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Jazz Ambassadors: Representing A Segregated America During The Cold War
by Victor L. Schermer
Jazz Ambassadors THIRTEEN Productions 2018 Here, long overdue, is a comprehensive documentary about the legendary jazz musicians in the 1950s who served as “cultural ambassadors" under the aegis of the U.S. State Department, touring Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Soviet Union. The film comes sixty years after the fact. As Americans continue to mourn the loss of Tom Brokaw's “Greatest Generation" of WW II soldiers and their families, we jazz fans also grieve the passing of ...
Continue ReadingState and Mainstream: The Jazz Ambassadors and the U.S. State Department
by Karl Ackermann
The Cold War that began in 1947 and ran for forty-four years, had jazz music as its primary deterrent to global tensions, and it did more to foster good will between the U.S. and global citizens than any previous program launched by the U.S. Department of State. Jazz music, even in its Golden Age, was seldom a front page story in the national press so it was a rare publishing event when the Sunday New York Times placed such a ...
Continue ReadingMarch 2018: Louis Armstrong, Bunny Berrigan, and Henry “Red” Allen.
by Patrick Burnette
Episode 135 takes a thorough and loving look at Louis Armstrong's 1930's recordings for the Decca company. After a couple years nursing a blown lip and searching for new musical contexts, Louis hooked up with manager Joe Glaser and soon had a contract with Decca records, which featured him on a kaleidoscope of recordings, from remakes of some Hot Fives triumphs to collaborations with the Mills Brothers to novelty numbers about Hawaii. The resulting four hours of music is surprisingly ...
Continue ReadingLouis Armstrong: The Decca Singles 1935-1946
by Patrick Burnette
Good news, jazz fans--rhythm saves the world again. The Universal Music Group tentacle labeled “Verve Records" has issued The Complete Decca Singles 1935-1946. Don't be put off by the term “singles." Since this was the 78 era, all recordings were essentially singles and the set thoroughly covers Satchmo's output for Decca during the period. (Even the spoken-word “Elder Eatmore" sermons are included). This material previously appeared in a fine Mosaic box and a Definitive Records set of dubious provenance. Both ...
Continue ReadingThe Best Of The Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings
by Mark Barnett
Getting Started If you're new to jazz, go to our Getting Into Jazz primer for some hints on how to listen. CD Capsule Portrait of the artist as a young genius. In these immortal recordings, Armstrong blew new life into jazz and changed it forever. Background Many people remember Louis Armstrong only as a popular entertainer, recalling how he wrapped his warm, gravelly voice around such hits as “Hello, Dolly" ...
Continue ReadingAn Evening With the Pops, Part II or, Louis Louis, We Gotta Go Now
by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
Well, kids, when last we left Louis Armstrong; he had solidified his place as America's first legitimate jazz superstar on the basis of his seminal recordings with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, was married to a legumicidal maniac and trusting his fortunes to a mobbed-up dandy who shared his neckwear with Al Capone. There was some nonsense about aliens and crabs, a veiled slam at the sorry state of modern celebrity, Canadians were somehow involved, and Prime Minister ...
Continue ReadingAn Evening with the Pops
by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
There are several theories concerning the origin of jazz. The most prevalent is that jazz originated primarily in New Orleans, a so-called “gumbo" of influences ranging from African polyrhythms to European classical to American Negro spirituals, and permeated the turn-of-the-century culture to the point that within two decades it had established hotbeds in the two largest cities in the country at that time, New York and Chicago. Another, lesser-accepted theory is that the same aliens who built the pyramids returned ...
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