Louis Armstrong Mosaic planned with his 1935-1946 Decca sides

[AllenLowe]

jim, you're putting words in my mouth -

also, first you say that no one can define a blues player or the blues -

than you say Armstrong was a great blues player -

the literalness is yours not mine, as well; I am saying that it's not either or - that the musical tradition from which Armstrong comes reflects a lot of different influences,not simply one stream called the blues; in his particular case the songster tradition is reflected by, first, the rise of the post-Civil war professional songwriter; and than the Gospel/minstrel composer (eg James Bland); and than the professional black minstrel shows of the 1890s; and than the medicine show; and than the black touring companies of the first 20 years of the 20th century. Add his love for opera; and than LISTEN to his whole method of performing. The vocal style is part jazz and part minstrel man, clearly, and far from the blues in sound or phrasing. He pulls the music AWAY from the blues, takes it toward a method of linear improvisation with a great continuity, a sense of forward motion that is MUCH DIFFERENT than the methods of the blues. And he turns it into something completely unique, synthesizes these many things. But in essence, in the deepest sense, he comes out of an African American tradition of song and improvisation, of word play and word manipulation which uses all of these things - song form AND the blues - to create a new stream of American music which is neither one or the other.

In another sense, he represents a certain professionalization of the blues. Especially if you accept that the source of the blues are the field chants, repeated lines, coupling of verses and than rhymes, all of which originated with non-professional performers, though it was soon spread into places like the early minstrel shows. And this professionalization, I think, really uses the blues as just another song form- it uses it brilliantly, but not in the radically different way in which early African American proponents of the blues used the form.

Bird, by the way, is an interesting case. Quite a blues player for the very reasons I have given elsewhere - no matter how linear he plays, he still maintains the basic modality of the blues (or vertica-ness, I would call it). So actually, he is the exception who proves the rule.

Edited November 23, 2008 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

let me add something - I did not say that what he is playing is not the blues - it is the blues, WHEN he plays the blues - the Lincoln Center theory is that EVERYTHING he plays is the blues, whether it's the blues or Hello Dolly, because they are assuming that the blues informs everything that he does, that it is the center of his methodology and musical philosophy - I think this is just plain wrong.

[Chuck Nessa]

let me add something - I did not say that what he is playing is not the blues - it is the blues, WHEN he plays the blues - the Lincoln Center theory is that EVERYTHING he plays is the blues, whether it's the blues or Hello Dolly, because they are assuming that the blues informs everything that he does, that it is the center of his methodology and musical philosophy - I think this is just plain wrong.

He's a Negro, right? It must be the blues.

[JSngry]

"blues" is a consensual term, no way to define it literally. Only a fool would try, and only an even bigger fool would claim that they have succeeded.

Now as for this:

the musical tradition from which Armstrong comes reflects a lot of different influences,not simply one stream called the blues; in his particular case the songster tradition is reflected by, first, the rise of the post-Civil war professional songwriter; and than the Gospel/minstrel composer (eg James Bland); and than the professional black minstrel shows of the 1890s; and than the medicine show; and than the black touring companies of the first 20 years of the 20th century. Add his love for opera; and than LISTEN to his whole method of performing. The vocal style is part jazz and part minstrel man, clearly, and far from the blues in sound or phrasing. He pulls the music AWAY from the blues, takes it toward a method of linear improvisation with a great continuity, a sense of forward motion that is MUCH DIFFERENT than the methods of the blues. And he turns it into something completely unique, synthesizes these many things. But in essence, in the deepest sense, he comes out of an African American tradition of song and improvisation, of word play and word manipulation which uses all of these things - song form AND the blues - to create a new stream of American music which is neither one or the other.

I agree wholeheartedly, with the caveats that it ultimately also does fall under the consensual meaning of "blues", no way around it, good luck at ever changing that, and that no matter what you bring into your house, no matter where you brought it from, it becomes a part of your house. Even though Armstrong existed above it/us all, he still did not exist in a vacuum, obviously. His language became a valid stream into "blues" almost immediately and has remained there ever since, if for no other reason that (and this is where all the "musicology" talk turns clueless + ) "blues" is ultimately not a style of music, but a state of mind. What goes in really doesn't matter, except as academia, but what comes out is what hits people where they live, and that is what gives all this shit life, not some analytical debate. What goes into Armstrong's "blues" was indeed many different things, but to say that what came out wasn't "blues", man, you're telling several billion people over the course of 3/4 a century that no, no, no, they're been getting it wrong all this time.

They've gotten a lot of things wrong, these several billion people over the course of 3/4 a century, but I really don't think that this is one of them...

[JSngry]

In another sense, he represents a certain professionalization of the blues. Especially if you accept that the source of the blues are the field chants, repeated lines, coupling of verses and than rhymes, all of which originated with non-professional performers, though it was soon spread into places like the early minstrel shows. And this professionalization, I think, really uses the blues as just another song form- it uses it brilliantly, but not in the radically different way in which early African American proponents of the blues used the form.

AAAAAAARGHHHH

[JSngry]

let me add something - I did not say that what he is playing is not the blues - it is the blues, WHEN he plays the blues -

I don't think so - I find his blues playing brilliant but not really as blues playing; lacks, to me, the off-hand roughness of that style;

You ever wonder why you get misunderstood so much?

[Chuck Nessa]

I understand what Jim is getting at, but Lowe is onto something too. Time to relax guys.

[JSngry]

...the Lincoln Center theory is that EVERYTHING he plays is the blues, whether it's the blues or Hello Dolly, because they are assuming that the blues informs everything that he does, that it is the center of his methodology and musical philosophy - I think this is just plain wrong.

Dude, the word "blues" has become so meaningless as a "musical term" these days, it ain't worth fighting over any more except as an economic interest. And god knows there's plenty of that...

I mean, you go into South Dallas and say "blues", you're liable to get responses ranging from BB to T-Bone to Tyrone Davis to Marvin Sease to even Luther Vandross! "Country" blues, you'd be hard pressed to find any street-level awareness of that. But people feel something in certain distinct musics, and they feel compelled to call it "blues". And ain't too very many of them hip to Wynton, god bless'em!

Now to those of us smart people who know better, that's just nonsense. But to the people whose music this is all a part of the fabric, there is a common thread, somewhere.

Or so they think. Maybe we should give lectures to them to remedy them of their ignorance.

Ya want me to book you into the South Dallas Cultural Center, maybe on a theme of "NEGRO! LEARN YOUR BLUES!!!"

I'll collect the advance, I leave it to you to collect the door...

[TedR]

I wonder if there would be less disagreement, Allen, if you wrote " I find his blues playing brilliant but not only as blues playing". I'm sure you are saying that blues was only one one of many influences within Armstrong's playing. He was an innovator because of synergism. If I understand your post, you aren't questioning the blues in his playing. Instead I believe you're saying that defining Armstrong as strictly a blues player negates the innovations that he brought to the music.

[JSngry]

I understand what Jim is getting at, but Lowe is onto something too. Time to relax guys.

No, time to go play a tux gig.

Don't have to worry about any blues there, real or imagined!

[JSngry]

I wonder if there would be less disagreement, Allen, if you wrote " I find his blues playing brilliant but not only as blues playing". I'm sure you are saying that blues was only one one of many influences within Armstrong's playing. He was an innovator because of synergism. If I understand your post, you aren't questioning the blues in his playing. Instead I believe you're saying that defining Armstrong as strictly a blues player negates the innovations that he brought to the music.

Ted, can I put your pod under Allen's bed tonite?

[Chuck Nessa]

I understand what Jim is getting at, but Lowe is onto something too. Time to relax guys.

No, time to go play a tux gig.

Don't have to worry about any blues there, real or imagined!

:lol:

[Chuck Nessa]

Ted, can I put your pod under Allen's bed tonite?

Might I ask what is Ted's pod? Look out Mr Lowe!

[JSngry]

Ted, can I put your pod under Allen's bed tonite?

Might I ask what is Ted's pod? Look out Mr Lowe!

[Free For All]

No, time to go play a tux gig.

Ah yes. I refer to those as Tux, Bux & Sux gigs.

[jazzbo]

Beat me to it by a few hours! I spent time with Dan Morgenstern at Birdland last night and he told about the Mosaic set as "breaking news." He's doing the notes and told me that he just heard that he's going to have them done sooner than originally anticipated. Apparently, something (I don't know what) on Mosaic's future projects list fell through and now the Armstrong set is being moved up to possibly sometime next year.

I hope it wasn't the 1930s Ellington big-band set that fell through.

I've heard from good authority (JETman) that it was the Jamal that was NOT nixed but significantly delayed that freed up the spot for the Armstrong.

[AllenLowe]

well, Jim and Ted R. - it is the blues because technically it is the blues -

but it is not the blues for the same reasons as, say, Tommy Johnson - and therein, I think, lies the difference - because Wynton would say that it IS for the same reasons as Tommy Johnson. But Louis had much more of a medicine show soul, I think.

and Jim, let us not, as Dave Van Ronk used to say, be guilty of Crow Jim. I'm not lecturing any particular race here; but, if you want to get technical, the black musicians I used to play with (when I used to play) used to tell me that everybody they grew up with thought it was anything but the blues; their friends preferred black pop and they had no use for the blues ("that was that old time shit we got away from.") And the jazz guys I knew thought of the heavier country and rhythm and blues as merely dance music (though Barry Harris used to play Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?)

but, sorry, can't give anything else away for free, you guys are gonna have to shoplift the book -

I will add one little point of historical interest - guess where the first documented used of instrumental/vocal call and response was (as in the classic blues vocal accompaniment)?

Edited November 23, 2008 by AllenLowe

[John L]

Allen: My take on all of this:

Certainly, we can define the blues in various different ways. No definition can be right or wrong, only more or less useful for a given analytical purpose.

It appears that you have put a lot of thought and research into a better understanding of the blues, which has led you to the use of a particular definition of "blues." I expect that your book will be fascinating and insightful, and I look forward very much to reading it.

One question that you might think about, however, is this: is it wise to use a definition of the blues that excludes Louis Armstrong from the ranks of great blues players? This will create a lot of (perhaps needless) controversy, and not just from the direction of the Lincoln Center. For many people, including myself, who love the blues and have been listening to the blues all our lives, Louis Armstrong is unquestionably one of the all-time greats in his ability to evoke that intangible quality that we call "blues feeling."

That isn't to say that you should consider abandoning the concepts or lines of reasoning that you are using in the book. The question would appear to be only one of semantics. You could choose another word for what it is that you are describing within the blues. For example, Robert Palmer used a definition of a subcategory of blues (very effectively, in my view) in his book, Deep Blues. That definition excluded Louis Armstrong, as well as many other "blues" artists like T-Bone Walker and BB King. If Palmer would have written the same book, but chose the approach to equate "deep blues" with "blues," he would have immediately rubbed many people the wrong way, and his book would have been much more poorly received.

What you are trying to get at in your book sounds like a particular musical tradition or direction of development that runs through much of what we usually call "blues," but not all of it. So why not come up with another name for it?

Edited November 23, 2008 by John L

[JSngry]

and Jim, let us not, as Dave Van Ronk used to say, be guilty of Crow Jim. I'm not lecturing any particular race here; but, if you want to get technical, the black musicians I used to play with (when I used to play) used to tell me that everybody they grew up with thought it was anything but the blues; their friends preferred black pop and they had no use for the blues ("that was that old time shit we got away from.") And the jazz guys I knew thought of the heavier country and rhythm and blues as merely dance music (though Barry Harris used to play Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?)

And I'm telling you that in at least some quarters in at least some portions of America, that damn near any African-American vernacular music that is not hip-hop or MOR is consensually referred to as "blues".

Of course, I'm in Texas where nobody knows shit about no blues...

[JSngry]

but it is not the blues for the same reasons as, say, Tommy Johnson - and therein, I think, lies the difference - because Wynton would say that it IS for the same reasons as Tommy Johnson. But Louis had much more of a medicine show soul, I think.

Is that what all this is about? Settling a score with Wynton?

Damn, talk about throwing good time after bad...

But as long as you're at it, tell me more about what kind of a soul Louis Armstrong had, please. Such insight has heretofore proven...unattainable.

[JSngry]

No, time to go play a tux gig.

Ah yes. I refer to those as Tux, Bux & Sux gigs.

I would refer to it as Dues Blues, but the money was so good (but not enough!), the music so bad (but fun!), and the crowd so nondescript (but nice!) that it would be insulting to the notions of both Dues & Blues to do so.

It was like...the money was horizontal, but the check was vertical. So hell if I know what it really was.

[JSngry]

and Jim, let us not, as Dave Van Ronk used to say, be guilty of Crow Jim. I'm not lecturing any particular race here; but, if you want to get technical, the black musicians I used to play with (when I used to play) used to tell me that everybody they grew up with thought it was anything but the blues; their friends preferred black pop and they had no use for the blues ("that was that old time shit we got away from.") And the jazz guys I knew thought of the heavier country and rhythm and blues as merely dance music (though Barry Harris used to play Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?)

And I'm telling you that in at least some quarters in at least some portions of America, that damn near any African-American vernacular music that is not hip-hop or MOR is consensually referred to as "blues".

Also worth noting that anything too much before T-Bone Walker meets with the same "slave music" reaction as might be expected. So it's like the actual music (or more to the point, the records of that music) have no welcome, but the notion of "blues" still is strong, as is the feeling it engenders in this audience. Denise LaSalle might be a "soul" singer to some, but in this environment, she's a "blues" singer, not so much as a batting of an eye about it. And honestly, at this point in the game, why not?

Oh yeah, I should have included funk in that list of exceptions. Ain't nobody calling P-Funk and such no blues.

[John L]

Well, most modern blues shows feature a lot of funk, P and otherwise.

[Christiern]

A rose is a rose is a rose. Why must we put everything in a labeled box? Didn't all this categorizing start (or, at least, become accepted) on juke boxes? There exist, of course, forms of music that are decidedly "blues", but the term has long been applied far to widely. We think of Bessie Smith as a blues singer, but—like so many of her contemporaries—she sang blues because it was what her audiences wanted to hear. When they turned their ears to other music, Bessie sang other music, which she had always done even when her focus was on blues material. Many people think blues is a sad song, but there are a hell of a lot of joyful and witty blues out there—we have all heard Billie referred to as a blues singer but that's only because so many of her songs had a plaintive quality. Jimmy Rushing sang many songs that, technically, fall into an accepted blues category, but he once told me that he did not like being called a blues singer. Lonnie Johnson became known as a blues singer when he won an Okeh blues contest, but he told me that blues really was not what he preferred to sing; as a matter of fact, he spent much of a long career trying to get away from that label.

"Soul" is another label that seems to confuse. I was around when the term first came into use as a musical label. It did not apply to blues (although it covered that idiom, too) but it was any music that was decidedly black. We had soul singers, soul bands, soul food and, eventually, blue-eyed soul.

What is "classical" music? There's another term that may have had meaning when first applied, but now is as meaningless as, say, "legendary."

Does what we call it really matter?

[jazzbo]

I don't think so Chris.

That letter from Glaser was fascinating to see. Thanks.