Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World - Essay Example

Louis Armstrong What a Wonderful World (1967) Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World Louis Armstrong is well known for the New Orleans jazz style. New Orleans jazz also known as the "traditional jazz" exhibits most or all of the characteristics listed below: Wind instruments in performance polyphonically Easily discernible triad patterns 4/4 or 2/4 meter Instrumentations similar to the following: ‘FACE LINE’ (HORNS): 1. Cornet or trumpet 2. Soprano sax or clarinet 3. Trombone 4. Alto, tenor or bary sax (at times) RHYTHM SECTION: 1. Piano 2. Guitar or banjo 3. Tuba, bass sax or string bass 4. Drums or washboard The single main distinguishing characteristic of New Orleans jazz is the initial element above (wind instruments in performance polyphonically). This shows that each is simultaneously performing a different melodic line. (Riccardi 5) Brass band style: Instrumentation (usually): Augmented. A number of trumpets with some mixture of clarinets, saxophones, trombones, and sousaphones, with divide bass and drum snare. At times baritone horns or alto as well. Repertoire: Dirges, pop tunes, Marches, hymns/spirituals. Style: Free, improvised, loose. Drummers uphold a swinging cadence with stressing on the fourth beat of every extra measure. Drums continue involving tunes, with ‘roll-offs’ announcing each melody. Bass drummer often appends light ringing cymbal during every off-beats. Louis Armstrong has the following well distinguished individual characteristics. He is a sizzling individual, filled with tremendous zest and passion for life. Louis prospers in situations full of energy, movement, excitement, action, dynamism and drama (Armstrong 26). Besides his enthusiasm and exuberant vitality, Louis has an acute capability to visualize future potential, and an almost candid faith in ‘what could be’. Except for his vision, a wonderful dream or an aspiration to believe in, Louis is not completely joyful. Louis has a great intellect of the grandeur, majesty and adventure of existence, but tends to ignore the magic in everyday life and minute things. Louis Armstrong has a sturdy urge to convey himself creatively and spontaneously, without conforming to other peoples’ conventions or ways. Personal independence and freedom are very vital to Louis in addition to resisting being dictated to or ‘owned’. Armstrong is secretly pertinent to feeling charmed or special - somehow beyond or above the realm of mundane life and ‘ordinary’ people. Louis has a dominant personality and can be extremely proud, highly concerned with him or dominating. Louis has a vigorous, positive, active approach to existence, and brings his desires and intentions to the front feels more innate to him than merely allowing existence to unfold or following the flow. Louis Armstrong is fundamentally very ‘yang’ (assertive, outgoing, competitive, and direct); furthermore the ‘yin’ qualities of receptivity, passive acceptance, gentleness, and subtlety don’t appear easily to him. Louis inspires many people with his generous idealism, spirit, spark, joie de vivre, and confidence but he is able to irritate many with his egocentricity and insistence on conveying himself freely in spite of others' opinions or needs. Moreover, Louis has trouble being comfortable with the current status and would gain by studying how to consciously placate his restlessness and accomplish the capacity for peacefulness and tranquility. (Armstrong 13) One piece that features a notable performance of Louis Armstrong is ‘What a wonderful World’. My observation from listening to this piece is as follows; Intended as a remedy for the increasingly racially and politically charged climate during the early 1960s, the song, ‘What a Wonderful World’ conveyed a hopeful tone with considering the future, following the desires of the young group for a better world and a fairer society. The title also showed how Louis Armstrong’s loved the simple things during his life and his faith in the human ability to act for their usual excellence. Nevertheless, ‘wonderful’ can also be examined as ‘wonder-full’, that is, ‘filled with wonder’ as in overwhelming, astounding or perhaps still frightening. (January and Roca 9) This song shows how interpretation and action are intimately interwoven and interconnected in ethical negotiations as well as deeds in politics. In our complex era where there is diminutive faith in cultural, absolute truths and moral legitimacy plays a crucial role. Perception does not always show firm established communities or affiliations but, in a forever-increasing degree, nomadic, to fluid, and temporary identifications not including fixed roots beached in mycelium-like systems. In such a certainty, artistic approaches and depictions become important contemporary pointers and references to the future. The fundamental Armstrong lesson with his songs was simple: it was not his voice that counted in his singing; it's what he did it.  Louis treated his voice like an instrument, focusing on the release of every note and the value of attack: mostly he slide into a word and spited out the finishing, or reversed the procedure.  Among his favorite effects (one which would scare less secure singers) was delaying a phrase or a word behind the beat till it seemed not to regain the tempo; then with a burgeon, he would race forward, band, carrying song, and listen the act of his swinging (Riccardi 8). Conclusion ‘What a wonderful world’ song symbolizes a lot about transcendentalism. Louis Armstrong described the whole world as a joyful place to exist in addition to it the world being a care-free location. Lois Armstrong writes and sings about the beauty of the world, how life is fantastic living there and he greatly views it optimistically and not-pessimist about it. This binds in to whatever Thoreau believes too. Thoreau used to be considered as a very extra optimistic person before the eyes of most of the people. Louis Armstrong is of no exception compared to Thoreau. Louis Armstrong used believe that the world usually was the right place to survive in, and to train your children from their childhood. Louis Armstrong explains how children gain potential knowledge through the wonderful creations available in the world. Like Thoreau, who also said that ‘Every dawn was cheerful....’ Louis Armstrong exhibits this too through this song when he sings about waking up to see many wonderful things that are all over the world. (January and Roca 24) The records made by him with several bands between 1925 - 1928 kept the instrumentation and a number of the distinctiveness of unadulterated New Orleans jazz, but in reality Armstrong’s music was extra meticulously arranged than a lot heard in the City of Crescent, and it exhibited a much higher intensity of musicianship. Armstrong’s intelligence in trumpeting was unparalleled. Louis was stronger, with a wider variety, and was more eloquent on his instrument more than anyone else. Armstrong’s tone was sparkling, and the songs he created were elegant, intense, and filled with passion. The driving throb of his songs completed the oomph sense of two-beat jazz appeared instantly out dated; his music commanded a newer, suppler rhythm. After Armstrong, instrumental solo became the focus of jazz, and his joyful rasp and his tranquil use of language gave way toward a fresh, distinctly American vocal custom. (Riccardi 241) References Armstrong, Louis. Louis Armstrong Plays Standards: Artist Transcriptions - Trumpet. USA: Hal Leonard, 2004. Print Brendan January, Francois Roca. Louis Armstrong: Jazz Musician. USA: Mason Crest, 2003. Print Riccardi, Ricky. What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years. US: Random House, 2012. Print Read More