Teachout presents uswith Armstrong the boy, whose sweet innocenceand unusual ability to repel theslings and arrows of violence, poverty and racismshines, especially throughhis own memoirs. Teachout frequently quotes from Armstrong’s autobiography, Satchmo, cross-referencing questionableallegations with citations from other interested parties. He fills in gaps withtantalizing information about obscure recordings and band ventures, anddescribes Armstrong’s life and music in layman’s language that makes New Orleans in the 1910s and Chicagoand New Yorkin the ’20s sound like the most exciting, enchanted places on Earth.
As Armstrongmatures, Teachout dispels the image of Armstrong the “natural,” noting that hisearly cornet playing took place over long, grueling years in New Orleans’extremely dangerous red-light district, and demonstrating that Armstrong was anexperienced sight reader and serious classical music listener. The greatinexplicable wonder of Armstrong’s life seems to be that he was able to readand write so well, having never attended school, apart from a year and a halfin an orphanage.
Taking issue withthe popular notion of Armstrong as Uncle Tom, Teachout convincingly portraysArmstrong as an artist in the service of entertainment (his much-heralded solostended to be set pieces), and even presents evidence that Armstrong was asbrave and outspoken an opponent of racism as any artist of his day. Armstronghelped found the Negro Actors Guild, was the first black American to host hisown network radio variety show, and arguably changed the course of history in a1957 interview, when he took bitter issue with President Eisenhower’s initialdecision not to enforce school integration in Little Rock, Ark. (A week afterthe interview was published, Eisenhower sent troops into the town to escortbesieged black students to class.) He even finished a show in Knoxville, Tenn.,after a stick of dynamite exploded in the auditorium.
But Teachout toesthe party line when it comes to Armstrong’s music (i.e., it was all downhillafter Armstrong’s 1928 recording of “West End Blues”). You can see it coming inTeachout’s dismissal of Lil Hardin Armstrong’s piano playing, a favoritesubject of ridicule among jazz snobs, and his dead-wrong denigration of thegreat singer Lillie Delk Christian (backed up by Armstrong on numerousrecordings) as “insipid-sounding.” Any praise for the great performances inArmstrong’s Decca, Bluebird and OKeh recordings of the 1930s and/or hisspectacular Verve recordings of the 1950s is limited to passing mention of afew songs per period. Absent any real love for Armstrong’s later recordings,Teachout concentrates from 1929 onward on Armstrong the mangood-cop bandleader(to manager Joe Glaser’s bad cop), friend, husband, writer, collage artist, heroandit makes for difficult reading.
The LouisArmstrong of Pops displays disturbingcontradictions: wide-eyed innocence and off-putting cynicism, sometimes in thesame breath. He is sentimental in his love for his wife, Lucille, but stillcarries on affairs, perhaps even fathering at least one child outside themarriage. (Teachout is remiss in not investigating this possibility.) Armstrongcurses out fellow musicians for offenses great and small, and carries long,senseless grudges. Recognizing his subject’s enormous contribution to the causeof human happiness, Teachout isn’t out to knock Armstrong off anybody’spedestal, but in drawing us closer to Armstrong the man, he risks disappointingus with the truth: The greatest musician of the 20th century was human, withall of man’s sublime, essential beauty, and with all his fallibility andinconsistency.
