There are two scenes in Armstrong’s celluloid career that played out like love scenes. One was Barbra Streisand and Armstrong singing “Hello Dolly”, the other Bing Crosby and Armstrong singing “Now You Has Jazz”. Giddins trashes “Hello Dolly” (though not Armstrong in it -he ignores Streisand) and he ignores “Now You Has Jazz”.
The joy of seeing these two titans of popular American music – da Bing and Satcmo, blow this song to smithereens can bring tears to a pop aficiando’s eyes. The pair plan to teach the squares a thing or two about “la jazz hot”. Here they come: “everybody’s singing a ring-ding-dinging that rock, rock, rock, rock rock and roll.”
It’s a joy.
It’s a pleasure.
It’s an honour to witness.
Why does Giddins ignore it?
Giddins is telling a story and its Armstrongs story but it isn’t all of Armstrongs story, it is Armstrong according to Giddins. Giddins is the great former Village Voice Jazz critic and editor so I’m not quite complaining except I had to take my knowledge of Armstrong’s career to fill in the gaps of Giddins narrative.
“Stachmo” flips and flops, it comes and goes, one chapter is about Armstrongs concerns for “Negro” civil rights and it might span twenty years. But then we are back in the twenties where for Giddins, and to be fair, for me as well, the heart of the story lies. But I’m not writing Armstrong’s biography. If I was I would tell it CHRONOLOGICALLY so I could get a feel for how Armstrong’s life played itself out.
Am I protesting too much. Absolutely I am. I am a huge Armstrong fan and I wanted something to place all the diffrent Armstrongs I love so I could study how and why he changed and with all due respect to Giddins, this aint that.
Look at it this way: how can I complain about the best writing I have ever read about some of the best music ever made. Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions. It’s hubristic to do so, I realize that. But EXCEPT for Giddins on the music and the personnel, the book aint there.
“Satchmo” should have been longer. It’s maybe half the length necessary though when you are talking about the greatest American musician of all time and one of the greatest musicians of all time, what does it matter how many pages it takes?
You take the countries best jazz writer with the greatest jazz musician and you get a clumpy ride. Buy it? Yeah. But then you’ll need a coupla others. One caveat: the discography at the end is very important work from a great jazz historian.