Louis Armstrong, one of the best known and most beloved jazz artists of all times, celebrated his birthday on July 4th. Historians have claimed that he was born in August, but what was good for Pops is good enough for me so I’ll continue that tradition here today.
Happy Birthday Pops!
There are times when the world is troubled, when we have death, tragedy and hatred blasting on the news and in the headlines, and we begin to despair. What Pops did for many of us over the years was to give us hope. He lifted us up with his music, his sheer exuberance, and his love for humankind expressed in his smiles. Throughout his career he quietly, with no fanfare, took care of other musicians who had fallen on hard times. Though he left this world on July 6th in 1971, his music lives on to carry that message.
Nowhere is it more apparent than in his introduction to “What a Wonderful World”
"Some of you young folks been saying to me "Hey Pops, what you mean 'What a wonderful world'?
How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful?
And how about hunger and pollution? That ain't so wonderful either."
Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it ain’t the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it.
And all I'm saying is see what a wonderful world It would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be gasser.
That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying."
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces, of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?"
They're really sayin', "I love you"
I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world Oh yeah!
It is impossible to estimate the number of people worldwide who cherished and admired Louis Armstrong. Over his long career, he made thousands of recordings and traveled to every continent. (See his timeline.)
As a black man, born in New Orleans at the turn of the century, he faced the same challenges that we still face today. From my 2013 piece:
This is neither a biography, history, or musical treatise on Armstrong's body of work and influence on the course of jazz. There are musicologists and jazz historians who have written reams about him.
It's a celebration.
I did want to share one part of his history that relates to today, since we will hear the Star Spangled Banner, and other patriotic tunes played across the nation.
Armstrong became enmeshed in media frenzy when he spoke out publicly for the first time about racism and segregation. In his personal, musical life he had always demanded in his contracts that he would refuse to play if forced into segregated facilities, and his quiet insistence on being treated equally to white musicians opened doors for those who came after him. Yet there were those who lambasted him for his not taking a more active stance in the growing movement for civil rights.
In 1957, that changed.
In September 1957, Armstrong first spoke publicly about race relations in America. During that month, the entire country’s attention was on Little Rock, Arkansas, where state Governor Orval Faubus and a band of local segregationists were defying a Supreme Court ruling desegregating the city’s Central High School. Two weeks after nine black students, known as the “Little Rock Nine”, were first barred from the high school, the jazz trumpeter was on tour with his band, The All Stars, in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Larry Lubenow, a 21-year-old reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, was assigned to interview Armstrong at the Dakota Hotel on the night of Sept. 17, 1957, shortly before a jazz concert. Lubenow’s boss laid out some ground rules that strictly prohibited any discussion of politics with Armstrong, the first black man to stay at what was then the best hotel in town.
Lubenow was first told that he couldn’t talk to Armstrong until after the concert. Eager for a story, with the help of a hotel porter he sneaked into Armstrong’s suite, posing as a room service waiter, complete with a lobster dinner. The reporter revealed himself to Armstrong who granted him an interview. Within minutes Lubenow brought up Little Rock. “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country,” Armstrong said. President Dwight Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced”, and had “no guts”. As for Faubus, Armstrong called him an “uneducated plow boy”.
Armstrong also recounted some of his experiences performing in the Jim Crow South. He then sang the opening of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, inserting obscenities into the lyrics. At that time, Armstrong had been contemplating a goodwill tour to the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department. He would go on to cancel the tour. “People over there are going to ask me what’s wrong with my country,” Armstrong said. “What am I supposed to say?”
For approval Lubenow showed Armstrong what he had written.
“Don’t take nothing out of that story,” Armstrong declared. “That’s just what I said, and still say.” He then wrote “solid” on the bottom of the story and signed his name.
The story took off.
The article ran all over the country. Douglas Edwards and John Cameron Swayze broadcast it on the evening news. The Russians, an anonymous government spokesman warned, would relish everything Mr. Armstrong had said. A radio station in Hattiesburg, Miss., threw out all of Mr. Armstrong’s records. Sammy Davis Jr. criticized Mr. Armstrong for not speaking out earlier. But Jackie Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt and Marian Anderson quickly backed him up.
Mostly, there was surprise, especially among blacks. Secretary Dulles might just as well have stood up at the United Nations and led a chorus of the Russian national anthem, declared Jet magazine, which once called Mr. Armstrong an “Uncle Tom.” Mr. Armstrong had long tried to convince people throughout the world that “the Negro’s lot in America is a happy one,” it observed, but in one bold stroke he’d pulled nearly 15 million American blacks to his bosom. Any white confused by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s polite talk need only listen to Mr. Armstrong, The Amsterdam News declared. Mr. Armstrong’s words had the “explosive effect of an H-bomb,” said The Chicago Defender. “He may not have been grammatical, but he was eloquent.”
Though Armstrong was excoriated in certain quarters, there was also good news.
On Sept. 24, President Eisenhower sent 1,200 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne into Little Rock, and the next day soldiers escorted the nine students into Central High School. Mr. Armstrong exulted. “If you decide to walk into the schools with the little colored kids, take me along, Daddy,” he wired the president. “God bless you.”
God Bless you too Louis.
There is no audio recording of that performance in North Dakota, though a fan has suggested a memorial be placed in the Dakota Hotel to commemorate that day. Lucky for us, there is a wealth of his music available online to share for today’s celebration.
Everyone who loves his music has favorites — and I invite you to post and share yours in comments.
I’m gonna kick off this years Pop-fest with St. Louis Blues, since many of us will be heading to St. Louis for Netroots Nation, July 14 — 17.
Since July is also the month for the Newport Jazz Festival — here’s Louis live, from the documentary film Jazz on a Summer’s Day.
In keeping with the summer theme, his Summertime duet with Ella Fitzgerald, from Porgy and Bess is one of my all time favorites.
For more of his music, check out the past celebrations from 2014 and 2013
Happy July 4th and Happy Pops Day!