on louis armstrong. then there are questions about the british economy with prime minister gordon brown. .

>> i was a music major in college. i decided that i was a better writer than i was a musician. i never questioned the decision to be a writer but i still miss making music. i do not think you really get over that. >> eight years old and the first time you heard louis armstrong,

-- new on >> it was 1964 and he was on the ed sullivan show. ♪ your lickings well, dolly. ♪ >> i do not know what i was doing. i was playing in the next room. my mother said to me to come in here and there was something she wanted me to see. it was louis. it made a permanent impression on me. i was just becoming conscious of jazz at that moment. that was really a form a moment for me. i did not tell my mother that i

was telling the story. >> there are two things that are connected to you but the audience will not understand. i want to stay with louis armstrong for a moment. 650 real to reel tapes, how were they recorded and where are they? >> armstrong was one of the first people in america to own a tape recorder. after they were put on sale, he bought one in 1947. he used them to take his performances so that he could study them. when tape recorders were new, but wanted to play with them. he started leaving his tape recorder on in the dressing room and hotel room just to take conversations. sometimes he would do a mock radio show and he would take his

interviews. mostly, he taped conversations and he saved them. they ended up in the attic of his house in queens new york and they made their way to the armstrong archives at queens college. they were a treasure trove, obviously. there were transferred to compact disks. there were indexed. at this point, i come for the front door. -- i come through the front door. >> what year? >> that would have been about four or five years ago. >> what ledger to the point that you thought you could do a biography of louis armstrong. >> honestly, that was nine years ago. it was the armstrongs and marse.

michael coggs whewell asked if i ever thought about writing and armstrong biography. when you are in the middle of finishing up a biography that he spent 10 years on, your answer is no, go away, don't bother me. i was around the corner in washington and i fell on the bad and it was like a bolt of lightning hit me in the forehead. ♪

>> and i thought about it and the next morning, i called my agent and i said i thought i knew what the next book should be. sure enough, that is what it was. >> how many hours to listen to those tapes? >> i cannot even tell you. you lose count after a while. it is like being in the briar patch. i was just grabbing here and grabbing their. fortunately, they had been completely indexed. you did not have to do random fishing expeditions, but i did a lot of -- i did an indexed in juentry and then i would ask tht was interesting. in one of those fishing expeditions, i found a tape in which armstrong talks at a dinner party about getting in trouble with gangsters in chicago in 1930. he named names. this is something that he had never done. that was one of my great factual

fines. >> is this a case where those tapes just sit there and nobody pays attention until someone like you comes along? >> everybody knew about the tapes and everybody knew that he made the tapes. but because they have been left in an attic for years, most of us assumed that since they were real to real that it would not be liable -- playable. it was perfect timing that i came along when i did. scholars are beginning to work with the tapes. one man was surprised about how few people listen to the tapes. >> we will get back to a armstrong -- back to louis armstrong. there is another event in your life. you spent five years here in baltimore in the pratt library

doing what? >> i was doing a biography of lincoln. it was my first full-length biography -- of mencken. he left behind a very large cache of private papers that were sealed after his death. that is what stimulated me to write a book about him. >> how many hours did you spend in that room? >> i spent 10 years working on the book. during the main time friend that i was working on that, i would come down to baltimore and spend a three day weekend in that room. i bought my first laptop computer back when they were larger than they are now to work on that book. they tell me that it was the

first laptop ever brought into that room. there was this little car roared back had been used so much that the panel had been rubbed off . >> i found i enough on googled books to find out about your book. the " i have is that the american politician is a man who has lied and assembled and a man who has crawled. he knows the taste of the boot polish. he has taken orders from his superiors in knavery and he has wooed and flattered his superiors in centsens." >> that was one of my favorite quotes. >> how much do these folks in

the culture world impact politics in the country? >> armstrong had a real impact on politics even though he was not a political man. his impact was in race relations. he was one of the very first black people that white people all over the country came to respect and to love. it was through his art and performing in films and on television. although he was not an activist and a conventional system of the word -- conventional sense of the word, he was as powerful as just about anything anybody else did. mencken was really the man that crystallized the opinion column.

although his track record at it's a political prognosticator was pitiful, he had a way of thinking about politicians and the skepticism that we bring to discussions of them in columns like the one you got that " from. i do not think he had any direct role on the political process itself, though he was one of the first people to do that. >> we have some videotape. before we do that, they have some of your material on google books. did they pay you for that? >> yes. >> they do not have the full book. all of the books that you have written, they do not have much there. but they do have this book on

mencken. >> i have sharply mixed feelings about it. the copyright and compensation issues are very serious i was a party to some of the pulmonary litigation about the google books settlement. i think that that is going to have to be worked out a lot more fully before people are ready to go along with that. >> why did they think they could ever do something like that and why did the library's cooperate? >> they cooperated because it was to very advantaged in terms of making material available. >> did they pay them? >> that, i do not know. i think that google assumed that if they did this on a sufficiently large scale that

people would not think much about the extent to which the original settlement compromised their rights. i want materials to be available to people through electronic searching. but i think that copyright is important. i do not think that the rights of authors should be compromised. >> the reason i mention that is that there is a vast amount of material. we do not know the man's name, but it is from cfpl television in canada. have you seen this? >> i do not remember. >> speaks about race. >> i believe you want to express a desire to play behind the iron curtain, do you have any plans

along that line? >> now, it is up to uncle sam. it gets a little rough over there and if it plays right, it will be appreciated. assam says -- [unintelligible] >> i recall that you shouted protocol by saying you're going to lay a song on for princess margaret. what is the reaction to that? >> [unintelligible] >> how did the crowd react?

>> newhouse came down. >> the house came down. >> they love the music that we play. >> which louis armstrong are you seeing there? >> that is the public armstrong. it is important to say that the public armstrong is a real. he is not a mask that armstrong put on for the purpose of deceiving the public. he was a fundamentally global man. the armstrong that i learned of in the tapes he was capable of speaking with much more sharpness about race relations, in particular. this must have been filmed in

the late fifties or early 60s. >> 1958. >> that makes sense. >> this was just before he had the ball out with eisenhower. he was talking to the state department about to ring. >> looking at that, this says that the trumpet player louis armstrong said last night he'd given up plans for a government sponsored trip to the soviet union. mr. armstrong said president eisenhower had no guts and describe governor horrible loss of arkansas as an uneducated plowboy. >> i cannot say what he really said on this television show because it is an obscenity of the highest possible bolted. he was not a political person. he did not even vote.

he knew about race relations. he was like every other thinking person in america and was very disturbed by the direction in which things were going. for those that do not remember what happened in arkansas, the governor refused to cooperate with brown worst -- brown vs. board of education and allowed the desegregation in public schools. president eisenhower hesitated to take action against the governor. at this moment, armstrong is touring in grand rapids and a reporter talked his editor into sending him up to visit armstrong. he talked of the room service

waiter into letting him take up armstrongs dinner. he guns in the door, wearing a white jacket and carrying dishes. armstrong was delighted by this. they talked about music and the reporter asked him who his favorite artist was and armstrong said bing crosby. what we know from the tapes that people who only know armstrong from the ed sullivan show do not know is that he had a temper. he would like into rages at noon that he would forget about at 1:00. he spoke with the up most premise and very strong language about the president and the governor.

this is the story of a lifetime for a reporter. but the story is unprintable. he sits down with armstrong and the figure out euphemisms to use in places and they came up with "an educated plowboy." the editor did not believe it. then he went with a photographer and the typescript to the story and showed it to armstrong. armstrong read it, gets a pien and signs it and takes a picture with a two of them together with the manuscript and go back to the newspaper office and the story goes on the wires and the ap picks up and it is in every paper in the united states.

a few days later, president eisenhower since the guard into arkansas. >> this says, "daddy, if and when you decide to take those little negro children personally into central high school along with your marvelous troops, please take me along. oh god, it would be such a great pleasure, i assure you. may god bless you president, you have a good heart. >> after eisenhower sent the national guard in, armstrong realized the president had done the right thing, maybe at the prompting of armstrong himself, and so he sent a telegram which is to be found in eisenhower's presidential archives.

>> how often did he go overseas? >> knott to the soviet union, but in 1960, he makes his first official tour. he had been playing in europe in 1932 and 33 -- 1932 and 1933. he was seen as an unofficial ambassador. this producer gave him the wonderful title. he performed regularly in europe. he was beloved there. he became a quasi official american massacre of there. >> what was his way of treating the black-white issue in europe?

>> he did not talk about it much. he always had an integrated band and said what he wanted to say about it. he did not bring politics or race relations into this setting. he says that his contribution was to go before mixed audiences with a mixed band and played music that he loved. this was obviously an artistic genius, a man worthy of what he got. >> who started calling him pops? >> like many people that shake hands with thousands of people

every week, he had trouble remembering people's names. he distorted calling everybody he met pops. they started calling him pops. its stock, not just because of his own hat, but because it had metaphoric value. when i was searching for a title for my book, i actually said on my block and that i wanted people to suggest a title. an artist wrote in and asked about pops. people who knew armstrong well said that is the perfect title. >> this is a little bit of trotrumpet and you can see it on the monitor.

explain what you see when you see lori armstrong -- would use the louis armstrong. >> you see the artist, the serious man. when you see performance photographs, he is a clown and philly put the instrument to his lips and in your face to face with the artist. that gives to the fundamental seriousness of the man. even though he was an entertainer and he was charismatic, at heart, he was the most serious of artists that loved life and embraced life and not the most pleasure that was going out of life at any given moment. the greatest pleasure of all was the pleasure of making art without one. -- with that onhorn.

>> board in new orleans, died in queens. married three times. >> the first was a prostitute, the second was a musician. listening to the tapes and talking at great length to people who knew him well, i got as close to him as you can be. >> let's listen. ♪ wihen pressed me to your heart and in a world apart, a world where roses bloom, and when you

speak, angels sing from above every day would seem [unintelligible] give your heart and soul to me and life will always be . ♪ back to the youtube aspect of this because you follow this culture, this is all available for nothing. >is that good or bad? >> it is a good blessing. -- it is a mixed blessing. most of this is either out copyright or no attempt has been made to make them available in any other way. there is a lot of video on armstrong that you just cannot

get at any other way. in a perfect world, everyone should be compensated for what they do, but i will not deny for moment that because of the availability of this material, i was able to find out things about armstrong that i would not find out any other way. >> how long have you been with "the wall street journal." >> one day, seven years ago, they want to talk about the papers culture coverage. he wanted me to be drawn a critic. he dropped that -- the drama critic. he dropped the bomb on me at lunch. >> key is the editor of the editorial page which means that you worked at the editorial department. how often do you meet a culture critic who is conservative?

not too often. >> why? >> i have not ever come up with a good answer to that. they are not especially interested in culture the way that i am. i think that for the most part, maybe 85 to 9 percent of the time, political issues do not present themselves in the work that i do. when they do, as in the case of the play that i read, they become very salient, but if i am writing about the revival or the latest bbroadway musical, i am not interested in other people's

politics and dragging them into a cultural discussion. i don't want to watch a right wing play anymore than i want to watch a left wing played. i just want to watch life. >> how about the selection of what you will write about? >>would you pick something becae of your instincts? what i do not think so. my deal with the journal is that i review all broadway openings and in between that, i can write about anything i want in the united states. i do not seek out certain styles of play is. i try to go see something that i want to see that i think is going to be good. i am not going there to write bad reviews because i have to sit through the show. if an off-broadway play has a

strong political slant that is immediately relevant and is newsworthy, i am going to go out of my way to see that, but that is a news judgment as much it is an ideological judgment. that is all i have to bring. >> a lot of conservatives think that the world of communication and hollywood and broadway and the arts and all that is dominated by liberals. is it? >> i do not think there is any question about that. i do not think that it is a salient matter. i am aware that it is very difficult to get anywhere in hollywood if you are openly conservative because people are so uncomfortable with being around folks like that. theater is a social art. it is a collaborative art.

when you try to work with people who were familiar with you, but obviously bring their own perspectives. the deeper question of why people on the left seem to be more interested in, i do not have a good answer to that. i have idle speculation about it. >> the st. john's college, how long did you spend there? >> just a semester. i had come from a very small town. just as armstrong did not set foot out of new orleans until he was 20 years old, i had never really been out of sexton. i came back and went to school in liberty, missouri, closer to

home. it turned out to have opportunities that i could not have gotten anywhere else. i went back to illinois and i spent two years at a point in my life that i wanted to be a psychologist. that was a false thing that i was chasing. this was the most valuable thing i had ever done. if you had studied statistics and learned about experimental design, you will never again take, at face value, what scientists tell you because you have the mental equivalent to the cat and speculate on how this was designed. you see the world in a different way. >> how long at the kansas city

star? >> if i remember right, from 1977 to 1983? >i became their second straight classical student. i became their first string jazz critic. it was tremendously exciting. we filed the review, -- i will never forget that i didn't fully understand what i was getting into. i study -- i showed up and typed the first page of the review and a copy boy comes up behind me and grabs it out of the typewriter and takes it to the copy desk and a half to finish the review. >> how long at the "new york

daily news?" >> several years it was my -- several years. it was my second time i came to new york. i edited the "harper's forum." i work on the editorial page and began to specialize in foreign policy. it was my graduate school. writing about complicated issues for the daily news editorial page taught me how to write about complicated things in simple, accessible language. i took those skills and wrote about classical music. >> what is on your block and who do you write it with? >> it is a block about arts in

new york city. this was a national, and north carolina. i always have a daily " which usually comes from my reading. there are teasers for my draw column in "the wall street journal." the name of the blog is "about last night." when i go home tonight, i will probably right about this interview. >> i want to mention a footnote. "louis armstron a restaurant own

connecticut, we set out headed north with everyone in a good mood. the band bus did not have a portion of so somewhere in connecticut, which stopped somewhere for lewis to go to the bathroom. he was refused use of the otherwise available facility. i would never forget the look on lewis's face -- on louis' . '" >> my wife is from connecticut and she was shocked when i read that quote. she said that that could not have happened in connecticut in the 1960's, and i told her that not only could, but it did. >> this is a black man in a white world.

>> he was insulated from this experience because he was very famous throughout the first part of his life he could never be able to stay in a hotel or use the bathroom. he says that he ate more meals then he could imagine in the kitchen of the chopping block while he was on the road. his entire band was thrown into jail in memphis because the person who was handling the band was white. they threw them into jail and said that they needed cotton pickers. the only reason that they'd let them out was that they offered to play a concert for the police.

far from being heartened by this, his spirit was never balloowed. he always looked on the bright side. >> this is a song that reflects some of this. ♪ ic skies of blue and clouds of white light blessed days and i think to myself, what a wonderful world the colors of the rainbow so pretty in the skies

also on the faces of people going by icy friends shaking hands and saying how do you do they're really saying i love you. iac babies crying i watch them grow bell learn much more than i'll ever know and i think to myself what a wonderful world yes, i think to myself what a wonderful world ♪

>> in your book, you say that when he died in 1971, he was worth $500,000, but it seems that a man that was on the road constantly, that was not a lot of money. >> it isn't. he said that he did not want to die rich. the net value of his estate was more than that if you figure in the pending royalties. armstrong ran his life the way he wanted to run it. he took all responsibility for his business affairs in return for him taking care of all the problems in his life from paying his taxes to picking his musicians. that is because armstrong understood what he wanted out of life which was to get up on the

bandstand every night and play music. ultimately, he was satisfied the way things work financially. he could have made more money if he had taken more responsibility for that part of his life. it would have been difficult to the point of impossibility for a black man to take that responsibility in the white world. i think that he thought that he made out all right. >> how much of the estate was left beyond the $500,000? what is the value of all that he left? >> the royalty stream continues today. it has been rolled over into the louis armstrong educational foundation which has a wide variety of educational activities relating to music and medicine. the museum and archive has been

made possible by this. as long as armstrong continues to be remembered and continues to be popular, he will continue to make money and it will be used, since he has no offspring, so far as we know, he did not have children. he smoked marijuana every day of his life, which probably depressed his sperm count. one woman thought he was sterile. he thought he had fathered an illegitimate child, and he had an adopted son that he took under his wing as a teenager in new orleans. it was a boy that was mentally ill.

armstrong made himself responsible for the boys care. his name was clarence armstrong. he outlived armstrong for many years. >> how long did he live in new orleans? >> born in 1901 and went north to chicago in 1922. >> how much education did he have? >> not much. he spent 1.5 years in reform school. that is where he had his only formal musical training. after he left, he never went back to school. he was a self educated and did an extraordinary job of it because he was a really good writer. >> here is some more from that interview that talks about jazz. >> do you feel that american jazz could be an instrument for spreading good will overseas? >> i think so.

it is like a religion. >> house reception been when you play over there? >> a note is a note in any language. they really appreciated. -- really appreciate it. >> what impact did he have on the whole jazz world and how much of it was jazz and how much of it turned out to be like his other songs? >> it is incalculable. he is, without question, the single most important figure in jazz in the 20th-century. he took the world of jazz by storm. armstrong did not invent jazz. he was the first jazz soloist to become powerfully influential.

he had the sense of swing along with that personal charisma. the influence spread beyond the world of jazz when he started to make feature films in 1936 it spread throughout the whole world. whenever he appeared in europe, he was mobbed. people who immediately recognized him. what fascinates me about is that the influence is equally balanced. he is influential among pop singers that were touched by the sincerity with which she sang. >> what up people who accused him of being an uncle tom?

>> i think it was understandable. we think of him as being more contemporary than he is. but he was born in 19001 -- 1901. he was not the only musician like this. the difference is that armstrong live longer and was more famous. after world war two, they started to think of themselves in a more self aware way as artist rather than entertainers. they talk about that in the interviews. >> why would he do that? what would motivate him? >> it is a lot like the sun

going after the father. armstrong was the great father figure of jazz and dizzy gillespie came along right after world war two and was making a name for himself. it is natural for the sun to want to go after the father. dizzy gillespie live long enough to change his tune and in his autobiography, he says that he had been wrong about armstrong. he even said that he had his own way. the discomfort that was evident at the time but is this bill because armstrong -- we now see him as a historical figure. the 20th-century is behind us. we can see him as he was in

historical perspective. one of the things that i tried to do in my book is to try to provide the historical perspective. it makes it easier to see what armstrong would have behaved the way he did. >> how often do you run into somebody that has not heard of louis armstrong? >> i have never run into bo anybody who had never heard of louis armstrong. a cabbie asked me where i was going and he said that he loved those big cheeks of louis armstrong when he was playing, but of course he was thinking of dizzy gillespie. sammy davis jr. criticized armstrong for not having spoken out more about racial matters and performing in front of segregated audiences as with most black performers did not do that.

virtually anybody who toured in the south had to play in front of a white audience. davis made these comments after the big little rock incident. every entertainer were on record talking about on a stronarmstro. davis said that he was still playing in front of segregated audiences, but that was irrelevant. >> go back to your 650 tapes where louis armstrong is speaking. >> they are physically at queens college. nobody plays them since they have been transferred to compact disk, but you want to look at the box is because all the boxes are decorated with homemade collages made by armstrong himself. in addition to being a great musician and a writer, he was an

amateur artist. >> you say they are on desks who can listen to them? >> anybody. >> how many places in the country other places to go to see something from louis armstrong? >> all of the significant sites that armstrong was associated with in his life were torn down long ago. his birthplace and ishaqi was born in was raised in the '60s. there is a terrible photograph taken of the armstrong house and you can see the bulldozer in the corner of the frame. the house is a museum.

that is the place to go if you want to get a sense of what the man was a lie -- a man was like. new orleans has the great statue of armstrong. his world is a world that he left in 1922. >> it is interesting to hear him talk about rock-and-roll and the impact. >> when i was a kid they would shop and have the banjos. quite naturally thought it is beautiful music.

it was the same as rock-and- roll. it was about love and happiness. >> what about the beatnik crap? >> -- what about the beatnik crowd? >> at my age, you know i love it. i just watch it. >> as a culture critic, put that in context. rap music, whatever, how does that fit into our history? >> armstrong is the great grandparent of it all, as he mentions in this clip. he recognized immediately that rock is an outgrowth of black

popular music. he loved the bills which he knocked off the top of the charge with -- charts with " hello dolly." he made a record with jimmie rodgers. he would have been interested in whatever was going and would have been totally open to it. >> what about your opinion about today's entertainment? >> i like some. i don't like some. >> what is your favorite? >> i cannot say i am particularly interested in wraprap. rock and its successor music continue to fascinate me. remember, i am 53 years old and

i grew up listening and plain rock and country music. -- and playing rock and country music. >> what is next for you? what i am going to write a biography of duke ellington along the same lines as a armstrong but. i got the idea during the summer. this has opened the way for me to do this. though, i will keep my day job. i have the best job in the world as the drama critic for "the wall street journal." ellington is just as captivating as armstrong. i cannot wait to roll up my sleeves and get going. >> how much has been written about this? >> there is more source material

been there is for armstrong. the major archives are in washington and i feel pretty confident that i can bring the same kind of new perspectives to ellington that i did to armstrong, the perspective of someone who has been a musician. one of the things i tried to do in the armstrong book was to set him in the larger history of culture in the 20th century. >> what do you think has caused this book to catch on like it has? i can say that i have read nothing but quote after quote that this is a good book. what is doing that? >> because it is about louis armstrong. if you cannot write a good book about louis armstrong, be a

plumber. you are in the wrong business. i tried to write everything i knew about the world of art. i tried to translate my specialist knowledge into general slang. i wanted to write a book that would make sense to my mother and that would have the narrative pull of a novel. >> his mom still alive? >> mom is still alive. >> had she read your book? yes. >> washy at penn? >> yes. >> -- was she a fan? >> yes. >> armstrong remains a communicative character. he has not lost his charm. i think that people think that if they have a chance to read a

book about a man like this, they will take it. >> did you write the book while listening to louis armstrong? >> you do not normally listen to a first draft while listening to music. there was always armstrong used to go in when i was doing the editing. it is part of the fun of spending your time with somebody that is so likable. >> if you're going to bite a louis armstrong cd or download something, do you have your favorite? >> the appendix of my books are a list of 30 songs that i talk about at least. you cannot get all of them in one album. it gives you a good cross- section of what he was about

from his first record down to " hello dolly." if you do not have an ipod and you do not want to download, there is an essential louis armstrong but it will only give you part of the picture. >> what year on a duke ellington? >> i just made the deal. i do not know what your we will finish it, but i would think for five years from now. >> thank you, and let's listen to a little more.

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