Louis Armstrong- An Extravagant Life

Louis Armstrong- An Extravagant Life

What is jazz? According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, jazz is American music developed especially from ragtime and blues and characterized by propulsive syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varying degrees of improvisation, and often deliberate distortions of pitch and timbre. Most people of course will not give you this exact definition when asked to define jazz, and you will get numerous responses. Some people may not even quite really know what jazz is besides a type of music. Whatever the case, jazz has different meanings for everyone, but for Louis Armstrong, jazz was not only a way of life, but it was his life.

Louis Armstrong. Many know the name, and may recall a hit song or two of his. But then others, me included, do not know much else of the man behind the music. Unfortunately, without taking a class like this or another music class, most of them probably never will either. People knew him by various names, the father of jazz, satchmo, pops, but without a doubt he was the first most important soloist to emerge in jazz. To this day he is probably the most influential musician in the music's history.

Louis grew up in New Orleans in the early 1900's, and began his love affair with music at an early age. Like most black musicians of this time, Armstrong included, reading from music was not the way you made music. Most just played by ear, and taught themselves how to play an instrument, never learning how to read a sheet of music. To them it was almost a bad thing if you did know how to read, and the ones who did, would pretend they could not. Music was to come from the soul, and be improvised. Reading a sheet of music while playing would only take away from that and you could not perform as well. Eventually though, even Armstrong himself would have to learn if he wanted to earn a decent living, and make something of himself.

In 1919, Louis was able to begin to make that happen. While out promoting that night's concert with his current band, another band doing the same crossed their path. The two bands began a musical war trying to outdo one another. A man watching by the name of Fate Marable would soon ask Louis to join him. Fate was a very well known band leader for the Mississippi river boats. He conducted a group of colored musicians for the white patrons aboard the ship. It was also known though that his players had to know how to read music. This intimidated Louis, as well as many other great musicians of the time.

Fate soon offered Louis a spot doing short excursions on one of the riverboats. This was a step up from what Louis was used to playing, but it also meant he would have to learn how to read music. Eventually Marable would ask Armstrong to join him on longer excursions meaning Louis would be gone from his beloved New Orleans for months at a time. He contemplated the offer for some time, and even thought about joining other bands. Louis also worried how his first wife Daisy would take the news, and if he would be welcomed back. Armstrong really wanted to play for a man by the name of Joe Oliver in Chicago, but it was not quite his time. Finally, Louis gave in to Marable, and accepted his offer to join the orchestra. It was not an easy one though, and Daisy was not excited about him leaving, but in a way, Louis was eager to get away from her possessive and violent ways.

Before long, Louis was in St. Louis joining the other orchestra members. He was very shy at first, and mainly kept to himself unless in the presence of other musicians. The orchestra would practice for hours a day, and would have to keep by Fate's strict guidelines of conduct upon the ship. Along with Fate and his ways came the owner of the ship John Streckfuss. Streckfuss was very set in his ways as well and also had his own set of rules for the men, like not being able to talk with the white guests of the ship. This new way of living was hard on Louis. He was used to the prostitutes, violence, and drunkenness of New Orleans. John also made sure that everyone in the orchestra was paid the same rate, and that no one was singled out as better than another. This may sound good, but for a musician trying to make it, if he was better than the others, his presence needed to be known. The one night of freedom the men would get was on Monday night's. This was a night designated only for coloreds and the men could play whatever and however they wanted. Louis could improvise his playing and let people know how good he really was.

The men would begin receiving invitations to play for white audiences (even though they