RH: Towards the end of the biography, you discuss how "Hello
Dolly" created this image of Satchmo as a lovable old clown, and for
many Americans, particularly young people, those autobiographical
writings blow away a lot of the misconceptions that people have of
Louis Armstrong, the mythology that's grown around him.
LB: Yes. I'm 47, and people of my generation most likely think
of him as the lovely old man singing "Hello Dolly" with that gravelly
voice. But it turns out that he was the hippest cat around, and this
one song was a distraction from both the wilder side of his career
and the more serious side. After all, he was a founding father of jazz,
a man most jazz musicians would probably agree is the most
influential jazz musician in history. Once you explore his discography
and career, you start to realize how often he'd been there and done
that before anybody else. His recordings in the 1920s were
incredibly influential. He made thirty films, and was the first
African-American to have his own network radio show.
He performed in places where African-Americans hadn't played
before, which often put him right up against discrimination and
bigotry. Keep in mind that for most of his life, Armstrong couldn't
dine or stay in the hotels where he played with his band. But his
basic principle was that a note was a note and, as he put it, "it was
never a crime for cats of any color to come together and blow." Jazz
for him was a happy, joyous medium for all races to take part in. His
thinking on race relations changed dramatically in the late '50s. He
was on the road watching television coverage of the Little Rock
desegregation crisis and incensed by what he saw, especially the
sight of onlookers spitting on schoolchildren. He fired off a series of
telegrams to President Eisenhower saying that Ike should go down to
Little Rock and take those children by the hand and walk with them
to school. He called Eisenhower "gutless." Most people thought that
Armstrong was committing career suicide, but a lot of jazz musicians
were surprised to see him standing up so forcefully on this issue.
Many of them, including Charles Mingus, Billie Holliday, and Miles
Davis, were calling him an Uncle Tom from the '40s onward. His
statements showed them how little they understood him.
It wasn't career suicide, but after that, Armstrong always refused to
let himself be used by politicians. In 1968, Nixon asked him to come
to the White House to receive a tribute, and Armstrong said "No" in
rather obscene terms (his exact words were "Fuck that shit" --
RH). Even when universities wanted to give him honorary
degrees, he would ask them, "Where were you when I needed you
twenty or thirty years ago?" You have to admire the guy for his
independence. He didn't see himself as a civil rights leader...
RH: ...but he didn't take any shit from anybody. And even as he
became a global celebrity, he lived in a simple house in the outskirts
of New York City.
LB: The house in Corona was primarily the choice of his fourth
wife, Lucille, who wanted to get him away from the distractions of
the women and the nightclubs. Corona was primarily a white
neighborhood at the time, but already becoming a haven to the black
intelligentsia looking to escape the noise of the city. Dizzy Gillespie
and many other black artists and writers were also moving to that
general area at the time. Even when Armstrong was on the cover of
Time in 1949 as the king of jazz, he would still come out every
afternoon at three if he was home and buy ice cream cones for the
neighborhood kids. He did his own shopping. He got his hair cut at
the local barber shop. He was just "Pops" in Corona.
RH: One of the things that interested me was that despite growing
up in the more colorful parts of New Orleans, which offered
numerous illicit temptations, he didn't start smoking pot until he left
for Chicago.
LB: It was Chicago musicians who turned him on to marijuana.
He considered it healthy, and during Prohibition it was certainly
healthier than bootleg liquor. He used it very heavily, say about
three large reefers a day, his entire life, and claimed that it had no
adverse effects, although most doctors would probably agree that
such chronic use would inevitably affect the lungs. In fact his lungs
did begin to go towards the end, which made it difficult for him to
blow.
Marijuana was an integral part of his life. He recommended it to
other musicians. It shaped much of his vocabulary, which worked its
way into song titles like "Vipers" and "Muggles." He even claimed
that it helped his music playing, although I don't notice it when I
listen to recordings made before and after his marijuana use
began.
RH: Getting back to New Orleans, you point out how both
Armstrong and jazz grew up together in the streets of New
Orleans.
LB: Part of the reason he loved New Orleans despite his harsh
childhood was that he was at the right place at the right time for jazz,
although it wasn't called that when he was growing up. There were
"spasm bands," there were Creole bands that played sweet dancing
music, and there were the hot uptown musicians. The most famous of
the uptown musicians, Buddy Bolden, is a legendary jazz musician
who played several instruments but was never recorded. It's not
clear whether or not Armstrong ever actually heard him play, but he
was certainly influenced by Bolden's music because Bolden shaped
New Orleans music so forcefully. And music was a key part of daily
life in New Orleans.
RH: In other interviews, you've commented that this is the first
time you've come to the end of a biographical project liking the
subject more than you did when you started.
LB: I think that it's a common thing for biographers. You
spend so much time on your subject, learning everything about them,
and they get to be annoying after a while. But with Armstrong, with
everything that he overcame in his life, every eccentric and
delightful aspect of his personality, I came to admire him more and
even become personally fond of him. I began this book thinking he
was a great entertainer and possibly a musical genius. I ended it
convinced he was a musical genius and one of the great spirits of our
age. His influence extended beyond the nightclub and the concert
hall. Even though he was such a bawdy, seemingly casual hip person,
there was a lot of spirituality and sincerity to him that comes
through in his words and deeds. At some point I stopped being the
critical biographer and simply wanted to help piece together the
larger lessons that people could learn from his life.
