LOUIS ARMSTRONG

 

CONTRIBUTIONS

  1. Louis Armstrong  was born in 1901 in New Orleans. He learned to play the cornet in a reformatory. He was arrested for a childish prank when he was 13 years old. He was later tutored by by King Oliver and played in Kid Ory’s band when he was 18. King Oliver summoned Armstrong to join his band, King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band, in Chicago in 1923. King Oliver also played cornet and it was unusual to have two cornets in a New Orleans style jazz band. In 1924 Armstrong played with Fletcher Henderson’s band in New York and became known as the greatest jazz musician in the world. In 1927 and 1928 Armstrong made his greatest recordings of his early period. they were recorded under the names of Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five or ...and His Hot Seven, or several other band names. In 1928 he switched from cornet to trumpet and almost every other cornet player did the same. In the 1930s he appeared in several films and was known also as a popular singer and entertainer. His popularity and  artistic output waned somewhat during the Swing Era of the 1930s and 1940s when he led various big bands but returned to a New Orleans combo format later in the 1940s and continued that way under the name of Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars. He remained more popular than ever and served as an official Ambassador of Good Will for the United States while touring around the world.

Louis Armstrong is the single greatest figure in early jazz and perhaps in all of jazz history. His great contributions to jazz include:                                

  1. 1. SOUND- it was brilliant and brassy with                 an aggressive attack. he was able to player                 higher notes than anyone before him.

    2. SWING- he was the first player to consistently swing. While he was not the first jazz musician to swing he was the first to consistently do so. He used swing eighth notes but also had a very approach to melodic rhythms. Although swing is a hard term to define it includes

    3. DRAMA- he was able to create drama in his improvised solos through the technique of tension and release.

    4. IMPROVISATION ON CHORDS- he was the first player to base his improvisations primarily on the chord changes rather than ornamenting and making variations on the given melody as was more commonly done in early jazz.

    5. SINGING-he set the standard for jazz singing and developed the art of scat singing (improvised singing on nonsense syllable).

  1. 6. JAZZ AS ART- he turned jazz into an art form through the aforementioned contributions and showed that the relatively new medium of jazz can be as artful as any other music.





1901-1971

BIOGRAPHY

Cornet - Louis Armstrong

Clarinet - Johnny Dodds

Trombone - Kid Ory

Piano - Lil Hardin Armstrong

Banjo - Johnny St. Cyr

STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBEQUE 1927

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five

STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBEQUE

Real Time Listening Guide

and Recording

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

    1. the New Orleans Style polyphony and collective improvisation                                                                                                   during the Intro, Chorus 1, and Chorus 4

    2. the breaks throughout

    3. how the off-beat accents (on beats 2 and 4) during the trombone solo turn into off-beat stop time during the cornet solo

    4. the command of his instrument that Armstrong has throughout and his perfect awareness of the beat that allows him to float on top of it with a pure sense of swing

    5. the 32-measure pop song form- ABA1C

    6. the steady four beats per measure played by the piano and banjo

INTRO:  Full ensemble, Cornet lead, collective improvisation

  12

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   8                        8                        8                        8

  A                        B                        A1                               C

CH 1   Full ensemble, Cornet lead, collective improvisation-----------------Bjo br

0.14                                                                                              2


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CH 2   Clarinet solo -----------Cl br   | Trombone solo ------------------------Tbn br

0.54                   2         off-beat accents--------------------------2    

 

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CH 3   Cornet solo-------------Cor br| Cor solo (cont)---------------------------Tbn,Cl br | Ext

1.33    Stop time on off-beats- 2   stop time on off-beats----------------     2            2


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CH 4   Full ens, coll improv----- Bjo br| Full ens, coll improv   | Full ens------------| Coda    

2.15                                                             Arranged-----------    2                                     

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