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Summary
Summary
A biography of Louis Armstrong's prolific years in the 1920s and early 1930s, this book examines the cultural forces that shaped his life and, ultimately, jazz itself. Thomas Brothers picks up where he left off with the "compelling" (Literary Review), "scholarly without being scholastic" (Financial Times), Louis Armstrong's New Orleans (ISBN 978 0 393 33001 4), blending personal accounts to tell the story of how Armstrong navigated the legacies of racial inequality to forge two new musical styles--one vocal and one instrumental--that permanently altered the course of popular music. Combining biography, cultural history and musical scholarship, Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism illuminates the life and work of the man often considered to be the greatest American artist of the twentieth century.
Author Notes
Thomas Brothers was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Biography with his title Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this sprawling, somewhat bloated study, music historian Brothers picks up where his Louis Armstrong's New Orleans leaves off, following Armstrong through his most formative decade, from 1922-1932. On Aug. 8, 1922, Armstrong boarded a train in New Orleans bound for Chicago to join King Oliver's band and start over. Combining his love of blues with jazz, Armstrong developed both as a vocalist who understood harmony and as a strong trumpeter whose "command of tone, quick fingers, and high-note playing created a new melodic idiom" that set him apart from other musicians. Brothers conducts us on a journey with Armstrong as he builds a following in Chicago; marries his first wife, the pianist Lillian Harden; and moves away from Oliver's band, creating his own distinct sound in the clubs of Harlem in New York City, making five "hot records," including "Muskrat Ramble," "Ain't Misbehavin'," and "Heebie Jeebies." Although Terry Teachout's Pops remains the definitive biography of Armstrong, Brothers's book shows how Armstrong achieved a sort of godlike status among black audiences while bridging the racial gap to attract white audiences with his singing. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The author of Louis Armstrong's New Orleans (2006) continues his stellar account of the great trumpeter's life (19011971), focusing on the 1920s and '30s. Brothers (Music/Duke Univ.), who has also edited a collection of Armstrong's prose (Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words, 1999), composes a multilayered work comprising biography, cultural and racial history, and musicology. The author begins in 1931 (Armstrong was on tour), showing us two principal themes that will reappear throughout the work: Armstrong's artistry and American racism. Brothers then takes us back to 1922 (Armstrong was on his way to Chicago and a new musical life) and marches steadily forward, more or less, to the 1930s, when Armstrong, a major musical star, participated in some degrading roles in motion pictures--performances that sullied his reputation. The author also examines Armstrong's complicated love life (he'd been married three times by book's end) and his fondness for marijuana (he smoked it throughout his adult life--spent some time in jail in 1931), his relationships with fellow musicians and managers and even the Chicago mob (Capone liked him). Brothers introduces us to Armstrong's musical mentors (King Oliver was a major one), takes us along on Armstrong's tours, into the OKeh recording studios (he eventually moved to RCA Victor), and describes the neighborhoods he lived in and the clubs he played. We learn about the advent of the microphone, the primitive recording conditions, the celebrity Armstrong earned from records--but even more from his radio appearances. We see Armstrong, the singer, the cornetist (and, later, trumpeter), the dancer, the comedian and the artist nonpareil (Brothers rhapsodizes about his technique, his upper range). The text becomes dense for general readers only when Brothers waxes analytical about particular songs, recordings and techniques. A masterful performance that displays the author's vast archival research, musical knowledge, familiarity with cultural history and profound sensitivity to America's vile racial history.]]]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Jazz fans have been blessed in 2013 with two exceptional biographies, Stanley Crouch's Kansas City Lightning (the first volume in his life of Charlie Parker) and Terry Teachout's Duke. That pair is now joined by Brothers' monumental follow-up to Louis Armstrong's New Orleans (2006). The focus here is on Armstrong's most fertile period as an instrumental and vocal innovator in Brothers' convincing argument, a modernist from his youthful arrival in Chicago in 1922 to join Joe King Oliver through the years of the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (culminating, sadly, with the degrading movies of the early 1930s). The strong emphasis, properly, is on the music, with Armstrong's personal life (his marriage, his eccentricities, his marijuana use) handled only superficially. This is an enormously rich, if sometimes difficult, biography, and it delivers a remarkably clear and knowing discussion of a new musical form rooted in African music and the blues. Although his book is not for those unfamiliar with jazz, Brothers does note, after a particularly dense explication, that the listener does not need this all spelled out . . . for the ear will recognize it effortlessly and unconsciously. True, but this biography provides an illuminating accompaniment. There has been much written on Armstrong, but Brothers' work, covering an astonishingly creative decade, is comprehensive and firmly grounded in musicology and in the racial and cultural climate of the 1920s. It is voluminously researched, compellingly written, and supported by a valuable discography and bibliography. A bravura accomplishment, soon to be followed, one hopes, by a third volume covering Armstrong's role in midcentury popular music.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2010 Booklist
Choice Review
Brothers's superb Louis Armstrong's New Orleans (CH, Nov'06, 44-1435), on Armstrong's early life, was largely an ethnographic study of the musical culture of New Orleans in the early part of the 20th century. The present volume covers Armstrong's music and career from the time he moved to Chicago in 1922 through 1932. This includes his coming to some prominence as second cornetist in King Oliver's band, his brief but influential stint with Fletcher Henderson's band in New York, his return to Chicago, and the recording of some of the most celebrated tracks in jazz history--the famous Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions (with the critical contributions of Lil Hardin Armstrong and Earl Hines). Armstrong then became a big band leader and one of the first African Americans to gain celebrity in the wider American entertainment industry, including films. Although Brothers had many more known facts to deal with in this volume, he does not ignore the sorts of sociological issues he discussed in the earlier volume, including many aspects of the entertainment world in nightclubs and theaters aimed at black, white, and mixed audiences. He discusses in considerable depth recordings, Armstrong's playing and singing styles, and their importance. This is another remarkable study. Summing Up: Essential. All readers. K. R. Dietrich Ripon College
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. ix |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 "Welcome to Chicago" | p. 13 |
| 2 OliverÆs Band and the "Blues Age" | p. 40 |
| 3 Opposites Attract: Louis and Miss Lil | p. 70 |
| 4 The Call from Broadway | p. 116 |
| 5 "This Is What Really Relates to Us": The Dreamland Café, the Vendome Theater, and the First Hot Five Records | p. 165 |
| 6 Melody Man at the Sunset Café | p. 222 |
| 7 "Some Kind of a God" | p. 276 |
| 8 The White Turn | p. 326 |
| 9 The Rosetta Stone | p. 377 |
| 10 Sleepy Time Down South | p. 417 |
| Discography | p. 463 |
| Bibliography | p. 465 |
| Endnotes | p. 489 |
| Source Notes | p. 521 |
| Index | p. 571 |