Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism

by Thomas Brothers

  To his paraphrase of the notated solo he adds bluesy gestures straight out of New Orleans. He only needed to tweak the notated lines slightly to turn them into the blues prototype of classic “sawtooth” design—a sharp initial leap upwards followed by twisting, gradual descent. Flatted thirds from the melody are intensified and repeated. His final phrase (CD 0:53–0:57) begins with a biting leap followed by descent through a blue tritone dissonance, a gesture that was bread and butter for Johnny Dodds in the Oliver band.

  Perhaps, in a reflective moment, the whole scenario brought a smile to Armstrong’s face: the music he and his friends had carried from New Orleans to Chicago was now sitting in front of him on his music stand in midtown Manhattan. The musical energy from dirt-floor dance halls had somehow come full circle to find him in the classiest ballroom on Broadway. Henderson’s success with Copenhagen had nothing to do with his arranging skills. Rather, it was because he had the real thing in his pocket: Armstrong’s driving blues solo and Bailey’s obbligato, with Charlie Green’s energetic outbursts jump-starting each section of collective improvisation.

  When Henderson hired Armstrong and Bailey to expand his arsenal of hot soloists, he was certainly not looking for a vernacular touch that he could work into a sophisticated musical vision (the kind of Harlem Renaissance orientation that literary scholar Houston Baker has identified as “an artistic reformulation of black folkways”). Henderson was no Ellington. Rather, he recognized an opportunity that was open to him and very few others. White and black orchestras never competed on an even playing field, no matter how light-skinned the bandleader might be. But Henderson enjoyed an opportunity the white bands didn’t have: he could hire black soloists. Enforced segregation took away with one hand, and sometimes it gave with the other. Armstrong’s and Bailey’s command of the black vernacular was something white musicians couldn’t match. It was a classic demonstration of “taking advantage of the disadvantages.” Back in Chicago, Sammy Stewart had been a step or two behind Henderson and turned Armstrong down.

  Hot solos were relatively new in these circles. It was more typical for soloists to offer a straight rendition of a tune, which was livened up with syncopated accompaniment. Henderson and Redman sometimes frame solos by Green and Hawkins in this way, even though both could play hot. Armstrong, however, was not hired to play the tune straight. All of his solos with Henderson are supported by reduced accompaniment, which directs attention to what he could add to a tune.

  As Armstrong thought about his creative challenges with Henderson, the central one was this: what would a hot solo be like?

  With his strong, confident playing, his sure grasp of rhythm, and his commitment to a memorable phrase, he was already ahead of the game. Hot solos in the early 1920s often dissolve into aimless noodling, incoherent rhythm, or both. Since the solos were short, no one seemed to mind. Armstrong could afford to experiment, and that is what he did with Henderson. There are signs that people were puzzled by him. Trumpeter Louis Metcalf first heard the Henderson band during a rare appearance at a Harlem theater. Armstrong’s solo on Copenhagen was “so good,” he said, “but different, and the audience didn’t know about how much to applaud.” Clyde Bernhardt heard the band when it toured Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in August 1925, and described Armstrong as “very ahead of his time, very advanced—at least for Harrisburg.” Joe Smith, who had joined the band as an additional trumpet soloist in April, “wasn’t as exciting, but whatever he played was so beautiful—had those curves in there and trills and triplets over a simple melody, it all sounded so soulful, so mournful.” Bernhardt said that it was easier for the crowd, musicians included, to appreciate Smith. “While Louis was playing more than anybody I ever heard before, Joe Smith was doing what the people understood,” he explained.

  Tension between popular accessibility and creative exploration has long been fundamental to jazz history, and this may be the first documentation of it. Smith’s solo on Alone at Last (CD 1:38–2:12), recorded with Henderson in August, is a lovely paraphrase of Ted Fiorito’s tune, and it does not lack in rhythmic verve, either (though Smith’s articulations are very different from Armstrong’s hard-edged, percussive attack). What makes the solo easy to understand is how it conforms to the original melody. He firmly rounds off each four-bar grouping with a nice held note. Popular music of the time—and popular music before and after, not just in Harrisburg—thrives on this kind of obvious periodicity, which makes the flow of patterned sound easy to grasp.

  But Armstrong was exploring alternative ways to construct phrases, and this was what made him challenging to listen to. Ultimately it made him modern, according to terms that he largely defined by himself. Smith and Armstrong presented two extremes, with Armstrong taking the riskier path, more demanding and more ambitious. One of the true delights in his recorded oeuvre is to go through his year with Henderson and follow his increasingly bold experiments.

  It is no surprise that the creator of Tears felt most at home when he was playing breaks. Sometimes he sprinkles breaklike material into solos as a way to make the solo hot, especially at phrase endings (Tell Me Dreamy Eyes, October 1924, CD 1:38 and 1:48; Bye and Bye, January 1925, CD 1:09). Even with the accompaniment still playing, you can tell that he is thinking in terms of a break.

  Charlie Green, Elmer Chambers, and Armstrong, Harrisburg, August 14, 1925 (The Frank Driggs Collection)

  In Words, a break effectively launches his solo with a burst of energy (October 1924, CD 0:43), and he often uses the same strategy on a smaller scale in what musicians call “pick-ups,” an unstressed pitch (or syllable in poetry) that leads to a stressed one. His pick-ups have so much force that the relationship seems to be turned on its head: the main gesture is the one that comes first, in preparatory position, rather than the one that falls in stressed position (Words is again a good example). In Go Long Mule, pick-up figures form two-bar groups packed with internal tension, with alternation between syncopated figures and “straight” rhythms that reinforce the background beat. These two-bar groups stand one measure out of phase with the patterned flow of the original tune. It is as if he is “filling in” according to the strategies of collective improvisation, setting his part as a second line against the regular flow of phrases in the accompaniment.

  Moving in and out of phase with the background beat and phrasing is the central feature of the fixed and variable model, which is now moving to the center of Armstrong’s solo playing. In contrast with Chimes Blues, from the spring of 1923, his line dances on top of the fixed foundation, constantly changing in its relationship both to the fixed level and to the patterns he has previously defined. We saw in Chapter 3 how he sometimes joined Johnny Dodds and Honore Dutrey to fill in between four-bar and eight-bar phrases of the lead melody, complicating the texture. Now he creates this effect all by himself. In the second phrase of I’ll See You in My Dreams (January 1925, CD 1:40), for example, he rides right over the articulation of the four-bar tune, just the kind of articulation that Joe Smith observes so faithfully in Alone at Last.

  He extends this strategy in Mandy Make Up Your Mind (December 1924). Two-bar groups here resemble those of Go Long Mule. The extension comes in a daring touch at the solo’s end (CD 1:27), a climactic leap emphasizing the out-of-phase construction, but with a twist: his solo outlines not the chord presently sounding in the accompaniment but the chord of the next measure. This is an emphatic display of the fixed and variable model, an imaginative expansion of the concept he has been experimenting with all along.

  This gesture makes no sense according to the musical logic of Henderson’s talented-tenth training. It only makes sense if we think of the fixed and variable model as being primary in Armstrong’s mind. What made it possible was complete immersion in the musical values of uptown New Orleans. These connections to collective improvisation and the fixed and variable model have been largely ignored in most writings on Armstrong, but they form the foundation for the first phase of his musical modernity. To overloo
k them is like trying to explain a fifteenth-century Italian painting without mentioning fixed perspective: there might be a lot to say, but the basic organizing principle has been missed.

  What has not been ignored is the superior sense of melodic coherence one gets from Armstrong’s solos, compared with those of his contemporaries. In 1924–25, coherence often comes from his use of important pitches from the paraphrased tune. Virtually all of his solos with Henderson paraphrase the given tune to an extent.29 Alabamy Bound (February 1925) shows him picking out skeletal pitches and building around them. He extracts the main pitches of the tune and reconfigures them with new rhythm and new phrasing. Why not use the simple logic of the given melody to hold together his much more active creation?

  What sets him apart from the other soloists in Henderson’s band, then, is first, his training, which none of them could match, and second, his developing sense of melodic design. Musicians who played their paraphrase solos safe did not have to worry about melodic coherence. Players who “got off” (“get-off men” was another name for hot soloists) completely from the main melody usually weren’t worried about coherence, either, for their assignment was to play hot, not to compete with Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths. Armstrong was confident enough to experiment with paraphrasing and playing hot at the same time. Precision, drive, a big sound, and cornet dexterity were what got him the job. His training in New Orleans, his ambition, and his searching creativity turned the job into an opportunity to explore fresh ways of designing hot solos.

  Adding breaks, pick-ups, blue notes, fillins, radical harmonic anticipations—it all led to a dense and somewhat daunting level of activity. Listeners may not have fully understood him—did not know how much to applaud, as Louis Metcalf put it—but Armstrong was apparently a hit at the Roseland.

  One milestone for the band was its recording of Sugar Foot Stomp (May 1925). Armstrong showed Don Redman “a little book of manuscripts, some melodies that he and the famous King Oliver had written in Chicago,” and wondered if Redman might like to pick one out and make an arrangement.30 Redman chose the celebrated Dipper Mouth Blues, the biggest seller among the 1923 recordings. The arrangement is playful, almost to the point of parody. Redman sets collective improvisation aside in favor of sustained chords, cool riffs, and irregular stop time. Near the end of the performance the bass makes a splendid foray into 4/4, as if to confirm the association of this texture with Oliver’s band—like a muscle flexing regularly, four to the bar, as Eddie Condon described it. Redman said that Sugar Foot Stomp was “the recording that made Fletcher Henderson nationally known.”

  Armstrong’s solo was a milestone of sorts, as well. He reproduces Oliver’s famous solo, the very one that he had tried unsuccessfully to imitate in late 1923, but without the wah-wah effects that had frustrated him so much. He puts aside his recent stylistic experiments: there are no breaklike passages, no filling in, no picking out structural pitches and creating a new line around them. Instead, he follows Redman’s playful lead and exaggerates the effects of floating across the beat and also backing off from the climax, while giving just enough intensity to make everyone aware that he knows how to do it. When Redman calls out, “Oh play that thing,” quoting Bill Johnson from the 1923 recording, the phrase has a completely different meaning, one of lighthearted detachment rather than an urging on to greater heat.

  If Armstrong’s paraphrase solos show him imposing his will on the question of what a jazz solo could be like—imposing his will on the talented tenth and on Broadway, one could say—Sugar Foot Stomp shows him evolving with the 1920s. During the next few years he would become more multidimensional, as he followed jazz through a more complex emotional field. Parts of Sugar Foot Stomp remind me of his 1929 recording of Mahogany Hall Stomp, which has a wistful, evocative quality of New Orleans that includes both the 4/4 stomp bass and Armstrong’s cool relaxation, though the comparison also makes clear how much happened during those four years.

  Sugar Foot Stomp may have encouraged Henderson to lean harder into jazz, but that turn was hardly direct. In August 1925 the band was still producing dicty arrangements like I Miss My Swiss, recorded under the name the Southern Serenaders with white singer Billy Jones. (Presumably, the pseudonym was needed to disguise the racial integration.) It is hard not to laugh at the absurd juxtaposition of the flawless polka accompaniment and Armstrong’s driving solo. But in the last two recordings Armstrong made with Henderson, TNT and Carolina Stomp, Redman followed a new tack, integrating Armstrong’s solos into the flow of the arrangement rather than conceiving them as one hot moment in a series of strong contrasts. This was perhaps the clearest harbinger of the Henderson band’s future.

  His year with Henderson brought him greater exposure thanks to the band’s long reach through radio broadcasts from the Roseland, recordings, and a summer tour. Trumpeter Bill Coleman, in Cincinnati, learned Armstrong’s solos by heart. The band’s arrival in Pittsburgh, in late August 1925, was promoted by the Courier. “Next Monday night, August 31st at Duquesne Garden, Pittsburghers will be permitted to hear and dance to the music of one of America’s most famous orchestras,” the Courier wrote, and it is worth noting the order of the terms of engagement—hearing first, dancing second. Jazz has always been a music that people listened to as they danced, or even instead of dancing. The year with Henderson also brought constant exposure to elite white bands, since they were playing in the same venue, face to face. He noticed first-chair trumpeter Vic d’Ippolito’s impact on Sam Lanin’s band, and in Vincent Lopez’s band he heard trumpeter B. A. Rolfe show off his high range, playing tunes an octave higher than written, something Kid Rena also used to do in New Orleans.31

  There were also a few occasions to sing. Thursdays were “vaudeville night” at the Roseland. When there was a shortage of entries one Thursday, his colleagues encouraged Louis to sing. He offered Everybody Loves My Baby, on voice and then on cornet, and won first prize. The event is barely documented in the band’s commercial recording of this tune: at the conclusion, Armstrong “mugs”—playful verbal jives that create an atmosphere of spontaneity while conveying very little content—in dialogue with the band, in a series of three breaks. The mugging was dropped on the second take. The regular Thursday night crowd started calling for him, and he continued to appear now and then. Bing Crosby attended some of these contests, and it may have been the first time he heard Armstrong sing.

  Henderson claimed that Armstrong sang with the band “with that big fish horn voice of his,” but his appearances did not extend beyond these contests.32 The lack of a regular opportunity to sing became one of his gripes. More fundamentally, he was irritated by the combination of arrogance and lack of commitment among some of the Henderson musicians. Henderson didn’t think Armstrong had enough training, but still relied on him to play the high notes that the “big prima donna” first-chair trumpeter couldn’t hit (this is probably a swipe at Joe Smith). He was unimpressed with Redman’s arrangements—“too much airs and all that shit.” And he felt stifled by the brief solo space. “I personally didn’t think that Fletcher cared too much for me anyway,” he concluded.

  His year with Henderson was thus a mix of artistic success and frustration. Contrary to much talk over the years, his impact on the band was not all that obvious. In March 1925, the New York Age praised Henderson’s “symphonic jazz,” but the compliment didn’t apply to Armstrong, who had little to do with Henderson’s goal of matching standards set by Whiteman and the other elite white bands. An October 1925 report in Variety noted “considerable discussion among colored musicians as to who ranks the highest in the east as cornetists. It is claimed by many that the best two are Joe Smith and Louis Armstrong.” That says as much as anything about how people were listening in the fall of 1925.

  Armstrong was another quiver in Henderson’s bow, a dose of hot playing that did not need accompaniment and could thus be inserted for contrast in the variety-packed arrangements. Perhaps his most direct impact was on the young trumpe
ter Rex Stewart, who idolized him and copied every move. A year or so after Armstrong left, Bud Freeman from Chicago was in New York on a visit and met Stewart. Stewart gave him a folded piece of paper and asked that he deliver it to Armstrong when he got back to Chicago. “Dear Rubber Lips, you are my idol,” it read. “God bless you and keep on blowing. Your boy, Rex.”

  “Harlem Saved My Life”

  Henderson worked hard to expand his network of gigs, filling up the band’s off-nights from the Roseland. Sometimes they played for private parties at lavish mansions on Fifth Avenue; they looked forward to being served the same fancy food offered to guests. There were also appearances at places like the Lafayette Theater, the main vaudeville house in Harlem. This was the only theater in Harlem, according to Garvin Bushell, where African Americans could sit downstairs and did not have to climb up to the balcony. It was here that musicians Louis Hooper and Benny Waters first heard Armstrong play. The band also played in Harlem at “after-hours” jobs that kicked in after the Roseland closed at 1:00, lasting until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

  A favorite hangout spot in Harlem was the Rhythm Club, a place for musicians to pick up jobs that featured long jam sessions and cutting contests. The Rhythm Club was a notch below the more prestigious Amsterdam Club. Rex Stewart was playing in the Amsterdam Club house band one night when he looked up from the bandstand and saw “a tall, distinguished man, closely followed by a short, heavy set widely smiling young man” being escorted in. When he realized it was Henderson and Armstrong, his distant idol whom he must have heard on records and radio, he was so nervous that he wanted to leave the building.

  Armstrong seems to have had a girlfriend in Harlem, a dancer known as Fanny. The information comes from a source that is early but also, like so many writings on jazz, undocumented and sketchy in reliability. Given what we know about his romantic history, it is hard to believe that he gave up female companionship while Lillian was away for long stretches. Certainly he was not waiting patiently, “no one to talk with … just me and my radio,” as he would humorously sing in Ain’t Misbehavin’ a few years later. Fanny may have been another reason for the prolonged stay in New York.