The Role of Louis Armstrong in The Civil Rights Movement

Born in August 4th 1901, Louis Armstrong, also nicknamed as Pops was one of the most influential artists in Jazz music in America (Teachout, 2010). Of African-American origin, Armstrong was the first African-American to cross the racial line and be judged purely on his talent and not for his skin color (Nollen, 2004). Known for his mastery in the trumpet and cornet, Armstrong was also a singer and an actor. He had a very gravelly voice that was unique and he easily made it blend with the jazz sounds that always accompanied him. In many instances, he would have solo performances, which were characterized by a strong stage presence, emotions and charisma (Nollen, 2004). His career pned for more than five decades and was a loss to the jazz genre and the entire music industry on 6th, July, 1971, when he died at the age of 69 years as a result of a heart attack (Brothers, 2007).

Armstrong love for music started when he was seven years old, he would go to listen to bands perform in the different brothels that his mum worked in as she could not afford a decent job. As a daughter to a former slave and abandoned by his father, Armstrong’s mother tried to provide for her children as a prostitute (Nollen, 2004). At the age of eleven, during a new year’s eve, Armstrong fired one of his step father’s guns in public as a mark of celebration and was arrested and detained in a delinquent home. This would mark the beginning of his music career (Brothers, 2007). At the delinquent center, Professor Peter Davis would come to teach the children music and taught Armstrong how to play the cornet and eventually he became the band leader to the home’s band (Teachout, 2010). After being released at the age of fourteen, he joined the brass band parade where he started learning how to play the trumpet. In 1919, he joined the band Tuxedo Brass Band and become their second trumpeter.

In 1922, he joined Joe ”King” Oliver in Chicago in the Creole Jazz Band. The band was one of the most influential bands in Chicago. It was during this time that he joined cutting contests and discovered that he could blow two hundred high Cs in a row, something that others were not able to do with the ease that he did it with (Brothers, 2007). After this discovery, he made his first recording, with the Gennett and Okeh labels. Some of the recordings were with the band members and some were solo. In 1922, his wife Lil Hardon Armstrong, urged him to play more classical music and infuse the modern music using an upbeat tempo at the bridge (Nollen, 2004). This was the beginning of the signature upbeat tempo that jazz picks after starting with a trumpet. This made him more famous and he started playing in “white People” clubs. He later on moved to New York and joined other different bands.

At this time his fame was spreading and most of the young men would try to compete or imitate him. Those who would try to compete with him always ended with a split lip from trying to hit the high Cs notes several times in a row; conversely this was never the case for Armstrong (Nollen, 2004). While in New York he played for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra band which was the most famous African-American band countrywide (Teachout, 2010). During the time he played with the band, his influence can easily be felt as there was a change in the tenor sax soloist. Although he was in a band, Armstrong would stand out during performances as he would play with more emotion and passion.

In 1925, he returned to Chicago as a solo artist and recorded with Okeh under his own name. he also formed a band and named it Hot Seven but any productions that were made had his name on it. He recorded hit songs like Potato Head Blues, Muggles and West End Blues, these were the songs that set the standard for Jazz music for many years to come (Nollen, 2004). At this point Armstrong developed a love for the theatre and would furnish silent movies and live shows with his jazz music. He developed more resilience as most live shows were long and would require him to play for long periods of time and with the same energy and emotion he had started with. He continued to play for the instruments for years and toured countrywide.

Conversely, in 1935, Armstrong realized that he had suffered bruises and cuts that were severe on his lips and fingers as a result of his unorthodox playing styles (Brothers, 2007). This made him to stop relying on his instruments for performances and urged him to focus more on his vocals. This was a major shift in the jazz industry as there was less focus on the instruments and more on the voice. In 1940 he moved back to New York, married his fourth wife and settled in Queens (Teachout, 2010). For the next thirty one years, Armstrong performed nearly 300 shows a year with the same passion. The Night prior to his death, he performed a show, although against his doctor’s advice. He played music till the last day he lived and transformed not just an industry but also the lives of the many people he touched with his music.

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Louis Armstrong and His Innovation

Louis Armstrong was known as one of the greatest artist in Jazz History. With his work and dedication to the Jazz music, He managed to connect diverse population of society using his music through his innovations;

Blues, Improvisation, Singing, Repertory, and Rhythm.Louis Armstrong made an impact on BluesLouis Armstrong was mostly known as one of the greatest trumpet player in Jazz history, specifically Early New Orleans Jazz. In this case, Armstrong recognize the Blues; a type of jazz genre, as a founding foundation of Jazz. Blues Jazz has the important role in Jazz history.

Blues originated during 19th century in Southern plantation. The founders of Blues were mostly slave and ex-slaves who sings as they pluck plants in the fields.”You got to like playing pretty things if you’re ever going to be any good blowing your own horn.” With the help of Charles Black, Columbia law professor, Louis Armstrong would not have been recognize for this reasons. When Charles heard Armstrong performed lived, the experience he have with Armstrong during his live performance feels that it will have an effect about viewing the race.

Louis Armstrong song, “Savoy Blues” made an impact on society. It shows tenderness of the sound and shows a little feelings behind the song. This song was considered as a sweet jazz, a sound that lacks improvisation and performed with a moderate tone. With the use of sweet jazz, other uprising black musicians started to use this kind of music genre. If Louis Armstrong did not use the sweet jazz, he would not inspired other inspiring artist and would not impact his music.

The Idea of Louis Armstrong was to inspired young black musicians to embrace the sound of Jazz, specifically Sweet Jazz. In this case, a movement called Harlem Renaissance that supports the black achievements were introduced. In Conclusion, Armstrong recognizes blues as the founding foundation for Jazz because it leads to the rights of the black men during their years. Through his musical career, he shows to people that it is possible to have a strong feeling to blues.

In this case, He influenced a lot of inspiring musicians to create a music that is similar to him, also known as sweet jazz. Improvisation led him to be KnownThrough his Improvisation, his goal is to have a connection to his verbal to the music. Armstrong describes his music as a approaching to improvisations in the terms of suggesting logic developments and through his progress. His music shows that his first chorus plays melody and his second chorus plays the same melody with another combination of melodies.

As he plays his instrument, trumpet. He always stated that his trumpet always tells a story. In short, whenever he plays his trumpet he just need to go with the flow to feel the music in it. Armstrong develops his music through creating a story, according to Roy Eldridge, When Armstrong creates music, it’s like connecting an idea of telling a story with syntactic and cumulative development. Every phase that Armstrong plays led to somewhere else, that links to other songs.

In this case, Armstrong’s motivation was to shows a attention to others, mostly through a nightclub. Armstrong’s improvisation shows that his melodies were unique, creative, and shows emotions towards the songs. His Improvisation depends on an attractive tunes, His music structure must be elegant. Another approach with his improvisation is through harmony, through the chord progressions, the tune must be focused shifted from tune to harmony in order to create an abstract and a large scale creative sounds.

Armstrong’s Improvisation brought changes to his melody. His improvisation methis was to think what rhythm that is already created and what to add to it in order to be more creative rather than creating a new rhythm from the scratch. Armstrong’s melodic tunes were considered as a free mode. His chord progressions was seen as a potential to create a harmonic improvisations, a related way of creating a new rhythm.

With in that, People respect Louis Armstrong with his great composition on music because of the quality of the tune and his pitches, the mood within the song he made and it sound that is made has a relaxing tune for the listeners to like it. In summary, throughout his career, records shoes that his music was advancing, using improvisation, he managed to get a lot of attentions through his music.

The main goal was to let everyone know the connection of his music and the other’s music rather than listening to a music without knowing anything. With improvisation, he made jazz as music that shows individual expressions. Crystal Voice of Louis ArmstrongThrough his career, He also sings specifically scat-singing. Scat singing is type of singing that is using nonsense syllable instead of words.

Throughout the Jazz history, male vocalist of jazz were musical performers originally and one of them was Louis Armstrong. With the use of his improvisation, he emphasized the music more with his scat singing. According to his singing, his trumpet and scat has a connection between in it. As he plays his trumpet, it is played by using a triplet pattern of eight notes and develops motif by the right ascending or descending tune of his melody.

Same thing as his scat, the development of the motif of the trumpet somehow related to scat. As Armstrong sung, the sound that came out gives a “dynamic synergistic effect. It brings a thrilling tune when using voice that is like a trumpet instrument.When Armstrong sings, people described it as a “heart warming”, and “beautiful and nostalgic.”. Louis Armstrong has the same manners to sing as he did on trumpet. As being said, His singing and playing trumpet has the emphasize on a gracefully melodic, rhythms, and triadic extensions.

With is singing, Louis made an impact on the other singers such as; Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Elvis Presley. Armstrong’s scatting melody was considered as a powerful melody throughout his music, as well being said, some artist have been collaborated with him like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. In conclusion, Armstrong wouldn’t been so recognized if he didn’t introduce scat-singing to the public. As his use scat singing, he opened a door full of opportunity to the future aspiring.

RepertoryAs Louis Armstrong considered as one of the most influential person in Jazz, His music has a potential to the listeners. Throughout his musical career, There were a lot of people that His music was not original, but just were being improvised. In fact, it is true; however, not all the hits he just improvised, some of them were written originally .

As he composing his own song, there were some mistakes on it, over and over he changes some of his tunes in order to get the right tune. With his repertory, he sold a lot of albums. His repertory made an transformation through his career.As people believed that his repertory was low quality, his career suddenly fail to become popular. With his dedication to music, he started again to show different kinds of repertory that he has that ended up to have one of the best recordings in his period.

His repertory showed variety of sound such as timbre. He also includes different techniques within his music such as inserting instruments’ range. With his repertory, He created some of Tin Pan Alley songs into a masterpiece. In that case, Some of Louis Armstrong’s musics became one of the standards of jazz. With his work, His music was introduced widely by the people such as his music, Memories of You, On the Sunny side of the street, and I got rhythm.

After he was introduced by him music, another musicians were been also recognize with their innovations such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. Reverberating RhythmLouis Armstrong’s Rhythm introduce to the world as a second nature to everyone. As critics says that some people considered Armstrong’s music was disorganized, but most people recognizes his music has a perfect rhythm, harmony, pitch, and a flow.

Theortically, people considered Armstrong’s contributions to the people is to teach them to appreciate music.With the rhythm of Armstrong, he became more integrated to his language over time. When Armstrong create a new rhythm, he made it very seriously but when it is very complicated he intended to change the tune in to simple tune. However, Armstrong’s rhythm made his music complicated. This complication in his music did not bother him, in fact, he began to recruit other singers specifically blue.

As he recruits singers, he developed a habit playing a triad minor in his music. In some people’s vision, Louis Armstrong’s rhythm seems to lack something. He was also judge by having an old fashioned music. In order to correct this mistake, Armstrong changes some of his tune or re arrange it in order the listeners will be satisfied. With his popularity in repertory, he able to performed wonderfully in front of his audiences, the goal was to entertained the audience, it happened.

In some of his music he change some of his phrases to a more triad. Based on his rhythm, he has this first eight bar that assembles his melody’s pitch. As the critics says about his rhythm, “Armstrong has the right rhythm instinct and sense of time in ‘swinging around and away from the regular beat’ as he expresses it.

His rhythm made a huge impact on Early New Orleans Jazz, his skills on rhythm, he able to connect phases without any problem compared on other Early New Orleans Jazz such as dealing with complicated notes within music. Through his creativity, he was able to tell people that music may be hard to understand sometimes, it just need to be hear it carefully in order to understand what the song is trying to tell.

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Strange Fruit

Jazz music has always existed as a voice for black musicians and audiences. The sounds and rhythms are extremely unique and colorful. It certainly changed America in the 1920’s with the swing movement and it put jazz on the map. During this time many white people started to be influenced by this infectious music, and started to enjoy it. Many white people also discriminated against blacks and treated them as less than equal. A goal for an artist named Billie Holiday was to make America listen to the cries of a black man, a black man who was just lynched.

Jazz music had to be recognized with its roots. Billie Holiday believed Jazz music had to defend the black people. No better way of being heard than through the voice of Holiday. She attempted to fight for black rights through her song “ strange fruit”, a political song that struck a chord for many Americans. Her original name was Eleanor Fagan, born April 7, 1915. Billy Holiday was an American jazz singer, one of the greatest from the 1930s to the 1950s. Also known as “Lady Day, Holiday first acquired a taste of music listening to her father, who was a traveling musician.

She was fortunate not to be deprived of music during the popular jazz age of the 1920’s. At the young age of 15 she started listening to jazz. She listened to the popular recordings of trumpet player Louis Armstrong and singer Bessie Smith . She decided to sing and she made her professional singing debut in 1931 at a small Harlem nightclub. She then continued to record for the first time only two years later. The jazz world did not recognize her music until 1935. She toured briefly with the Count Basie and Artie Shaw orchestras before becoming a big nightclub solo attraction in 1940.

Her vocal style is considered to be one of the most original ever achieved; she sang with unique personality and distinguished herself as a professional artist. She never had technical training, and she was still able to create a beautiful and warm round vocal effect. Her vintage years were around 1936-43, when her professional and private relationship with the saxophonist Lester Young started. The team recorded some of the best musical examples of interplay between a vocal and instrumental line. Around her time jazz was being listened to by many people.

Many white people were swinging to the beats of Duke Elington, who was probably one of the most famous swing composers. A large majority of the white society was definitely wrapped up in the new phenomenon of jazz. What’s so amazing is that many whites were racist towards the composers of the music they enjoyed. The roots of jazz come from Africa, and it is derived from African rhythms and the blues. During the birth of , the political situation for blacks in America was horrible. Black’s were oppressed and discriminated by whites.

They were hated in society, and during this time many blacks were being lynched in the South. I guess one could say that Jazz was an outlet for the blacks. It was their anthem of pride, and their creation to rightfully claim in a society that believed blacks shouldn’t have rights. If white people in society were going to kill blacks simply because they were black, but at the same time enjoy their music, then wasn’t this a contradiction? Billie Holiday was an artist who made this point clear. She saw it as her duty to spread the truth about the horrors of black oppression.

If the people were going to listen and enjoy black music, then they would also have to know about the violence and hate black people lived with in the South. At the height of her career the infamous song she sang was “strange fruit”, which was a highly charged political song. The song was about blacks being lynched in the south; a horrible and abhorrent act. Holiday was one of the first black musicians with the guts to release such an important political message in a song. A schoolteacher named Lewis Allan had written it for her. He was able to create a vision of how mobs of white men killed black men by hanging them from trees.

His work wouldn’t have had half the impact if Holiday didn’t make it her own. Many people objected to the song. It was unlike any other popular song, but it was a huge hit. Here was a song that opened the doors for the Civil Rights movement. There was no better way for the people to experience the pain than through her voice. There was no better way at the time to reach the people of America than through a star who was loved, admired and black. There was another star who was admired loved, admired and black, and his name was Louis Armstrong. Born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901, Louis Satchmo” Armstrong was a victim of poverty and discrimination. At the age of eleven, Armstrong began to develop an interest in music, harmonizing on street corners and playing a toy horn. He was in and out of the home throughout his teenage years and was taken under the wing of Peter Davis, who taught him music. Under Davis’s teaching, Armstrong joined a band, and his talent blossomed. He left the Waif’s Home in 1914, and began to play the cornet all around New Orleans. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Armstrong maintained one of the most grueling continual tours of all time.

He began playing with the large bands that were popular at the time. His popularity and fame though, favored many white people in America With his increasing fame came the criticism of a black community that felt he was not living up to the responsibilities of the times. The late fifties brought with them the civil rights movement, and many blacks saw Armstrong as an “uncle tom,” playing for primarily white audiences around the world. Though he stated that these claims were not true, Armstrong was then in his sixties and primarily concerned with continuing to travel and perform.

He didn’t want to get involved with the Civil Rights issues like Holiday started to do. He probably felt that trying to protect blacks would take away from his fame and popularity. Holiday was really one of the few black musicians who started very early with the rallying cries for the Civil Rights movement; a change for the way black people were treated. In the Nineteen-Forties, Holiday started using the illegal drug heroin. Soon her body needed more and more of the drug. It began to affect her health. In Nineteen-Forty-Seven, Billie Holiday was arrested for possessing illegal drugs.

She was found guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison. When she was released, New York City officials refused to give her a document that permitted her to work in any place that served alcoholic drinks. This meant Holiday no longer could sing in nightclubs and jazz clubs. She could sing only in theaters and concert halls. Ten days after her release from jail, she performed at New York’s famous Carnegie Hall. People filled the place to hear her sing. One of the songs she sang that night was “Strange Fruit”. ” Her last years were a real struggle against the destructive drug heroin.

It eventually took her life; but her later recordings show that, although her voice was ravaged, her technique was still amazing. She died young, but not before leaving a serious scar in the music world and in the United States. Her song was not pretty, and it wasn’t supposed to be. The song was meant to be raw and powerful, which it was for its time. She distinguished herself as one of the most famous black musicians to sing about what she thought was most important, not only for herself and for her people, but also for what the music was about.

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The Gypsy Swing Cats and the Beginning of Jazz

Joshua Pauly Professor Hsu Artistic/Cultural Plunge Essay 11 April 2013 The Gypsy Swing Cats and the Beginning of Jazz On Wednesday April 10th I decided to go to the Kaffee Meister Coffeehouse, located at 9225 Carlton Hills Blvd Santee Ca. 92071, for the specific reason of enjoying some Jazz music played by the San Diego […]

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Louis Armstrong: a Biography

Many Americans enjoy sitting back, relaxing, and listening to the jazz and swing rhythms of one of the best musicians of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong is easily recognized by simply listening to his infamous raspy voice and legendary, creative skill on the trumpet. All Armstrong had to do to play beautifully was […]

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