Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz

360 Pages·2012·2.03 MB·English

by  Daniel Stein

Music Is My Life
JAZZ PERSPECTIVES
Lewis Porter, Series General Editor
Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter
By William R. Bauer
Jazz Journeys to Japan: The Heart Within By William Minor
Four Jazz Lives By A. B. Spellman
Head Hunters: The Making of Jazz’s First Platinum Album
By Steven F. Pond
Lester Young By Lewis Porter
The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980–1991
By George Cole
The André Hodeir Jazz Reader
By André Hodeir Edited by Jean-Louis Pautrot
Someone to Watch Over Me: The Life and Music of Ben Webster
By Frank Büchmann-Møller
Rhythm Is Our Business: Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express
By Eddy Determeyer
Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music By Eunmi Shim
Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser’s Art
By Andy Hamilton
Delightfulee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan
By Jeffery S. McMillan
“Ellington Uptown”: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson,
and the Birth of Concert Jazz
By John Howland
New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History
By Bruce Boyd Raeburn
The Music of Django Reinhardt
By Benjamin Givan
Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz
By Daniel Stein
OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST
Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920–60
By Lars Bjorn with Jim Gallert
John Coltrane: His Life and Music By Lewis Porter
Charlie Parker: His Music and Life By Carl Woideck
The Song of the Hawk: The Life and Recordings of Coleman Hawkins
By John Chilton
Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music
By John Chilton
Music
Louis Armstrong,
Is
Autobiography, and
My Life
American Jazz
Daniel Stein
The University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2012
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
cPrinted on acid-free paper
2015 2014 2013 2012 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stein, Daniel, 1975–
Music is my life : Louis Armstrong, autobiography, and American jazz /
Daniel Stein.
p. m. — (Jazz perspectives)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn978-0-472-07180-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn978-0-472-05180-9 (pbk. :
alk. paper) — isbn978-0-472-02850-4 (e-book)
1. Armstrong, Louis, 1901-1971. 2. Jazz musicians—United States—Biography.
3. Jazz—History and criticism. 4. Autobiography. I. Title.
ml419.a75S75 2012
781.65092—dc23
[B] 2012011073
Acknowledgments
This book began as a master’s thesis on Charles Mingus’s and Louis Arm-
strong’s autobiographical writings and grew into a doctoral dissertation on
Armstrong’s autobiographics. I am deeply indebted to Winfried Herget at
the University of Mainz for supervising the master’s thesis and the disser-
tation in its early stages and for being part of my doctoral committee, as
well as to Frank Kelleter at the University of Göttingen for being my dis-
sertation supervisor. I have bene‹ted from their critical suggestions and
wish to thank both of them for their intellectual investment in the project,
for their professional and personal advice, and for their crucial sponsorship
of my academic activities. I also want to thank Alfred Hornung at the Uni-
versity of Mainz, whose expertise has greatly advanced my understanding
of American autobiography and whose professional support I appreciate
very much.
At the English Department at the University of Michigan in Ann Ar-
bor, where, thanks to Winfried Herget and Martha Vicinus, I was able to
work as a lecturer from 2001 to 2003, I met a host of wonderful and sup-
portive people who shaped not only my outlook on the subjects discussed
in this book but also my views on American culture at large. My of‹ce
mate, Charles Taylor, was a continuing source of knowledge about jazz,
while brief talks with Richard Crawford and Travis Jackson reinforced my
belief that I was working on a promising project. I had the chance to sit in
as a guest in Paul Anderson’s magni‹cent class “Ralph Ellison and the
Blues Aesthetic,” which turned out to be a formative experience I still trea-
sure. Working for Eric Rabkin, I got a sense of what rigorous critical
thought can accomplish. Moreover, my two years at the University of
Michigan were very much de‹ned by John Rubadeau and Pat Rubadeau,
whom I wish to thank for their endless hospitality and their great sense of
vi acknowledgments
humor, as well as by Bonnie Campbell and Terry Jansen, whose open-
heartedness always made me feel welcome.
At the University of Göttingen, where I have been a member of the
American Studies division since 2003, I have found a highly productive and
personally rewarding academic environment. My biggest thanks go to
Frank Kelleter, who was, and continues to be, a constant source of advice,
inspiration, and intellectual challenge. His astute comments and thought-
ful suggestions proved absolutely invaluable throughout the many years in
which I grappled with Louis Armstrong’s music and writings and struggled
with the latest literary and cultural theories. I further want to express grat-
itude to my fellow colleagues and friends in Göttingen: Heinrich Detering
for being part of my doctoral committee; Barbara Buchenau (now at the
University of Bern) for our many brainstorming sessions; Harald Kittel for
putting everything into perspective; John Coates for musical inspiration
and coteaching courses on jazz; Gabriele Rippl (now at the University of
Bern) for sharing her vast knowledge of intermedia theory; Philipp
Schweighauser (now at the University of Basel) for brie‹ng me on the
forms and functions of book proposals; Klaus Herrgen for being the per-
fect librarian; and Christy Hosefelder for her continual help and assistance.
I have also bene‹ted greatly from my fellow doctoral candidates in the
American Studies program: Bernadette Kalkert, Kathleen Loock, Eva
Morawietz, Birte Otten, Diana Rosenhagen, Stefanie Schulz, Stephanie
Sommerfeld, and Alexander Starre.
Beyond this immediate academic environment, I have had the pleasure
of bouncing ideas back and forth and discussing the ins and outs of the aca-
demic profession with Nassim Balestrini (University of Regensburg),
Micha Edlich (University of Mainz), Alexander Fischer (University of Er-
langen-Nürnberg), and Christina Meyer (University of Hannover). Rein-
hold Wagnleitner (University of Salzburg) deserves additional gratitude
for his interest in my work on Armstrong, as does Charles Hiroshi Garrett,
who allowed me to preview his chapter “Louis Armstrong and the Great
Migration” before it was published as part of Struggling to De‹ne a Nation:
American Music and the Twentieth Century(Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 2008).
In the fall of 2009, I spent several days at the Louis Armstrong Archives
at Queens College, New York, and I wish to thank Michael Cogswell for
granting me access to Armstrong’s original manuscripts and for his will-
ingness to share his insights on particular texts and individual passages. I
acknowledgments vii
also want to thank Lesley Zlabinger, my contact person at the archives,
who helped me set up my research visit and answered all my questions
about print permissions and copyrights, as well as Ricky Riccardi, whose
blog “The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong” offers superb analyses
of Armstrong’s life and music and whose monograph What a Wonderful
World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years (New York: Pantheon,
2011) was published just a little bit too late to play more than a cursory role
in the following pages. I did not get a chance to visit the Hogan Jazz
Archive at Tulane University, but I communicated in writing with Bruce
Boyd Raeburn and Lynn Abbott, whose readiness to help me with my re-
quests and provide me with the materials I coveted was exemplary. I also
communicated with Elizabeth Esherwood at the Louisiana State Museum
Jazz Collection and wish to thank her for granting me permission to re-
produce Edmond “Doc” Souchon’s photograph of Louis Armstrong as
King of the Zulus in chapter 5. Additional requests were handled
ef‹ciently and competently at Oxford University Press (Ben Alexander),
Magnum Germany (Norbert Neckritz), and LIFE/Time Inc. (Amy
Wong). Finally, I wish to thank Oscar Cohen and Phoebe Jacobs of the
Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc., for granting me permis-
sion to cite from Armstrong’s writings and reproduce facsimiles of previ-
ously unpublished material. I am also thankful for Lisa Cohen’s many ef-
forts to process my requests and for her kind responses to my questions.
While none of the chapters of this book was previously published, I
have occasionally drawn on essays that have appeared in the following pub-
lications and under the following titles: “The Performance of Jazz Autobi-
ography,” in Blue Notes: Toward a New Jazz Discourse,ed. Mark Osteen, spe-
cial issue of Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 37.2 (2004): 173–99;
“Hearing, Seeing, and Writing Thelonious Monk: Toward a Theory of
Changing Iconotexts,” Amerikastudien/American Studies 50.4 (2005):
603–27; “Jazz-Autobiographie und kulturelle Intermedialität: Theore-
tische und praktische Überlegungen zur Beziehung von autobiographis-
chem Text und improvisierter Jazz-Musik,” in Literatur und Musik in der
klassischen Moderne: Mediale Konzeptionen und intermediale Poetologien, ed.
Joachim Grage (Würzburg: Ergon, 2006), 327–46; “The Things That Jes’
Grew? The Blues ‘I’ and African American Autobiographies,” in Blues and
Jazz, ed. Lisa Graley, special issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities 23.2
(2006): 43–54; “From Text-Centered Intermediality to Cultural Interme-
diality; or, How to Make Intermedia Studies More Cultural,” in American
viii acknowledgments
Studies as Media Studies,ed. Frank Kelleter and Daniel Stein (Heidelberg:
Winter, 2008), 181–90; “Louis Armstrong as a Model for Intermedia The-
ory,” Annual Review 2009/10, Heidelberg Center for American Studies
(2010): 164–73. I want to thank the editors of these publications as well as
those who organized the conference panels and colloquia at which I pre-
sented papers on topics related to this book for their support.
At the University of Michigan Press, editor-at-large Chris Hebert and
his assistants Scott Grif‹th and Susan Cronin were tremendously knowl-
edgeable and immensely supportive. Chris’s belief that I could squeeze a
worthwhile book from my initial proposal helped me through the rougher
moments of the revision process. I have always admired John Szwed’s work
on American music and culture, and I am humbled by the fact that he ac-
cepted this book for publication in the Jazz Perspectives series. I have
bene‹ted greatly from his suggestions and from the detailed remarks by the
anonymous university press reviewers, and I want to thank all of them for
their efforts and insights. I also appreciate the help and advice I received
from project manager Marcia LaBrenz and administrative assistant Debra
Shafer, as well as the copyeditor’s careful corrections and suggestions.
Two generous dissertation awards allowed me to cover the print per-
mission and copyright fees for this book (apart from the cultural capital
they also award). My thanks go to the Heidelberg Center for American
Studies, where I was privileged to receive the Rolf Kentner Dissertation
Prize in October 2010, and to the Graduate School of Humanities Göttin-
gen (GSGG), which awarded me the Christian-Gottlob-Heyne-Preis in
November 2010.
Above all, I want to thank my family: my parents, Thomas Michael
Stein and Johanna Stein; my brother, Simon Stein, and his wife, Verena
Barthel-Stein; my in-laws, Kresimir Petricevic and Beate Petricevic-
Rompf; and my wife, Cornelia, who has accompanied this book from the
very ‹rst day and has provided crucial feedback and smart suggestions
countless times.
Contents
introduction
“Music is my life, and I live to play”
Louis Armstrong’s Jazz Autobiographics / 1
chapter 1
“I have always been a great observer”
New Orleans Musicking / 30
chapter 2
“I done forgot the words”
Versioning Autobiography / 66
chapter 3
“Diddat Come Outa Mee?”
Writing Scat and Typing Swing / 108
chapter 4
“A happy go lucky sort of type of fellow”
The Productive Ambiguities of Minstrel Sounding / 145
chapter 5
“He didn’t need black face—to be funny”
The Double Resonance of Postcolonial Performance / 183