Swing That Music by Louis Armstong - Book Report/Review Example

?Book Report on “Swing That Music” by Louis Armstrong. The book Swing That Music is remarkable because it is one of the first autobiographical works from the earliest period of jazz music and it tells the story of one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, Louis Armstrong. The book is a fascinating account which deals with many historical issues, including the difficulties that were experienced by an African American man in breaking into the largely white area of entertainment. It talks of an age before modern mass media have really taken off, and it reveals many intimate aspects of American culture as seen from the perspective of a talented musician who is blazing new trails culturally and musically. The book consists of a chronological story of Louis Armstrong’s life, along with an introduction and a section at the end which concentrates on the more technical aspects of his music. There is also a useful glossary of terms which clarifies what was at the time a very new development in musical history. Above all this is a book about music, and through it all, the immense love of music, and the desire to make it always better, more true and emotional, shines through the whole book. Louis Armstrong describes himself proudly as being descended from slaves. He writes with great respect of his mother who was “a good and fine woman.” (Armstrong, 1993, p. 2). From the start of the book, the style of the author comes through very strongly. He writes very simply, using short sentences and sometimes slipping into his own casual dialect which is not the same as standard American English, as for example when he says “Louis, how come this to happen to you?” (Armstrong, 1993, p. 2) Despite this very simple and at times grammatically incorrect language, the book conveys a very strong sense of emotional connection with the author and with the world around him. He makes a lot of use of sensory descriptions, for example describing the natural surroundings he experienced while growing up in Louisiana : “Those big, white flowers do swing their scent… that smell of magnolia is my earliest memory of home” (Armstrong, 1993, p. 2) This use of the word “swing” shows that it has heavy connotations of his childhood, and of nature, and there is a world of emotions attached to it for Louis Armstrong. He is attached to all that is natural and belongs to his experience as a black American and this gives his music an authenticity and power that is still influential today. Reading about his life through his own words brings alive some of the concepts that he sang about and it is surprising to realise that many of the sad tales of poverty and joyful celebration melodies, which may seem somewhat exaggerated to modern urban Americans, are very true reflections of a part of the country where such extremes were the norm for many people. Events are related in roughly chronological order, starting with the birth of Louis Armstrong on July 4 1900. He grew up fatherless, and describes a childhood of poverty in the Mississippi area, where poor children sang for pennies outside the honky tonk bars in New Orleans. The overwhelming impression that the early part of the book leaves on the reader is the crushing poverty that he suffered and this makes his musical achievements all the more spectacular. At times he did not have enough to eat, and he felt obliged even as a small boy to make money to contribute to the welfare of his mother and younger sister. Taking a variety of basic jobs, he got to know a lot of different people, including Jewish families and white families. He drifted into mild criminal activity as a child and was sent to a strict boys’ home because of an incident with a gun in a public place. The reader cannot help thinking of parallels here with modern American youths who get mixed up in violence just because of the social deprivation of the area where they live. The boys’ home did, however, bring hims something useful because it was there that he learned to play the cornet. Music was, in those times of poverty, a great source of comfort for him, and a way to channel his energy into something positive. The young Louis Armstrong was very much a follower of the musical trends of the times, and he cites those who were a great influence on him. At seventeen he was so impressed by “King” Oliver, whom he called “Papa Joe” that he took up cornet playing again after neglecting to play it during his early teens: “I looked towards him as though he were some kind of a god, or something similar” (Armstrong, 1993, p. 25) This led to his being accepted as cornet player in a band, and travelling around the country. He describes the way that mainstream America did not understand nor appreciate his music in the beginning, and his description of what “swing” really is, homes in on one feature in particular: the musician’s drive to continually innovate and develop. This is not the language he uses, since he describes simply the contrast between “sweet” music (Armstrong, 1993, p. 26) and “real swing” music. He describes musicians who go along with the expectations of the audience, and “follow the same kind of line all the time” (p. 26) and maintains that “a real swing musician never does that. He just plays, feels as he goes, and swings as he feels.” The transmission of emotion became his hallmark, and the key feature that distinguished him from many jobbing band players of that era. This book is perhaps one of the least technical music related books that you could find to read, but at the same time it conveys some very fundamental insights about the nature of music and the way it influences individuals and whole cultures. The young Louis Armstrong could have ended up as a typical African American youth of his time and place: in and out of detention and drifting into crime. What transformed him into one of the biggest starts of America and a role model for poor kids from all backgrounds was his love of music and his ability to make it express all the complex emotions that he was feeling. Perhaps if he had not had such a tough start, he would not have been able to draw on such a rich store of melodies. It is as if he personified the struggles of African Americans to bring their aesthetic into the p public view and make it part of American culture. Music took over his whole life, it appears, and in the book he looks back on his marriage to Daisy with some regret, admitting “I was so crazy about music that I couldn’t think about much else” (Armstrong 1993, p. 37) He neglected her quite a bit, because he was so often on the road or performing late and this marriage, along with his later ones, most likely failed because of this. He writes modestly about his family life, for example, he make very little of the fact that he and his new wife took over responsibility for an orphaned child: “I forgot to mentions I had adopted a son, a cousin of mine named Clarence Armstrong, and was bringing him up.” (Armstrong, 1993, p.88). This generous act shows that Louis Armstrong wanted to prevent another child from growing up fatherless, as he had done, and it is a testament to his generosity of spirit. It is very clear that the way Armstrong and his fellow band musicians practised and developed their art was tied to their African American culture. He describes the “jam sessions” (Armstrong, 1993, pp. 108-123) as the place where new ideas were tried out, often late at night, with alcohol and in a loosely structured group of musicians and contrasts this with more sober and traditional musical training methods. It is an egalitarian world, where people step in and out of the limelight, working towards a harmony in diversity and never exactly repeating the same performance twice. This fluidity gives jazz its freedom of expression and reading the book in Armstrong’s own words gives the reader something of the flavor of the times. It is surprising how intellectual it all is, although couched in this community atmosphere. Ideas are treasured above everything, and the players practise until their technique lives up to these high ideas that they bring to the group. Armstrong was very much a leader in these sessions but at the same time he speaks of his comrades with fondness and is genuinely committed to the collective bringing forth of innovative material. It must have been exhausting and exhilarating to take part in these sessions. Critics point to a number of achievements that have ensured a place in the history books for Louis Armstrong. Some focus on his structural innovations, for example noting that he “introduced extended instrumental solo to jazz” (Raum, 2007, p. 27). There are also many studies which focus on the business acumen that he showed, with the help of his manager Joe Glaser, ensuring that he remained in the public eye for an incredible sixty years. (Armstrong and Brothers, 1999, p. 214). Others see him more in terms of the contribution he made as an African American to an emerging consciousness that eventually led to the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most convincing evidence of Louis Armstrong’s genius lies in the area of his ability to connect with musical specialists and the public at large at the same time: “To me, the test of true greatness in an artist is the ability to write or perform music that is on the very highest level but can also appeal to common people. That’s the problem Beethoven, Stravinsky, Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong all faced” (Wynton Marsalis, quoted in Porter, 2002, p. 306) The reception of Louis Armstrong’s music across the world is a testament to his greatness, but there are also aspects which point to a deeper level of meaning than just aesthetic enjoyment. During the second world war, his music was banned in Nazi-occupied areas because it came to symbolise all kinds of freedoms that the fascists wanted to suppress. (Von Eschen, p. 9) In fact it is likely that Europeans imagined America to be a lot more free in terms of race relations than it actually was, but nevertheless the influence of jazz on the whole world has been to put American popular music firmly on the map. This book is an eye-opener on many levels. People are accustomed to thinking of the hardships of the Great Depression, but it is often forgotten that African Americans in the first years of the twentieth century were faced with nominal freedom but actual poverty of the most extreme kind. The jazz era flourished in spite of all of that, and served as a background to the Prohibition era, the development of the American Dream, and the gradual move towards a more egalitarian society than the racially segregated south. In reading the book it was not exactly clear what Louis Armstrong had or did to make him the superstar that he was. He was no saint in his private life but he exuded a kind of moral authority, something beyond polite good and bad behaviour, and more in the domain of spirituality. His focus on music was the one thing that dragged him out of poverty and provided a good living and a platform for his innovative genius. He was born on the 4th of July, a great day in American history, and in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. Jazz was seen as an upstart kind of music, without the long tradition of classical music and the weight of European scholarship behind it. It is perhaps partly because of superb timing that he managed to fit his life story to the emerging story of American popular culture. He somehow chimed with the spirit of the age, and gave voice to aspirations of innovation and change by appealing to directly to the deepest emotions of a wide range of people. References Armstrong, Louis. Swing that Music. London and New York: Da Capo Press, 1993. Armstrong, Louis and Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Porter, Eric. What Is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. Raum, Elizabeth. Louis Armstrong: Jazz Legend. Mankato: Capstone Press, 2007. Von Eschen, Penny. Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. Harvard University Press, 2004. Read More