Chicago - the 1920s

8. Louis Armstrong – the Hot Fives and Sevens

Pops
 We have to start somewhere, so let’s start with the name. He pronounced his name “LEW-is”. (You can hear him doing it on Hello Dolly, for example). He once wrote “All White Folks call me Louie”. (He had his own rules about using capitals). But he seems to have accepted “Louie” as a nickname, rather than a pronunciation of Louis. His preferred nickname was Satchmo or Satch, but his friends called him Pops.

Perdido Street
He was born on August 4th 1901 (although he believed his birthday was July 4th and the year to have been 1900), the illegitimate son of a prostitute, in Jane Alley on the edge of “black Storyville”, the region blacks were allowed to buy sex: Perdido Street. According to his biographer, Terry Treachout, the area his mother worked was “rough even by New Orleans standards”. And after a short time living with his paternal grandmother as a newborn, to allow his mother to get back to work, that is where Louis was raised.

Embrouchure
 He had a tough childhood, during which he worked various jobs to supplement the family income, and busked the streets, and on New Year’s Eve 1912, aged only 11, was arrested for firing a pistol belonging to one of his “stepfathers”. He was sent to the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys. Here he was allowed to join the school band, and learned to read music. However, he was never corrected in bad habits he had picked up teaching himself cornet, and his incorrect embrouchure was to cause him medical problems later in life.

Fletcher Henderson
 When we last encountered Armstrong on the blog, it was as second cornet in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. His respect and admiration for Joe Oliver led him to stay in that position far longer than his talent and growing reputation should have allowed. It was only on the prompting of his future wife, Lil Hardin, Joe Oliver’s pianist, that Louis left the band in 1924 to join Fletcher Henderson’s band in New York. Henderson had long courted Armstrong, and wanted him to teach the other musicians to “swing New Orleans style”. During this time Armstrong is in high demand as a session man for the great female vocalists of the time.

Bessie Smith
 We haven’t had any vocalists yet, so we should listen to his recording with Bessie Smith, which is very poor audio quality to modern ears, and has a very strange instrumentation: Smith on vocals, Armstrong, aged 24, on trumpet and Fred Longshaw on harmonium or reed organ.

 There’s no rhythm backing, only the shapeless and fluid swell of the chords from the organ, so all the rhythmic pulse comes from Armstrong’s fills. Armstrong perfectly matches Smith’s emotion and sensibility with his deep understanding of blues and melody.

Again on Hardin’s prompting, Louis left Henderson in 1925 to return to Chicago. Henderson had hoped his horns would learn to play like Armstrong, but a comment attributed to Henderson band member Rex Stewart had it that by the time Louis left every instrument was trying to sound like Armstrong, even the drummer.

 Back in Chicago, Louis found that Lil had billed him “The World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”, much to his embarrassment.

Legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions
 It was then that he was commissioned by the Okeh label to begin recording his legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions. These were not Armstrong’s regular gigging bands (he was actually the featured artist in Lil’s band at the time), but high calibre New Orleans musicians Armstrong knew from back home. The musicians didn’t know the arrangements prior to the recording dates, but were (often hastily) put through their paces on arrival at the studio. But the results were stunning. Even with the mistakes. This was the sound that was to set the standard for jazz for years to come.

What is so different? If you can’t hear it for yourself, Gioia says “His melody lines ripple with newfound freedom, with a rhythmic bite that cuts through the ensemble”. Morton and Cook say “Armstrong’s music is one of the cornerstones of jazz and these, his most famous recordings, remain a marvel”.

 Let’s listen to Potato Head Blues. The band is terrific, and Louis is on form throughout. But listen to his solo from around 1:50, over the stop time passage. It’s beautiful.

Let’s not forget his vocals. He is credited with inventing scat at around this time (singing nonsense syllables), and his delivery has the same rhythmic phrasing as his playing. His horn playing influences every other instrumentalist, and after his singing is first heard, he influences every subsequent singer. Both Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday say they studied Armstrong’s records closely, listening to every nuance of his phrasing.

 Here’s West End Blues, with its stunning opening cadenza, followed by the delicious slow drag. And then, at around 1:25, Louis transforms the song with his vocal obligados, in quite a high tenor voice that might surprise people only familiar with the more mature growl of his later years. He swaps licks and phrases with Johnny Dodds’ clarinet in a captivating call and response passage. Then we get an inspired piano solo from Earl Hines (not Lil), and then from around 2:30, Louis shows his mastery of the trumpet with an 8 bar solo that squeezes out long notes, plays with the meter, and finally melts away to be brought to a close by whatever it is that the great Zutty Singleton hits to get that dull, metallic “thcck”.

Hot Fives and Sevens on CD:

 The King Louis 4 CD Proper Box set has the Hot Fives and Sevens, plus earlier recordings with King Oliver, Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith, and others. It has good sound reproduction, given the sound quality of the originals, and an excellent booklet. This has the pre Hot Fives & Sevens material the JSP box doesn’t have.

The Penguin Jazz Guide recommends the JSP 4 CD box, Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens.

This set has even better sound quality, and great CD insets. And it includes post Fives and Sevens material the Proper box doesn’t have.

Happy listening!