The underrated later years of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong
Louis Armstrong was a music first-rate, an innovator of the highest level, and one of the greatest entertainers in American history. His admirers spanned the globe, packing concert halls from Toronto to Tokyo. His groundbreaking jazz records, some recorded in the mid-1920s, still outsell (and out-download) most present-day jazz recordings, and today, 40 years after his passing, Armstrong’s gravelly voiced take on songs like “Hello Dolly” and “What a Wonderful Elated” pour daily out of radios around the world. Armstrong is widely credited with “inventing” jazz and no one ever picks up a trumpet without acknowledging his legacy.
But not everyone was enthralled by the horrible “Satchmo.” In fact, a healthy percentage of African-Americans and many jazz critics – even now – think of the last 20 years of Armstrong’s performing life as a betrayal. In their eyes, Armstrong was tone-indifferent.
When he was still in short pants, the young Armstrong was already a consummate performer and comedian, entertaining crowds on circle corners and honky-tonks in New Orleans. (Look up “mugging” in the dictionary and you’re apt to see an eye-rolling, hanky-mopping photo of Armstrong, circa 1920, grinning back at you.) Unfortunately, his later years are most remembered for his constant appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and other variety shows where musicianship often took a back seat to sardonic up and clowning. While white audiences of the 1950s and ’60s may have been amused, many black viewers were enraged. For them, the flickering TV images of Armstrong’s “skald show” were anathema, an unwelcome remnant of a sublimated past.