OCTOBER 2020 NEWS

by JAY and CHRISTOPHER POPA

Life begins at 40, so it is said…..

But for one man, arguably the top Louis Armstrong

aficionado, author, and archivist in the world, it seems certain!

His name is Ricky Riccardi. He’s from Toms River, New

Jersey, and he turned 40 on the 8th of last month.

If you’re familiar with the 1956 Armstrong album

“Ambassador Satch” (Columbia CL 840), you know that the

above image, courtesy of Mr. Riccardi, is a perfect spoof of its

cover—so we can add “ambassador” to his achievements.

Riccardi has been an official ambassador, so to speak, of

Louis Armstrong, since he joined the Armstrong House and

Museum in 2009.

From then until now, he has digitized the archive’s

extraordinary collection of photographs, correspondence, and

reel-to-reel tapes, lectured about Armstrong at locations all

around the world, co-produced numerous Armstrong reissues

(including downloads, CDs, and LPs), extensively written

about Satchmo, and presently serves as Director of Research

Collections at the Armstrong House and Museum.

BIG BAND Alliance

SPECIAL

BOOK REVIEW EDITION

The 432-page Heart Full Of Rhythm: The Big Band Years Of

Louis Armstrong (New York City: Oxford University Press,

2020) is not Riccardi’s first book; that was the 400-page What a

Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years

(New York City: Pantheon Books, 2011). With both works,

Riccardi has done an incredible, comprehensive analysis of

Armstrong’s life during two different periods.

We especially appreciated Riccardi’s choice of quotes

throughout his new narrative, both to help provide some context

for Armstrong’s actions and to respond to various critics. For

example, the late actor and tap dancer Honi Coles observing,

“Louis Armstrong was criticized for Tomming, for instance, but

that’s the way Pops was off the stage. He was the most entirely

natural man I ever met in my life.” And trumpeter Nicholas

Payton pointing out, “. . . he developed the whole idea of the

virtuoso vocal and instrumental soloist in the Pop idiom. It was

his voice that shaped what would become the Popular song.”

On the other hand, the late composer / conductor / author

Gunther Schuller once wrote that Armstrong succumbed “to the

sheer weight of his success and its attendant commercial

pressures.”

Riccardi is quick to refute Schuller’s and similar claims by

Armstrong biographer James Lincoln Collier and jazz critics

John Hammond and Leonard Feather, by citing Armstrong’s

nationwide box-office successes to cheering audiences, varied

best-selling OKeh and Decca and Victor recordings (I Can’t

Give You Anything But Love, Ain’t Misbehavin’, When It’s

Sleepy Time Down South, All of Me, Old Man Mose, Jeepers

Creepers, When You’re Smiling, etc.), radio broadcasts and film

appearances, his autobiography Swing That Music (New York

City, Longmans, Green & Co., 1936), and, certainly, the respect

that other musicians gave him.

Of course, there was a lot of professional and personal

drama in the time period covered in Riccardi’s new book —

1929 to 1947 — including Louis’s struggles to sustain his

reputation and high standards of playing, to still be able to hit

those high “C’s” for which he was famous, some negative press

reviews, his relationships with others (like when in 1930 he first

met Lionel Hampton - “Wha-a-t you say, Pops?” to which

Armstrong replied, “Wha-a-t you say, Gates?”), as well as

traveling through the prejudiced South, and the vocalized

allusions to marijuana (“We always looked at pot as a kind of

medicine, ya know,” Armstrong would report in 1970).

Nonetheless, Riccardi jumps right in with a prologue

containing an account of Armstrong’s numerous triumphs at the

Apollo Theatre in New York City from 1935 to 1952

(troublesome that Satchmo didn’t appear there at all during the

last 19 years of his career, even when he was having huge pop

hits such as Hello, Dolly!, because his act supposedly no longer

“fit in” as hip with the latest trends).

Again, a quotation in Riccardi’s text, this time from

Armstrong himself in 1959, gives a fitting response: “I’m my own

audience and no critic in the world can tell me how I should play

my horn, and I won’t do it anyway.”

Riccardi also helps us get to know Armstrong as a person,

often using Louis’ own words from his personal writings and

tapes and scrapbooks.

Despite being a big star, Armstrong was modest, charming,

caring, had a sense of humor (a natural comedic ability) and a

great smile, was generous to his friends and the less-fortunate;

yet not perfect, unfaithful in his marriages.

Riccardi also follows the encouragement of and influence on

Armstrong from such people as his wives Lil and Alpha and

Lucille, booking agents Tommy Rockwell and Johnny Collins

and Joe Glaser, and trombonist and future Armstrong band

member Jack Teagarden (“I’m a spade and you an ofay. We

got the same soul—so let’s blow,” Armstrong is quoted as

saying about ‘T’.)

A poster from Armstrong’s “big band” years, performing at

the Collinsville Park Ballroom in Collinsville, Illinois on Friday,

August 6, 1937.

A 1947 trade ad for Armstrong, still doing what he did so

well: entertaining audiences and making people happy. “Ain’t

no music out of date as long as you play it perfect,” he said.

Portrait of a master musician and entertainer, from, as

Riccardi’s first book put it, the “later” years.

We also wanted to share this photo, a United Press

International (UPI) image, taken on June 23, 1971, just a few

weeks before Armstrong passed away. The beautiful spirit was

still there!

Throughout the pages, we enjoyed when Riccardi would

offer his opinion, such as calling the 1931 Okeh version of Star

Dust “Armstrong’s single greatest recording” or when he

mentioned that - even during the Depression - Armstrong record

sales in 1931 topped 100,000 and that Louis traveled with 20

trunks full of clothes. And when he “fact-checked” Armstrong’s

story of how he got the nickname “Satchmo.”

Did you know, for instance, that in 1931 Louis purchased a

new eight-cylinder Buick convertible with whitewall tires, a radio,

and a rumble seat for $2800? That he and Coleman Hawkins

just didn’t get along? That Armstrong lived in Paris for half a

year in 1934? That Joe Glaser, Louis’ manager from 1935 on,

considered himself “something of a dandy,” liked to wear

expensive clothes, and got in trouble with the law more than

once for his scandalous attraction to teenage girls? That the

late George Avakian’s letters to Columbia urging that Arm-

strong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven records be made available

again resulted in a reissue program that was the first of its kind?

That Riccardi commutes 2-1/2 to 3 hours each way - everyday -

to work (he must r-e-a-l-l-y like his job!)? All of these stories

and many more are in the book

It was startling to read on page 139 about the rumored death

of Armstrong in 1933 (of course, he lived to age 70 in 1971).

We think that the cover of the new Heart Full Of Rhythm is

an attractive design, using a picture from the Jack Bradley

Collection held at the Louis Armstrong House and Museum.

Meanwhile, we liked seeing the numerous photographs

courtesy of the Armstrong House spread throughout the book.

We still shake our heads in disbelief, after hearing several

years ago that most young people, when asked “Who was Louis

Armstrong?,” thought he was the man who walked on the moon.

(Should anyone reading this not know, that was the astronaut

Neil Armstrong, in 1969.)

We both believe that Satchmo should never be forgotten in

any setting, not as an innovative jazz musician, a distinctive

singer, an internationally-renowned entertainer with a big band

or with his later All-Stars groups, or, more simply, as a human

being with great joy in his soul and a magnetic personality.

Riccardi touches on all of these qualities in his book, which

covers what, up until now, had been the comparatively forgotten

years of Armstrong’s career, 1929 to 1947. He was in the right

place at the right time with the right skills, able to conduct new

research with access to Armstrong’s own archives.

Through his work with the Louis Armstrong House and

Museum, Riccardi seems to now be having the time of his life,

and that makes us happy to see! We’re confident that, with his

latest book, he will continue to build upon the story of

Armstrong, one of the greatest jazz artists and entertainers ever

(and those are two quite distinct attributes). Thank you to Ricky

for his Heart Full Of Rhythm, for including all those enlightening

quotes, and for continuing to find and spread joy through music

(just like Louis did)!

And you can quote us on that!