DURING the collaboration of Oliver and Armstrong in Chicago, their nightly cornet duels sent the music searching for new sounds and bigger tones — a certain quality of sound that inspired musicians to know that they were making the right notes.Richard Hadlock (Historian and Educator) recalls a musical lesson he received from Sidney Bechet: “I’m going to give you a note today,” Bechet told him. “See how many ways you can play that note. Growl it, smear it, flop it, sharp it, do anything you want to it. That’s how you express your feelings in this music. It’s like talking.”

Some commentators feel that this “do anything you want to it,” could very well be the description of the rugged beauty of Oliver’s playing. His music is not about scales or passing chords, it’s a celebration of colour and texture.

The obsession with sound was at the heart of the music. Oliver’s contribution to this was spending the last ten years of his life refining the tone of his cornet.

The ambition of the musicians around the 1920s was to make their instruments as close as they could to human voices. Taking in all variations imperfections and colourations that such a model entails.

Playing in Oliver’s band as second cornetist helped Armstrong to hone his skills and refine them to play a constrained role. It was becoming quite clear, however, that the second cornetist (Armstrong) was overpowering the lead (Oliver). This was quite evident in several recordings, including “Mabel’s dream and Froggie Moore.” Some band members were referring to it as a Mutiny. Oliver, unknown to himself, had inadvertently created the platform for Armstrong the soloist to emerge.

Oliver’s idea of jazz is as a collective collaboration, where the instruments were interdependent and in which no one was allowed to dominate. However, because Armstrong was so overpowering with his playing, even in a close setting that Oliver employed, Armstrong was just too powerful to play from behind. For his part, Oliver would leave a lasting mark on the jazz idiom and the broader streams of popular culture.

By 1922, Armstrong had moved on from Oliver to Fletcher Henderson’s band at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. Following Henderson’s suggestion, Armstrong switched to the trumpet. Between 1925 and 1930, he made a series of recordings that brought him worldwide fame. Around the 1930s, Armstrong’s influence was pervasive in jazz. He had achieved the status of cultural icon, and was ranked with a handful of figures from the first half of the twentieth century — Charlie Chaplin, Al Jolson, Babe Ruth and Shirley Temple.

The Armstrong revolution was already announced. This was accepted at the 26 Jazz session the following year. Armstrong, the singer, was not only interpreting songs, but was also inventing songs within the songs. One critic wrote,” Armstrong’s rendition of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” is so far from Carmichael’s original that it might as well be a new song.”

Armstrong claimed that what he was doing was scat singing or “Heebie Jeebies”. His novel use of this type of singing remains a core technique for Jazz vocalists as well as pop singers even today. In 1932, he headlined a show at the London Palladium, where he acquired the sobriquet of “Sachelmouth,”
abbreviated now to Sachmo.

Armstrong returned to New York and, with the “Hot Chocolates”, scored his first New York triumph with Fats Waller, title tune “Ain’t Misbehaving.”

This was the turning point in Louis’ life, he stopped singing the blues, and began singing popular tunes with his new impersonation, tunes like Honey Suckle Rose, Mack the Knife, Solitude, Sophisticated Lady, Caravan.

The latter part of the 1930s showed an artist in full swing. Could he go higher? That was one of the questions being asked. To this end, he teamed up with twenty-four-year-old pianist extraordinaire Earl “fata” Hines. Commentators claim that the intersection of these two careers produced some of the most exciting jazz of the decade.

Louis Armstrong evolved from being a musician to an entertainer, and some people believe that his singing turned out to be more important than his playing. Other purists have questioned that assumption.

Armstrong, they claimed, transformed the focus of jazz from the ensemble to the soloist. For all their greatness, neither Bechet nor Biderbecke (horn players themselves) could have matched Armstrong’s wide range of rhythmic devices. He inspired a method book, “50 Hot Choruses for the Cornet”.

Commenting on the connectedness of Armstrong’s phrases, Richard Hadlock (Historian and Educator) said: “Armstrong, regardless of tempo, always completed each phrase and carried each sustained tone out to its fullest value, creating the illusion of unhurried ease even in the most turbulent arrangement. Armstrong’s legacy captures both the imagination of jazz devotees and the general public”.

Next week, the works of Duke.