Armstrong's Alter Ego: Gordon Jenkins Rhapsodizes about Louis Armstrong
Gordon Jenkins, who accompanies Louis on his new record hits, writes an emotional eulogy about his idol of twenty-seven years standing.
© Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
The “serious side” of Louis “Pops” Armstrong has been considered before in many previous biographies and books about The Great Man, notably those written by Gary Giddins, Terry Teachout and Ricky Riccardi, but it’s nice to see it reinforced in a review of Larry Tye’s new book The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie Transformed America carried in The Wall Street Journal, a publication with a national readership.
Perhaps it will serve to correct some lingering stereotypes about Pops, who has to be considered by any standard as one of the great artists of the 20th century.
Another parallel factor associated with aspects of Pops’ career that may have been deemed non-serious by commentators who were overly concerned with playing the race card in their critiques was the fact that musicians of Louis’ era thought that their primary role was that of entertaining an audience.
In this regard, telling jokes, cutting up, doing dance steps and mugging around, along with performing music, were all considered essential elements of that primacy.
The acts of Pops, Louie Prima, Bing Crosby, and many others from the early years of Jazz may seem corny when viewed by later hip, slick and cool generations, but for and during their time, “selling” yourself to an audience by being an all-around performer was what led to a successful career. It was Jazz in the broader context of show business.
Jazz as an art form - Jazz for Jazz sake - was somewhat alien to Jazz musicians of Louis’ generation and to have him and his music judged on that basis was grossly unfair.
The Editorial Staff at JazzProfiles
For New Orleans musicians, especially, showmanship was—and remains—a fact of life. Was it not Louis Armstrong, above all, who understood the relationship between music and entertainment, and never wavered in his application of it, even in the face of critical hostility? "You'll always get critics of showmanship," he told British critic Max Jones. "Critics in England say I was a clown, but a clown—-that's hard. If you can make people chuckle a little; it's happiness to me to see people happy, and most of the people who criticize don't know one note from another.""
“Armstrong was an artist who happened to be an entertainer, an entertainer who happened to be an artist—as much an original in one role as the other. He revolutionized music, but he also revolutionized expectations about what a performer could be. In the beginning, he was an inevitable spur for the ongoing American debate between high art and low. As his genius was accepted in classical circles around the world, a microcosm of the dispute took root in the jazz community, centered on his own behavior. Elitists who admired the musician capable of improvising solos of immortal splendor were embarrassed by the comic stage ham. …
To separate Armstrong the sublime trumpeter from Armstrong the irrepressible stage wag … underestimates the absurdist humor that informs his serious side. His ability to balance the emotional gravity of the artist with the communal good cheer of the entertainer helped enable him to demolish the Jim Crow/Zip Coon/Ol’ Dan Tucker stereotypes. In their place he installed the liberated black man, the pop performer as world-renowned artist who dressed stylishly, lived high, slapped palms with the Pope, and regularly passed through whites-only portals, leaving the doors open behind him. Americans loved Armstrong, and he counted on that love to do what only the greatest artists are prepared to do—show the world to itself in a new light. By the late 1940s, fashions changed and many blacks and not a few whites took offense at his clowning, equating it with racial servility. But an Uncle Tom, though he may stoop to conquer, consciously demeans himself. Armstrong would have considered ludicrous an attempt to equate his style of entertainment with self-abasement. He was as much himself rolling his eyes and mugging as he was playing the trumpet. His fans understood that, but intellectuals found the whole effect too damn complicated.”
- Gary Giddins, Satchmo, [pp. 32-34]
Gordon Jenkins, who accompanies Louis on his new record hits, writes an emotional eulogy about his idol of twenty-seven years standing.
Sadly, those who were only familiar with Pops during his 1960’s Mack the Knife and Hello Dolly era missed out on his many contributions to Jazz during the preceding 35 years.
But those like composer-arranger Gordon Jenkins [1910-1984] who were there from the beginning recognized Pops’ greatness and his importance.
Gordon Jenkins was 15 years old when in 1925 Louis’ Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings made their appearance and changed the landscape of popular music forever.
Remember how impressionable you were as a teenager in terms of the importance of “your music?”
Pops influenced other entertainers and musicians who came of age during his ascendancy including vocalists Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby and Mildred Bailey let alone Henry Red Allen, Harry James and Louie Prima among the many trumpeters of his generation.
For Gordon Jenkins, twenty five years later, he is not only in the presence of his boyhood idol, he is now developing vocal arrangements for him involving three songs that would become hit parade successes.
It was such a thrilling experience that Gordon was moved to “write an emotional eulogy about his idol of twenty-seven years standing” which was published as follows in the June 1952 edition of Metronome magazine.
“I FIRST heard Louis Armstrong in 1925, and the very first record fostered a dream that someday I would be fortunate enough to be able to work with him in some capacity, either playing the piano, making arrangements, or accompanying. This feeling built itself up to fantastic proportions through the years, and when Dave Kapp ( then at Decca) suggested that I make records with Louis I went all to pieces.
In fact, I got so excited at the thought of it, that I brought in an arrangement to the date with more junk in it than a 3rd Ave. antique shop. In trying so hard to please Louis, I had put enough things in the background for six arrangements. The result was that I had to do it over on the spot. This consisted mostly of saying " Don't play" to the band, and "Play" to Louis.
The Record was Blueberry Hill [with vocal chorus and strings no less] and it finally turned out real well. After waiting so many years to work with Pops, when I finally got there it was just too much for me. Every time I looked at him, I broke up, and when his manager told me that it was the best date Louis had ever had, I about sobbed myself to pieces.
My wife had a nice hot dinner waiting for me after the session, but I couldn't eat a bite; I just sat there thinking about Armstrong, and fighting back the tears. A few months ago I was given two more sides to make with him, Sleepytime [Sleepy Time Down South] and It's All In The Game. In order not to waste any of the three hours allotted to us, I went ahead on my own and made arrangements on Indian Love Call and Jeannine. I could hear Louis doing these tunes so clearly in my mind that I didn't realize till the morning of the date that I hadn't even told him about them. I rushed copies out to him, although I doubt if he ever looked them over. At any rate, he did them like he had been playing them all his life, and we finished the four sides in about two hours.
Musicians don't rush home after an Armstrong date, and we all sat around playing them over and over. Sonny Burke, West Coast Decca boss, flipped over the records and was pulling total strangers off the street the next day to hear them.
One wonderful thing about an Armstrong record, you never have to be afraid of anyone else copying it; it just isn't possible. Louis is the one artist in the world who can come out weeks later with a side and have a hit.
Sometimes I wonder if musicians realize how much they are in debt to Pops . . . there hasn't been a trumpet player in the last twenty-five years that hasn't borrowed some of those beautiful thoughts, consciously or unconsciously, and he has saved more arrangers than you can count.
I have never heard any jazz, by any name, in any form, that wasn't directly out of Louis Armstrong. I have never heard any musician worthy of the name ever knock him, with the possible exception of some boppers who were too busy trying on funny hats to listen.
The boys used to say it in 1924 and they still say it . . . " There ain't but the one." . . . and there never will be, in our time. I guess no one can live forever . . . but in Louis' case, I think an exception should be made . . . we just can't afford to lose him.”