Columnist Joe Delaney: Remembering the glory of 'Satchmo' Armstrong

Joe Delaney's column appears Thursdays and Fridays. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4066.

Daniel Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, one of the past century's most important contributors, as a vocalist, musician and entertainment personality, put up his trumpet for the final time on July 6, 1971 ... "Satchmo" was a contraction of the term "satchel mouth" ... Armstrong said he was born on July 4, 1900, although there was one biographer who claimed his natal date was in August 1971 ... We go along with Armstrong.

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth, there will be numerous re-issues of his classic recordings, including an 89-track, four-CD Columbia Legacy box set of his 1920s Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, digitally re-mastered, sounding even better, technically.

Those recordings were the mainstream public's first awareness of jazz singing, scat-singing, and improvised instrumental solos ... Armstrong was an original source, the most powerful single force in American music.

He influenced...

Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday are just a few of the superstars Armstrong influenced vocally ... Bunny Berigan, Bix Beiderbecke, Miles Davis, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and, most recently, Jon Faddis and Wynton Marsalis are examples of major trumpet players who learned from Louis' recordings.

Duke Ellington once said, "There is no jazz musician who ever heard Armstrong play that did not play some Louis after that. Lord knows how many youngsters took up the trumpet because that was his instrument" ... I was one of those youngsters, in 1934, who studied trumpet.

I was never a very good trumpet player ... For me, at age 12 in 1934, it was a toss-up between Barney Bigard' clarinet on Ellington's recording of "Delta Serenade" or Armstrong's trumpet cadenzas on RCA's "Dusky Stevedore." In the 1950s and 1960s Bigard was one of Armstrong's All-Stars.

A dream fulfilled

My best work was as a recording producer ... The late comedian, Jack E. Leonard, once said, at a NYC Friar's Club luncheon that my contribution to the music business was that I gave up the trumpet at an early age and never went back to it ... My personal Armstrong high spot was producing two albums with Louis and the original Dukes of Dixieland in 1960 for Audio Fidelity Records.

Both "Louis Armstrong and the Dukes of Dixieland" albums have been digitally remastered and reissued as CDs on the Blue Moon label, with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain ... I was able to pick up copies locally.

In 1967 Armstrong recorded "It's A Wonderful World" ... It had a huge sale internationally but did not become a hit in this country until the record was featured in the film "Good Morning, Vietnam," resulting in a No. 1 hit for Armstrong in 1987, 16 years after his death.

The true story

George Lee was a song plugger, working on the Jerry Herman songs for the Broadway version of "Hello, Dolly," starring Carol Channing ... The production was off to a slow start ... Lee thought Armstrong could make the title song a record hit ... No takers ... Joe Glaser, Armstrong's lifelong manager, paid for the recording session but none of the record companies were interested in Armstrong in the 1960s.

Dave Kapp (Kapp Records) owed Glaser some money. Glaser offered to call it even if Kapp would release Armstrong's record ... Armstrong and the All-Stars were on the road playing one-night stands when people in the audience began requesting the "Dolly" song.

Armstrong had to re-learn the song from the record so it could be played on subsequent dates ... It proved to be a factor in the spurt of ticket sales for the Broadway show ... Streisand played Dolly in the film version.

And a postscript

Arvell Shaw, Armstrong's bassist for 26 years and now leader of the Armstrong Legacy Band, relates, "When Louis first heard 'Hello, Dolly,' he hated it. ... It was his last million-record seller during his lifetime ... Armstrong also sang the song in the Streisand film, which was released in 1969, two years before his passing.

Armstrong was also known as Ambassador Satch, America's musical ambassador to the world ... B.B. King inherited that mantle when Louis left us and, as Ambassador B.B., has worn it proudly down to the present day ... Armstrong's last LV date was at the Tropicana in January, 1971 ... See you Friday.

archive