THE RETURN OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG, part four

PROMOTING AND NURTURING JAZZ IN CHICAGO

By Howard Mandel

As our centennial celebration of Louis Armstrong’s arrival in Chicago ramps up this summer, we offer you a four part series on jazz starting pre-Louis through his profound impact on the art. No story on the Louis in Chicago could be complete without discussing the role of Lil Hardin Armstrong. A gifted and talented pianist and writer, she married Louis in Chicago and helped him develop into an international superstar.

When Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 after his influential but less-than-a-year stint in New York City with Fletcher Henderson, Lil Hardin had plans for him. She intended him to be a well-paid star and recording artist. Louis was not happy with her billing him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player,” but the reactions of audiences, the loyalty of the players originally from New Orleans with whom he worked, and the interests of other, younger musicians in what he was doing stilled his concerns.

So, upon re-establishing himself in the Windy City he solidified his ensemble and doubled down on his unique, personal direction for new music. With trombonist Kid Ory, clarinetist Johnny Dodds, banjo-player Johnny St. Cyr and Lil on piano, Louis recorded 24 sides in the next 12 months, including imperishable songs like “Cornet Chop Suey,” demonstrating his virtuosity, wit, swing and warmth; “Potato Head Blues,” refining the stop-time format Jelly Roll Morton had used for “breaks”; the erotically suggestive “Hot Like This,” and “Heebie Jeebies,” the first on which Armstrong improvised a vocal part (inspiring the wordless style to be known as “scat singing”).

In 1927 the Hot Five recorded Lil Hardin’s composition “Struttin’ with Some Barbeque,” among eight more pieces. Following the template of Johnny Dodd’s Octet, they became the Hot Seven with the addition of drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds (Johnny’s brother) and tuba player Pete Briggs, and as such (with John Thomas subbing for Kid Ory), waxed another 21 tracks. Armstrong reduced the group to five members again in ’28, having replaced Lil -- from whom he’d separated; both were involved with other lovers – with pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines. However, she continued to write and arrange for the band.

Hines, a 21-year-old prodigy born and raised near Pittsburgh, met Armstrong, three years his senior, playing pool at the Black Musicians’ Union, which had offices at 39th and State Street. The two men shared interests in expanding their instruments’ possibilities (or at least showing what they could do.) They became friends and the sort of collaborators who enrich each others’ efforts. Their Hot Seven sessions produced two songs in particular regarded as timeless examples of jazz excellence: “West End Blues” and the brilliant duet “Weather Bird.”

Armstrong was astonished by Hines’ “trumpet style,” which emphasized melody lines by playing them in right hand octaves (that is, two pitches the same, simultaneously,12 steps apart). Hines had superior technique, and an unusual grasp of time – as did Armstrong. Their collaboration is interpreted as putting a capstone on the first decade of recorded jazz. Although both their careers continued for decades, the music in their future left the old ways behind.

Armstrong had changed jazz immeasurably since the day he’d joined King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. His example set a standard really for all improvising soloists, and his groups showed how an individual’s sounds could better support and interact cohesively, across an array of feelings (all, by the way, inflected with the blues). Rhythms became more distinct (thanks in large part to Baby Dodds, who essentially codified the makeup of the modern drum kit, adapting New Orleans marching band snares, bass and cymbals for one person to play) and gained the revolutionary loose momentum known as “swing.” As for Hines, he should also be celebrated as a stalwart of Chicago’s 20th century culture.

On December 28, 1928 (according to Wikipedia, his 25th birthday), he opened at the Grand Terrace Ballroom, a venue belonging to then gangster Al Capone, with his own band – an orchestra that in time grew to comprise more than two dozen musicians, playing multiple shows nightly, for 12 years.

Throughout the Great Depression, Hines’ orchestra -- a hard-driving big band with sophisticated arrangements and solid repertoire -- was frequently broadcast coast-to-coast, advancing new styles while serving as a proving ground or finishing school for up ‘n’ comers, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, who would be responsible for jazz’s next generational reformation.

By 1929, Louis Armstrong had enjoyed exposure to several notable pianists -- besides Lil Hardin, Fletcher Henderson and “Fatha Hines,” the early composer/ promoter/bandleader Clarence Williams (with whom Armstrong met and recorded with his one true New Orleans-born peer, clarinetist and saxophonist Sidney Bechet). In New City he scored a breakthrough in the Black-cast “Hot Chocoalates” revue, coming onstage from the pitband to shine in his singing and playing of “Ain’t Misbehavin’”. The recording became his best seller. Louis Armstrong had an unusual voice, for sure – both raspy and syrupy, his precise diction as satiric as his exaggerated drawl – that was just right for the times. His voice, like the man himself, was not something artfully pretentious, but rather realistic and recognizable by people across many social strata. Remember: He had recorded with Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, as well as “classic blues” singers Sippi Wallace and Adelaide Hall; befriended songwriter Hoagy Carmichael and had a big fan in Bing Crosby.

His personality was bountiful, as big as his smile, busting out all over, hard to limit to the horn. Hollywood called, and touring – he would be in such demand and energized enough to do as many as 300 shows a year. So, Louis Armstrong left Chicago, but Chicago never left Louis Armstrong.

Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Fives and Sevens Recordings are available as a CD box set from Columbia Legacy, complete with informative liner notes, rare photos and recordings Armstrong made with other groups during this time period. A single CD of highlights is also available.