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- [00:00]
Terry Gross
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- [00:16]
Ricky Riccardi
Edu. This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. Here's a question for you. Who do you think was the first black pop star? The answer is Louis Armstrong, according to one of the leading experts on Armstrong's life and music. My my guest, Ricky Riccardi. He recently published his third book about Armstrong. This one is about Armstrong's early years, his rough childhood, his first recordings with other bands and his famous first recordings with his own groups, the Hot 5 and the Hot 7. As Riccardi points out, those two early groups Armstrong led, recorded between 1926 and 28 over the course of 25 months, have been studied by up and coming musicians around the world because they provide the foundational language necessary to master the art of improvisation for instrumental soloists and vocalists. Riccardi says Armstrong's innovations as both a trumpeter and singer set the entire soundtrack of the 20th century in motion. Riccardi has been the director of the research collections at the Louis Armstrong house Museum since 2009. It's the world's largest archive focusing on one musician. It gave Riccardi access to previously inaccessible documents, including 700 Hours of Armstrong recordings of his thoughts and his music, the unedited and unsweetened version of his autobiography, and the journals of his second wife, Lil Hardin, who was also the pianist in the Hot Five. She wrote or co wrote several songs Armstrong recorded and was instrumental in lending his first recording date through writing about Armstrong. Riccardi's new book has a lot to say about segregation in New Orleans in the first part of the 20th century. The new book is called Stomp off, let's Go, which is also the title of a song Armstrong wrote. We recorded our interview in January. Ricky Riccardi, welcome to FRESH air. What a joy it was to do the research for this, you know, being forced to listen again to Hot 5 and Hot 7 recordings. I love Armstrong's recordings, particularly like the ones through the 1940s. But you've written about all of them, like his whole life of recordings. So let's start with one of his great recordings, and this is West End Blues, and it's what you describe as one of the most iconic recordings of the 20th century. Tell us why.
- [02:39]
Terry Gross
I mean, for me, this is kind of everything you need to know about Louis Armstrong in three minutes. Actually, it's probably everything you need to know about him in the first 13 seconds because that unaccompanied opening trumpet cadenza, people are still learning it. I mean, during the height of the pandemic, there was a Louis Armstrong west end blues challenge. And it had musicians around the world trying to nail that cadenza. But then the rest of the recording, the way he plays the melody, the way he scat sings, the operatic trumpet playing at the ending, it was really his announcement to the world that he is here, he has arrived and nothing will ever be the same.
- [03:15]
Ricky Riccardi
All right, we need to hear it. So here's, here's West End Blues.
- [03:43]
C
Sam.
- [04:14]
Ricky Riccardi
So that was West End Blues, one of Louis Armstrong's early recordings. What year was it, Ricky?
- [04:18]
Terry Gross
1928.
- [04:20]
Ricky Riccardi
Okay, so why do you consider Armstrong the first black pop star?
- [04:26]
Terry Gross
So the records he makes in the 1920s, which are at the heart of stomp off, let's go, they were known at the time as race records. Records aimed at cities and urban areas and the black community in general, and a lot of blues and a lot of instrumental jazz. But West End blues wasn't a runaway pop hit. But it did move the needle a little bit. People were buying it, they were listening, they were influenced. And OK Records, Armstrong's label at the time, their head A and R man, his name was Tommy Rockwell. He was the one who kind of had the brainchild like, man, this Armstrong guy's got something different. If we could just get him to connect with the larger public, you know, he really has a chance to be a star. And so Beginning in late 1928, Rockwell starts expanding the sound of Armstrong's band and he starts simulating simultaneously releasing his recordings as race records and as pop records. And lo and behold, the pop records were selling. So in 1929, Armstrong comes to New York and begins his reign as a full blown pop artist for ok, recording things like I can't give you anything but love and ain't misbehavin and when you're smiling. And by 1932, he's the biggest selling recording artist in the entire industry. And so at that point, the race record experiment is over and Louis Armstrong is the first black pop star.
- [05:43]
Ricky Riccardi
Well, I want to play a song that made him a star, and that's heebie jeebies from 1926. It's a Hot 5 recording and it's considered the first example of scat, at least the first time it was called scat. So the story that's always told is that Armstrong started singing syllables scat instead of words because he dropped the Sheet music and didn't remember the words. There's other versions of the story of how he started scatting. Which do you think is the most authentic story?
- [06:16]
Terry Gross
So to my ears, and also to Johnny St. Cyr, the banjo player, he did corroborate the dropping of the sheet music thing. People have always said that that story was too good to be true. But if you listen carefully, there is a little bit, I don't want to call it panic. But in the first vocal chorus towards the end, Armstrong sings something. It almost sounds like you don't Debo. Or it's kind of gibberish. But in my mind, at that point, he might dropped the lyrics and he didn't quite know what to do next. But this whole concept of using his voice like an instrument, people remember that he was doing that in his vocal quartet when he was 11, 12 years old. One musician, Norman Mason, remembered him doing that on the riverboats with fate Marable in 1920. Another musician remembered him doing that in New York with Fletcher Henderson in 1924. So this whole concept of wordless vocalizing was something he had done. And Armstrong himself said, you know, these things just come to you in a flash. So he did not spend much time planning, like, I am going to do this on Heebie Jeebies. But in the moment with the sheet of paper on the ground, he just launches into this entire chorus completely wordless. And by the end, you know, he's throwing Sweet Mama and things you normally don't hear in 1920s pop music. But if you continue listening to the end of the track, there's a moment where they had worked out a thing where they would play a Charleston beat and everybody would sing a line, what you doing with the Heebies? And Kid Ori, the trombone player, he comes in at the wrong time. And even Armstrong himself, he admitted that he thought that they would try it again. But EA Fern, who was the producer for okay. Of this particular recording, he came in and said, we're going to take a chance on this one. And so even with the imperfections and all this stuff, they knew that that vocal had something different. And Fearne was the man that Armstrong gave credit for using the word scat. And in the book, I have a cover of the sheet music from later 1926. It's spelled S K A T. But even though you can find other instances of wordless vocalizing on record before Heebie Jeebies, for all intents and purposes, this is the record that really puts Scatt singing on the map.
- [08:19]
Ricky Riccardi
Okay, so let's listen to this 1926 recording of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, his first scatting on record. And this is Heebie Jeebies.
- [08:30]
C
Say I got the heebies. I mean the Jeebies Talking about that. That's the Heebie Jeebies. You see Constant voice Kiss it with a little bit joy say don't you know it you don't know about don't feel blue Someone will teach you Come on and do that dance they call the Heapy Jeebies Dance? Yes, ma' am Papa's got the heapy jeepies there Ask each time keep burn Kids outside leap Instead of Papa got to do the Heebie Jeepy business.
- [09:56]
Ricky Riccardi
I.
- [09:56]
C
Just had to have the heavies.
- [10:01]
Ricky Riccardi
So that was Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, recorded in 1926, heebie jeebies, which is considered the first recorded scatting. It's interesting. When he played in New Orleans with King Oliver and when he played in New York with Fletcher Henderson before starting his own bands, nobody wanted him to sing. And he became so famous and so loved for his singing. Why didn't they want him to sing?
- [10:26]
Terry Gross
Well, to Armstrong, he said that the concept of a trumpet player or any instrumentalist also singing was just. It was a foreign concept at that time. People just didn't do it.
- [10:36]
Ricky Riccardi
But you were one or the other.
- [10:38]
Terry Gross
Either one or the other. Exactly. But there was also something about Armstrong where I just think his natural personality, his, you know, his showmanship, his mugging, his way of putting over a song, especially when he got to New York. I think Henderson and the men in his band, which kind of fancied themselves as, you know, Harlem Renaissance intellectuals, they kind of looked down at that kind of Southern fried performing style. And so Armstrong, for the rest of his life, he always said Henderson had a million dollar talent in his ban. He missed the boat. And I even called one of the chapters in the book Blessed Assurance, because I think before anybody else, Armstrong was confident in his abilities as a vocalist. He knew it was different and he knew if he only got the chance, people would respond. And here we are in 2025. What a wonderful World just went certified Double Platinum in 2024 on a record where he doesn't even play a note of trumpet. So once again, Armstrong kind of has the last laugh. He just needed that opportunity to let people hear that distinctive voice of his.
- [11:39]
Ricky Riccardi
And he was sing before he was playing trumpet.
- [11:41]
Terry Gross
Another point that he always wanted to stress because people would say, oh, the trumpet player, that's the genius. The guy singing and that's kind of. He's just doing that just to commercialize himself and put these songs over. But no, I have a quote from Arvel Shaw, who said that if Armstrong never picked up the trumpet, he would have been a singer. Singing was in his blood more than the trumpet. And it was his real first musical foray in New Orleans before he ever picked up a cornet.
- [12:08]
Ricky Riccardi
I want to play him backing up a singer because this is a famous early example of his playing. Bessie Smith in 1925, recorded St. Louis Blues, and this is before Armstrong had his own band. And he's playing trumpet behind her. And it's quite beautiful and very sympathetic to what he's singing. Do you want to say anything else to introduce this track?
- [12:29]
Terry Gross
Yeah. This track literally just turned 100 years old. It was recorded in January 1925. And this was Armstrong the sideman. He goes to New York to join Fletcher Henderson in October 1924. And OK Records and other labels, Columbia, they start using him as just a studio musician. His name is never on the labels, but people respond to the sound of his trumpet. And this is something he had never really done in New Orleans before, backing up a vocalist. And on some of his early forays into this, he would be a little too busy. He might play too many notes or, you know, kind of step on the singer. But by the time he got in the studio in January 25th to back the Empress of the Blues, he had kind of perfected his approach. And even though she's technically the lead artist singing the vocal and he's supposed to be, you know, the background figure, just playing in and around her, I consider it a duet. Every one of his statements is so sensitive. He is listening to her, he is maintaining the mood. And, you know, she only gets through W.C. handy's chorus one time in three minutes. But it is all soul.
- [13:31]
Ricky Riccardi
Well, let's hear it. This is 1925, Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong on trumpet, St. Louis Blues.
- [13:41]
C
I hate to see the evening sun go down I hate to see the evening sun go down it makes me think on my left glory.
- [14:27]
Ricky Riccardi
That was the St. Louis Blues, recorded in 1925 by Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong on trumpet. And my guest, Ricky Riccardi, is the author of a new book about Armstrong's early years. It's his third book about Armstrong. This new one is called Stomp Off. Let's the Early Years of Louis Armstrong. I think we need to take a short break here. This is FRESH air.
- [14:49]
Terry Gross
This message comes from Carvana. Selling your car shouldn't take all day with Carvana. It doesn't get a great offer in no time, then choose to drop off or pick up and get paid on the spot. Sell your car today on Carvana.com pickup fees may apply.
- [15:07]
Ricky Riccardi
The House of Representatives has approved a White House request to claw back two years of previously approved funding for public media. The rescissions package now moves on to the Senate. This move poses a serious threat to local stations and public media as we know it. Please take a stand for public media today@goacpr.org thank you. On the plus side, you get sponsor free listening to over 25 NPR podcasts. On the minus side, you get fewer chances to tap fast forward on your podcast player. On the plus side, you get to support something you care about. On the minus side, you like challenges and think this makes it too easy. So why don't you join us on the plus side of things with NPR? Learn more and sign up@plus.NPR.org you're listening.
- [15:56]
Terry Gross
To NPR because you're curious. You want to know what the world is like beyond the surface. NPR feeds that curiosity with stories from real people, with real experiences and all the perspectives that come with them. It's our right to be curious and our prerogative to listen. So keep your curiosity alive. Hear the bigger picture every day on npr.
- [16:20]
Ricky Riccardi
You know, it's really remarkable and lucky for us that Armstrong was able to reach such iconic status and have such a long and productive career considering the circumstances he grew up in. Describe for us the neighborhood he grew up in in New Orleans and just remind us, too, of the year he was born.
- [16:40]
Terry Gross
So Armstrong was born in 1901. I won't get into the whole.
- [16:44]
Ricky Riccardi
Yeah, we can skip that part debate.
- [16:47]
Terry Gross
You know, I believe he was born July 4, 1901, but for reasons that are explained in the book. But either way, he's born 1901, spends his first few years living with his grandmother. But then around the age of five, he moves to the Third Ward, Liberty and Perdido streets. He moves into a tiny flat with his mother and sister. And this neighborhood was so dangerous, it was known as the battlefield. And Armstrong, he spent most of his adult years telling these stories with a little bit of a wink and a smile. And he would talk about Black Benny, you know, the drummer who would fight during the parades. And he would say, oh, well, my mother, whether or not she was a prostitute, I cannot say. But, you know, she worked hard and taught us the rudiments. And so for this book, you know, I wanted to keep Armstrong's words in place. But I wanted to dig a little deeper and talk about some of these characters. And the deeper I went into police records and newspaper reports, all I can say is it's a miracle he emerged alive, because from the time he's 5, 6, 7 years old, he is seeing, you know, gunfights and stabbings, and there's gamblers and pimps and prostitutes. And his mother is arrested almost every year and sent to the house of detention, sometimes three, four weeks. Armstrong would have to watch over his baby sister, cooking for her and for him and doing whatever he could to make ends meet. He's working. He's selling newspapers. He's working for the Jewish Karnovsky family, you know, doing whatever he can to survive. But the police are there. He mentioned the only time he was ever scared in his childhood were the police, because they would whip his head and then ask his name later. Gets arrested multiple times. The first time at the age of nine for being a dangerous and suspicious character. And even in his teenage years, when he finally starts taking music seriously and getting more and more gigs, he said it was a miracle he didn't die at these honky tickets, because every night there would be a gunfight, bullets going right past him. And he said that the bouncer, whose name was Oscar Slippers Johnson, he would protect Armstrong, make sure he didn't get hit. And that's why, I think when you read Armstrong's second autobiography, My Life in New Orleans, it ends with him leaving New Orleans and joining King Oliver. Because I think in his mind, that was the climax. Everything that followed was gravy because he had survived this childhood, that if it was a Hollywood film, somebody would say, well, this is cliche. This is rags to riches. Nobody could have actually experienced this. But in his case, it's all true. And I found all the facts to back him up.
- [19:09]
Ricky Riccardi
Well, in doing your research, you think that his mother was a sex worker and that his sister became a sex worker while his mother was in jail and she needed to earn some money and as a kid that Armstrong helped out, worked for sex workers, and as a young man, he tried being a.
- [19:27]
Terry Gross
He did. And that was one line in his New York Times obituary that I'm sure had a lot of. Of hello Dolly fans kind of scratching their head. But it's true. And he told that story, too. He was stabbed in the shoulder by the prostitute that he tried serving as the pimp for, and he showed off that scar for the rest of his life. So I also take time in the book to Talk about the other figures from the Waif's home, the orphanage where he spent a couple of years, and some of these.
- [19:56]
Ricky Riccardi
Well, let's stop at that for a second, because he spent a couple of years there after being arrested for possession of a gun. He was still a minor, and for shooting it in the air. You think it was his mother's gun?
- [20:09]
Terry Gross
It was, according to his sister. She said definitively it was their mother's gun.
- [20:14]
Ricky Riccardi
So he was sent to the colored Waif's Home for boys for what, a couple of years? He was there.
- [20:21]
Terry Gross
He was there a year and a.
- [20:21]
Ricky Riccardi
Half, and that's where he really got his start as an instrumentalist.
- [20:26]
Terry Gross
I mean, you hate to say something like, you know, that's the best thing that ever happened to him, but honestly, it was the first time that he had structure in his life. You know, the waif's home gave him three meals a day and schooling and taught him trades. But more importantly, they had a music program. It was run by a man named Peter Davis. And at first, Davis did not give Armstrong the time of day because he knew kids from Armstrong's neighborhood were nothing but trouble. But he saw that Lewis was always hanging around the band room and eventually started him on the tambourine and the drum and the horn, the bugle, and finally the cornet. And so on New Year's Eve, when Armstrong was arrested, the newspapers, they referred to him as Louis Armstrong, comma, old offender. That was his reputation at the age of 12. But then on Decoration Day, the Waif's home band did a parade through Armstrong's neighborhood, and the newspapers covered that. And all of a sudden it was Louis Armstrong, comma, leader. And so the Waifsome made him into a musician. It really showed him, this is your way out if you take this seriously. And he did. And even though they had this incredible music program, I followed the stories of some of the other kids there and who ended up shot in the at the age of 17, who ended up in Sing Sing, who ended up, you know, a well known pickpocket. And so he could have made any wrong choice at any time and have been one of those kids. He could have been gunned down, he could have been arrested. He could have. You know, the whole sound of the 20th century could have changed. And we're just lucky that he had some angel on his shoulder or something that kind of helped him through and were all the beneficiaries.
- [21:59]
Ricky Riccardi
Another thing about Louis Armstrong's early years is that he started working as a child. He loaded co and kind of ran the junkyard truck or wagon for the Karnavsky family, a Jewish family in New Orleans. And on the one hand, it was child labor and, you know, like the loading and unloading of the coal that he delivered almost like broke his back, literally. On the other hand, the Karnofsky family, a Jewish family, treated him pretty well, and they encouraged his singing. This was before he had a cornet. They encouraged his singing. They recognized his talent. And he credits them for helping, like, launch his career in a way, because they encouraged him when he was very young. And also he developed an affection for Jewish food and for Jewish music of the time, which you can hear in some of his playing. Tell us some of the things he said about loading coal and unloading coal.
- [23:05]
Terry Gross
Yeah, that was his main occupation. He had other little odd jobs, but the coal cart. He wrote a song called Coal Cart Blues. And he knew of what he's saying because this was something that he probably started. I've kind of narrowed it down to probably 10 or 11 years old. And he did it right until excusing the waif's home exile there for a year and a half. But he did it once again right until the armistice was declared in World War I. And this was back breaking work. He would wake up in the morning and fill up a cart with coal, and then he had a mule and he would go through the neighborhoods shouting out, who needs coal? And this was tough. And then when he wanted to become a musician, the age 15, 16 years old, he would get gigs at night. And so he would come home, he would sleep for maybe an hour, then put on a pair of long pants, and then go out and play the cornet, maybe until 4 in the morning, sleep one or two hours and do it again. So that's part of his childhood. The Karnofsky family, though he always gave them credit, he said they treated him like a human being. And the other benefit of working for the Kranofsky family is their coal wagon delivered coal to the prostitutes in the red light district of New Orleans, which was later known as Storyville. And African American kids could not walk around Storyville unless they were with their white boss. And so Armstrong had Morris Karnofsky, he was his boss there. He would stay on the coal cart and Lewis would go around delivering the coal. But this is also the time that the red light district starts bringing in jazz bands. And so this is Armstrong's first time hearing King Oliver and Freddie Kepper and Manuel Perez. And so, you know, there are benefits to this work, he always had this way of kind of finding the good in these situations. Situations that I think if anybody else had lived them or spent their lives talking about them or writing about them would have come off as horror stories. But Armstrong, he always found a lesson that he learned and internalized. And in his mind, everything he did made him a better person.
- [25:07]
Ricky Riccardi
Well, let's hear another recording by Armstrong. I'm gonna play Cornette Chop Suey. And you say about that that it had the effect on instrumentalists that Heebie Jeebies had on singers. So what is the importance of this song in terms of American music and in terms of Armstrong's career?
- [25:27]
Terry Gross
Well, the amazing thing for me is Cornet Chop Suey was the next song recorded after Heebie Jeebies. So I always like to make the point that, you know, you can name a million great vocalists and a million great instrumentalists, and Armstrong's the only person who totally changed the way people sang, and he totally changed the way people soloed and played music on their instruments. And he really does it on one day, February 26, 1926. But cornet chop Suey was kind of his coming out party to show all the tools in his toolbox of what he could do with his cornet. And so it opens with this dazzling, unaccompanied introduction, you know, just letting everybody know, I'm here, I'm the leader. And then the melody. I was just talking to the great multi instrumentalist Scott Robinson. We were saying you could play that melody tonight in the 21st century. And it sounds fresh, it sounds modern. And so that was a melody that he had written two years earlier. But the main part was this stop time solo. And I think trumpet players and trombonists and guitarists and piano players, they all heard that. And they said, wow, that's how you tell a story. That's how you really solo. And it's not just arpeggios. It's not just playing quick or whatever, this technical stuff. It's actually got a beginning, middle, and an end. And so Cornet Chop Suey was analyzed as this masterpiece of improvisation until the 1990s, when it was discovered that Armstrong had copyrighted the song two years earlier, and he had written down the whole solo note for note. And then in the 1950s, when that record was played for some of his old New Orleans contemporaries, they all said, oh, my goodness, that's Buddy Petit. And Buddy Petit was cornet player that Armstrong heard and admired when he was a kid. But Buddy Petit never recorded. He died in 1931 left behind, no record. And so to me, Cornet Chop Suey is on surface level. You'll hear it. You know, it still it sounds modern and fresh and we can still learn a lot from it. But to me, it's also Armstrong's serious about his craft, writing down the melody, writing down the solo, showing off the influence of a musician who never got to record and, you know, simultaneously forecasting the shape of jazz to come, but also really leaning into his New Orleans roots.
- [27:29]
Ricky Riccardi
So we're gonna feature the stop time part in this recording. So you described the stop time part as thrilling, but I want you to describe what stop time is for people who don't know.
- [27:40]
Terry Gross
Sure. So stop time, you know, usually you get the rhythm section is hitting the beats on every beat, every quarter note. Yeah. Bump, bump, bump, bump. Well, stop time, they all just focus on the first beat. So it's like like 1, 2, 3, 4, you know, they hit one note, one accent, and that just lets Louis, he's out there, you know, without a parachute. He just has to play without that chugging, swinging rhythm section behind him. They're just accenting the first beat of every measure. And it's it's hard to do that because, you know, you could lose your time, you could lose your equilibrium. You know, the band, they also have to hit that first beat all together on the nose. And it's become a kind of a lost art form in certain circles. But few did it better than the Hot Five.
- [28:23]
Ricky Riccardi
So let's listen to Louis Armstrong's 1926 Hot Five recording of cornet Chop Stewie. And what we're going to do is we're going to cross fade and skip a part because I want to hit all the high points that Ricky riccardi just mentioned.
- [28:47]
C
SA Sam.
- [30:03]
Ricky Riccardi
That was cornet chop suey, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, recorded in 1926. And my guest is Ricky Riccardi, author of the new book Stomp Off. Let's the Early Years of Louis Armstrong. It's his third book about Armstrong. We'll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR. Pop Culture Happy Hour. NPR's Easy Breezy laid Back Pop culture podcast has brought you the best in culture for the past 15 years.
- [30:28]
Terry Gross
That means we spent the last 15 years talking about what exactly bad reality.
- [30:32]
Ricky Riccardi
TV actually good Marvel movies?
- [30:35]
Terry Gross
Actually awful. Marvel movies reboots pop music, prestige dramas, Netflix slop.
- [30:40]
Ricky Riccardi
That's 15 years of buzzy pop culture chit chat. And here's to many more. With you along for the ride. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:52]
Terry Gross
You know, those things you shout at the radio or maybe even at this very NPR podcast on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me we actually say those things on the radio and on the podcast. We're rude across all media. We think the news can take it. Listen to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me wherever you get your podcasts, fall in love with new music every Friday at All songs considered. That's NPR's music recommendation. Podcast Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new releases of the week. Make the hunt for new music a part of your life again. Tap into new Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [31:32]
Ricky Riccardi
So I want to jump ahead to Armstrong's last chapter of life. So I'm going to jump ahead to 1971 and your book begins with this story. And it's a very moving start that really pays tribute to Armstrong's love and complete dedication to playing music. In 1971, he signs a two week contract for two shows a night at a newly renovated nightclub called the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, even though he'd recently been in the ICU with kidney problems and I think heart problems as well.
- [32:11]
Terry Gross
Yes, both.
- [32:12]
Ricky Riccardi
And his doctor warned him he could die on stage. Armstrong didn't seem to care because his life was his music. So what deal did the doctor made with Armstrong?
- [32:22]
Terry Gross
His doctor, Gary Zucker, basically told him, all right, you can do the gig, but we're gonna turn your hotel room basically into a triage at a hospital. And every night before and after each show, I will come in, I'll do your blood pressure, I'll test your vitals. As the gig went on, Lewis started suffering from heart failure. And Dr. Zucker said, you know, we'll try to keep the heart failure at bay. But he knew he wasn't gonna stop him. He tried stopping him, but he said Armstrong almost got into a possessed state. And he said, doc, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn. The people are waiting for me. I can't let them down. So Armstrong made it through the entire Waldorf gig, two shows a night for two weeks. And two days later he had a major heart attack, ended up in the hospital for almost eight weeks and ended up passing away in July of 71. So it really is his last stand. And it really is also to me, him going out on his shield. He probably could have lived another 5, 10 years if he could just put the horn down, retire, relax. He had money, he had a house, it was paid off. He had his wife, he had his tapes, he had everything he wanted in Corona, Queens. But he needed to be out there performing for his fans. He knew even his old friend the drummer, Zooty Singleton said that. Don't let anybody fool you. He knew the end was near, but I think he was satisfied that he had finished the gig and was still on his feet at the end.
- [33:45]
Ricky Riccardi
I think this would be a good time to play Armstrong and his Savai Ballroom 5, recorded in 1928. So this is the final side that he made in Chicago before moving to New York. And you say it sums up his entire life up until that point. How so?
- [34:04]
Terry Gross
Well, he takes a three chorus solo, it's his longest solo on record. And to me he opens off, I kind of jokingly refer to it as Cantor Louis Armstrong. It's like this minor keyed song. And he opens almost like he's blowing the shofar. And so the influence of the Kranofsky family is immediately right there. Then there's comedy. People always said, well, Armstrong can mug and fool around, but when he picked up the horn, that's when he was serious. Well, to an extent. But he was also very funny on the trumpet. And so there was something called the Streets of Cairo, which is known as the Snake Charmer song. Da da da da da da da da da da da. And so he takes that and turns it into a musical quote. And of course the hip hop world, now they call it sampling. But this was something Armstrong brought to the jazz world of taking a pre existing melody and incorporating it into his improvisation. And it's funny, but he also really makes a meal out of it, stretching it out and everything. Meanwhile, the band in the background, they turn their backing into kind of a Spanish rhythm, what Jelly Roll Morton called the Spanish tinge. And of course that's another ingredient of the New Orleans sound. The Cuban influence, Afro Cuban influence, all that. So all these different things, comedy, the Jewish influence, New Orleans influence, everything that he had heard is all coming together and eventually it all builds. This climax where he is wailing and upper register high notes, opera, Enrico Caruso, everything he learned from buying opera records as a teenager, it's all coming out of his trumpet. And I make the point that this three chorus solo, the way it builds and builds and builds, it starts off so slow and quiet and by the end it's like this roof shaking climax. That's the blueprint for all kind of extended solos. And in the book I just use guitarists by Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen. It's the blueprint. Doesn't even have to be jazz. Anybody who is improvising, taking a solo, starting off quietly, building and building and building and boom. Here's the big high note ending. They're all taking a page out of tight like this. So to me, this is Louis Armstrong's life up to 1928 in three minutes.
- [36:09]
Ricky Riccardi
Okay. Well, let's hear it. It's a great recording. This is Louis Armstrong and his Savoy Ballroom 5. And what we're going to do is focus on that solo that you just described.
- [36:21]
C
Ram.
- [36:50]
Ricky Riccardi
Oh, it's tight like that.
- [36:51]
C
Loyola.
- [38:03]
Ricky Riccardi
That was Louis Armstrong. Tight like this, recorded in 1928. My guest is Ricky Riccardi, who is the author of the new book Stomp Off. Let's Go. It's about the early years of Louis Armstrong. We'll be back after a short break. This is fresh air.
- [38:21]
Terry Gross
On NPR's Throughline. Schoolteachers are going to be the ones that rebuild our society in a way that is more cohesive. Basically, where soldiers set down their arms, schoolteachers need to pick up their books.
- [38:33]
Ricky Riccardi
How the U.S. department of Education tried to fix a divided nation.
- [38:38]
Terry Gross
Listen to Throughline wherever you get your podcasts.
- [38:43]
Ricky Riccardi
On NPR's Wild Card podcast, Michelle Obama says she's reinventing herself.
- [38:48]
Terry Gross
I don't know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself.
- [38:55]
Ricky Riccardi
I think I'm now at a stage in my life where all my changes choices are mine. I'm Rachel Martin. Listen to Wildcard for a conversation about balancing family and personal growth with Michelle.
- [39:06]
Terry Gross
Obama on Fridays, The One A podcast is all about helping you cut through the info fog and get to what's important in the news. Close out the week with us on our Friday News Roundup. Hear from reporters who've been embedded with the biggest news of the week. Join us every week for the Friday News Roundup. Listen to the One podcast from NPR and wamu.
- [39:30]
Ricky Riccardi
So you are the director of research collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum. You've been that since 2009. And what it is, it's the house where Armstrong and his fourth wife, Lucille, lived for about 20 years until his death and it was transformed into a museum. And it's the world's largest archive focusing on one musician. One of the amazing things in that collection is 700 hours of tape that Armstrong recorded. Some of it is music, but a lot of it is his thoughts. You know, him kind of thinking out loud, sharing memories of the past, as well as it has conversations with friends and fellow musicians. And it must be very exciting to have access to that. What are some of the gems that you found in that 700 hours of tape?
- [40:23]
Terry Gross
I mean, to me, they're all gems, but the big takeaway is that what you see is what you got. You know, the Armstrong who had the time of his life and always said he was there in the cause of happiness. On stage, he's that guy. Offstage, he is laughing the loudest and telling the dirtiest jokes, and he's, you know, so accessible with his friends and with his family and with fans. He had an open door policy and he would sometimes tape record those conversations and just so sweet, so genuine, so earnest. But at the same time, the tapes also showcase him as a human being. You hear him cursing, you hear him angry, you hear him upset about racism and about the way he was being treated. And I think that's kind of the big takeaway, the big discovery for me, and I tried getting that into all three books, is that sometime Armstrong is painted as kind of a man child, like that smiling, eye rolling Persona. People think, well, that's all he was. He didn't really know how to navigate the world, and he needed a white manager like Joe Glaser. And he just wanted to make fans happy and smile. And he just was totally kind of ignorant about the situation.
- [41:37]
Ricky Riccardi
And some people thought of him as an Uncle Tom.
- [41:39]
Terry Gross
Oh, my goodness. That started early and kind of haunted him for years. And it actually clung to him to the first, maybe 10, 20 years after he died. That was a big part of many of the writings about Armstrong. All of that changed when his archives became available. His archives went to Queens College in 1991, and the first writers, beginning with Gary Giddens and then all through the 90s, and Wynter Marsalis, of course, and the jazz Lincoln center tributes and the Ken Burns documentary. All of a sudden, once people had access to these tapes and to these journals and to these scrapbooks and his unpublished writings, it was like, oh, my goodness, this guy, he was aware, he knew the story and he was street smart. And I think this book kind doing it in backwards fashion the way I did, you realize that what he learned on those streets in New Orleans, nobody was gonna pull the wool over his eyes. He was aware at all times of who he was. He was aware of his talent. He was aware that people wanted him to perform and all this stuff. But he knew how the money worked, he knew how the country worked. He puts his career on the line to tell off President Eisenhower over the way he handled Little Rock. And so all that stuff is bubbling under the surface. And he did it himself. He was his own arch. He makes these tapes. He curates his own archive. And I think he realized on a deep level that he could not go on Johnny Carson or ed Sullivan in 1967 and talk about being black in America and talk about marijuana and talk about all these subjects. But he left behind a record of his feelings on all these things. And so Now I've done three books, but honestly, there's enough in those archives for 50 more books. And I really feel like he was playing the long game. He knew that one day future historians and musicologists would want study his life. He even said, I quote it in the book. He said, they're going to write about me in the history book someday. And so as long as he was in charge of his own archives, people would have to go to him. And, you know, you could agree or disagree with his takeaways, but the key is he is now allowed to speak for himself.
- [43:43]
Ricky Riccardi
So I'm going to ask you to choose a song to end with, and I'm going to say let's not do the Hot 5 and Hot 7, because we've played several of those recordings. Move on to another chapter of his life. And I was telling you before we started that I love his recordings from the 30s and 40s, so. And you seem to love them, too. I'm sure you love every.
- [44:05]
Terry Gross
I do.
- [44:06]
Ricky Riccardi
Every bit of his work. But why don't we choose something from the 30s and 40s? Because it's kind of like represents the next chapter of his musical life. And we haven't played him actually singing, we've played him scatting.
- [44:20]
Terry Gross
You read my mind.
- [44:21]
Ricky Riccardi
Oh, good. Okay.
- [44:24]
Terry Gross
Yeah. So the next chapter of Armstrong's life was covered in the previous chapter of my previous book, which was called Heart Full of Rhythm, the Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong. Again, my intention was never to do this in reverse chronology, but it actually kind of worked out pretty interestingly. And Heart Full of Rhythm tells the story of Armstrong becoming the first black pop star and dealing with these Tin Pan Alley songs. And for me, if you asked me to name 10 Armstrong songs, I couldn't do it. Oxford University Press asked me to do that, and I asked them if I can do 20, and we negotiated down to 12 because I couldn't cut anything. But if you ask me to name one, it's going to be Stardust, recorded by Armstrong and his orchestra, November 4, 1931. And Stardust might be the most recorded standard of the 20th century. And I just ask you out there, listen to Bing Crosby's version, listen to Neck and Coal, listen to anybody, and you'll hear Hoagie Carmichael's beautiful melody and Mitchell Parish's poetic lyrics. And it's one of those songs that will live forever. Then listen to Armstrong and tell me if he doesn't sound like he came from another planet because his interpretation is so personal. He totally changes the melody. He rearranges the lyrics, he throws in bits of scat singing asides, and then he picks up the trumpet and makes the angels weep, as Gary Giddens once said. So to me, Stardust in three minutes is everything you need to know about Armstrong's impact on pop music of the 20th century. And like I said, it's a perfect next chapter from, you know, the hot five and hot sevens in New Orleans made him into who he was. And then he took those gifts, shared them with the world and really changed everything in his path.
- [46:05]
Ricky Riccardi
Ricky Riccardi, it's just been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.
- [46:09]
Terry Gross
Oh, my pleasure, Terry. This has been an honor. And you know, I always have to leave my closing phrase. Pops is tops.
- [46:17]
Ricky Riccardi
Okay. So let's hear Louis Armstrong's recording of Stardust. And what year did you say this was?
- [46:22]
Terry Gross
1931.
- [46:23]
Ricky Riccardi
Okay.
- [46:31]
C
Sometimes I wonder why I spend such lonely night oh, baby, lonely night Dreaming of a song, melody, memory and I once again know when our love was new. These kids an inspiration now that baby, you know long ago beside a garden wall when stars are blind and you are in mourn. Babylon the nightingale tells its fairy tale A paradise where roses blue. Though I dream invo in my heart it will remain rainbow my stardust melody O memory.
- [47:38]
Ricky Riccardi
Ricky Riccardi's latest book about Armstrong is titled Stomp Off. Let's the Early Years of Louis Armstrong. We recorded our interview in January, Monday on FRESH air. If you have trouble sleeping, you know that the more you worry about not being able to fall asleep, the more likely you are to stay awake. So what do you you do pills, therapy, meditation? Resign yourself to feeling like a zombie during the day. Our guest, Jennifer Senior, will talk about her latest Atlantic magazine article in which she writes about her insomnia and the latest science of sleep and the latest therapies. I hope you'll join us. FRESH air's executive producer is Danny Matt. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Hertzfeld. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Reboldonato, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nest Whisper Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. This message comes from DSW Where'd you get those shoes? Easy. They're from dsw because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of the you, from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes. Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or dsw.com on NPR's through line.
- [50:01]
Terry Gross
Schoolhouses are less expensive than rebellions We've been debating the government's role in education since the Civil War. A tenth of our national debt would have saved us the blood and treasure of the the late War.
- [50:13]
Ricky Riccardi
How the Department of Education Tried to Fix a Divided Nation.
- [50:17]
Terry Gross
Listen to Throughline wherever you get your podcasts.