So I just finished a book of interviews with several jazz artists called jazztalk. It was a fun, quick read, but in the last, and most in-depth interview, Bill Dixon has a quote that I thought was interesting, and had a lot to say about popular music and issues of race.

quote:

The angriest man anyone ever knew was Louis Armstrong singing. I hd to tell Archie [Shepp] that one time. I said "How in the f*** are you gonna be angry?" Listen to him sing 'Hello Dolly,' now there's some anger there. Because he knew how he got to where he was and how long he was gonna be here, 'cause they didn't really dig his trumpet playing. I said to Archie once "you think you're angry, cause you're always starting up at the mouth. How do you feel a man like Louis felt knowing he's gonna die?" And how he got to where he was not because of his playing, but because of his tomming.

I'll save my own thoughts for later, I'm curious what others think of the passage.

My dad played trumpet and cornet in the 20s/30s, but the latter was really his instrument, so when he used to tell me that Louis was God, I certainly believed him. What can I say? When the greatest artists of their times are forced to grovel and kowtow just to get a bunch of no-names to let them through the door, if I were any of them, I'd be ready to smash some heads.

Bill Dixon is one of the truly great, undersung figures in the last significant movement in jazz, he is also a deeply thoughtful individual. When he speaks about the music, his words carry a weight most people only aspire to.

The accusations of tomming on the part of Armstrong have always frustrated me. It might be fair to say some of his clownish behavior contributed to making him popular to a wider audience. That success, however, was built on a solid foundation of undeniable musical ability and innovation.

On the surface, it appears the quote is Dixon's own accusation of Armstrong, but I take it be an indictment of the young lions of the 60s who accused Armstrong of tomming. Armstrong was a trailblazer and many of the angry young men of the 60s New Thing would not have had the opportunity to create their own music had he not paved the way.

My thoughts anyway. What do you think, klt?

Now Playing: "Ain't Bin to No Music School" The Nosebleeds

Well LT, as seems to be the case most of the time, you nailed the quotes' sentement exactly. He was talking at least as much about the guys from the 60s (and even more so the 70s and 80s I think), who he seems to dislike for essentially getting fat and lazy, and just living off of the hard work done by guys decades before. He seems to think that Louis Armstrong worked so hard, and created so much brilliant music, laying the groundwork for a lot of what came after him, and even though he may have had to resort to'tomming in his older years, this could be forgiven if future players had picked up the cross and continued on the tradition of trailblazing.

I got the feeling that Dixon that the new players (especially the guys who went into the fields like fusion in the 70s and 80s)were tomming every bit as much as Armstrong had, because this was still the music that the white crowd wanted to hear and the place where a player could make money easily without stretching himself artistically.

I must admit though, that I felt slightly guilty realizing that there is indeed a certain extent to which Armstrong was certainly playing it up for the white man, and that all of his late records which I love so much come out of a certain type of racism.

Louis Armstrong transcended any racism around him or in his material. Of course he transformed "Black and Blue" into a protest song and helped inpire Ralph Ellison to write The Invisible Man, but also one of the last songs he ever recorded was for that crap James Bond Movie- and what does he sing? We Have All The Time In The World. He was already sick at the time and could sing that. Truly heroic stuff.