it in its repetitiousness -

Kenny - yes, I have the LP of that band - important stuff, and an important side of the N.O. aesthetic that is too often ignored -

[Alexander Hawkins]

Related, tangentially(!) - I really enjoyed Michael Ondaatje's 'Coming Through Slaughter' for a semi-fictional, semi-biographical portrait of Buddy Bolden's New Orleans...

[kenny weir]

Having read and mostly digested Allen's notes to That Devilin' Tune Vol 1, I've come to the conclusion that there are different perspectives going on here.

I share with Allen irritation with Brothers' pontificating, but lapped up the info in his book nonetheless.

Same goes for Richard Sudhalter's Lost Chords. Allen gives some kudos to Sudhalter, but also takes him to task for his approach to white/black jazz.

My copy of Lost Chords is well thumbed; it had a profound effect on me. I'd revelled for years in Jelly Roll Morton and Johnny Dodds and so on, but never listened to the New Orleans Rhythm Kings or Tony Parenti or Bud Freeman.

Another example is Scott DeVeaux's The Birth of Bebop, which like the Brothers tome is packed with the author's axe-grinding. Neverthless I found it an enriching experience.

When I read such books, I seem to necessarily sign up holus bolus for the author's vision, only afterwards attaining some sort of distance.

I embrace these books to broaden or illuminate my musical adventures. I'm a fan - one who lives a long way from the action in terms of US popular music. I've done a bit of first-hand research/interviewing in South Louisiana in the way of swamp pop, zydeco and R&B, but am a long way from the cutting edge and heady realms of the likes of Lowe, Kart and Albertson.

Compared to the drought conditions of my early NZ teens, access to such in-depth information and listening seems simply heavenly, even if I am aware of baggage and agendas and so on.

Allen, given the forthcoming release of your RnR book, what do you reckon of Nick Tosches' country book?

Edited May 30, 2007 by kenny weir

[Chuck Nessa]

Any examination of the early days of New Orleans "jazz" requires an understanding of French (and to a lesser degree, other) opera as performed in the city during the late 19th and early 20th century.

Trumpet and clarinet solos as "arias" is a concept rarely explored.

That sort of thing may be available but I have missed it.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Chuck Nessa

[AllenLowe]

Kenny - I find Tosches entertaining but a very unreliable historian; so much of his writing is rattled-off research (as when in one of his books he praises Irving Mills, without any hint of sarcasm, as a great pop composer because his name is on so many songs!) He takes too many liberties with his interpretations, and if one tries to track his impressions down, they often lead to other conclusions. He's also a great exaggerator - his musical descriptions are entertaining, once more, but often innaccurate or misleading when one listens to the actual recordings. They seem to have more to do with his own fantasies than with reality - I avoid him -

Edited May 30, 2007 by AllenLowe

[kenny weir]

... in one of his books he praises Irving Mills, without any hint of sarcasm, as a great pop composer because his name is on so many songs!

Ha ha - that's pretty funny.

I like the country book - I dig the passion of it. I've always been less much impressed with others of his I've read.