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tv   Q A  CSPAN  January 31, 2010 11:00pm-12:00am EST

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and then the british inquiry into the iraq war. state department officials discuss the president's fiscal year 2011 budget proposal. . >> over the years i have wanted to ask you where the name teach
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out came from? >> it is dutch, i believe. >> where did you grow up? >> my family still back there. >> create the time were you were instrumental in hand -- do you still do that? >> i started playing when i was in junior high school -- not long after i first heard louis armstrong for the first time. i started out on the violin. i heard jazz and thought i would play that. the violin was not the best for that. i went to the junior high school band room and tried trumpet. college. i paiplay jazz for a few years d
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then 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, -- ed sullivan show. ♪ hello, dolly this is louis, dolly you're looking swell, dolly i can tell, dolly you're still:, here still growing, you're still going strong ♪ >> i do not know what i was doing. i was playing in the next room. here and there was something she wanted me to see. he won't be around forever. it was louis.
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it made a permanent impression on me. i was just becoming conscious of jazz at that moment. that was really a forming moment for me. i did not tell my mother that i was telling this 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 reel 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 tape his performances so that he could study them. when tape recorders were new, they wanted to play with them.
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he started leaving his tape recorder on in the dressing room and hotel room just to tape conversations. sometimes he would do a mock radio show and he would tape his interviews. they are often the only documentation of those 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. they were transferred to compact disks. they were indexed. at this point, i come through the front door. i was the first biographer to have access to the states after they were made available. >> what year? >> that would have been about four or five years ago. >> what led you to the point that you thought you could do a biography of louis armstrong.
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>> honestly, that was nine years ago. it was the armstrongs sentinary. i was at at queens college doing a piece for the "new york times." i was working on my mencken book. michael coggswell asked if i ever thought about writing an armstrong biography. when you are in the middle of finishing up a biography that answer is no, go away, don't bother me. three years later, the first night of the national book tour, i was around the corner in washington and i fell on the bed and it was like a bolt of lightning hit me in the forehead. i thought, louis. ♪ ["when the saints go marching
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and" playing] >> and i thought about it and the next morning, i called my agent and i said i thought i be. sure enough, that is what it was. >> how many hours did you 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 there. 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 entry that would have been written by a student that get a dole description -- that gave aid doled description, -- a dull
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description, and then i would ask if that 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 finds. >> 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 had been left in an attic for years, most of us assumed that since they were reel to reel that they would not be playable. they were all playable. it was just a matter of transferring them digitally. 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 comparatively few people listen
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to the tapes. >> we will get 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 mencken. it was my first full-length biography. i had been reading mencken since i was in junior high school. he left behind a very large cache of private papers that were sealed after his death. they had been released from that seal. 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 period that i was working on it, i would come down to baltimore every weekend and spend a three day weekend
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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 the mencken room. i was 20 feet away from his first typewriter. there was this little typewriter that had been used so much that the enamel had been rubbed off the spacebar. >> i found enough on google books to find out about your book. as the cultural editor of the "wall street journal," i will ask your opinion on that. the quote 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"
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>> 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 in a conventional sense of the word, he was as powerful as just about anything anybody else did. mencken was really the man that
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crystallized the opinion column. although his track record as 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 quote 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. -- know.
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-- no. >> 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. you can at least get a little bit of information. >> i have sharply mixed feelings about it. the copyright and compensation issues are very serious. i was a party to some of the preliminary litigation about the google books settlement. my literary agent is one of the ones that has been objecting most broadly. 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 libraries cooperate? >> they cooperated because it was to their advantage in terms of making material available. >> did they pay them? >> that, i do not know.
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i'm not part of that loop of the process. 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 found this on youtube. we do not know the man's name, but it is from cfpl television in canada. 1956 -- have you seen this?
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>> i do not remember. >> it speaks about race. >> i believe you once expressed 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 -- the truck that just blows. it doesn't care where it plays. if uncle sam goes over there tomorrow, we'll be right there. >> 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?
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>> she didn't bother anybody. she put her hands on her hips. >> how did the crowd react? >> the house came down. >> the house came down? >> they love the music that we play. it knocked them all out. >> which louis armstrong are you seeing there? >> that is the public armstrong. it is important to say that the public armstrong is real. he is not a mask that armstrong put on for the purpose of deceiving the public. he was a fundamentally loveable man. the armstrong that i learned of in the tapes, he was capable of speaking with much more
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sharpness about race relations, in particular. many other issues as well. this must have been filmed in the late fifties or early 60s. >> 1958. -- 1956. >> that makes sense. >> this was just before he had the blowout with eisenhower. he was talking to the state department about touring. that is what he is referring to. >> 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 described the governor of arkansas as an uneducated plowboy. that is not what he really said? >> i cannot say what he really said on this television show because it is an obscenity of the highest possible voltage.
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one commonly found in the vocabulary of jazzmen. he was not a political person. he did not even vote. he said that he did not know enough about it to vote. but 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 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
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sending him up to visit armstrong. he talked the room service waiter into letting him take up armstrong's dinner. he comes in the door, wearing a white jacket and carrying dishes. he immediately tells armstrong who he is and what he did. armstrong was delighted by this. they talked about music and the reporter asked him who his favorite artist was and armstrong said bing crosby. he'd been asked him about barack. -- he then asked him about little rock. armstrong blew up. 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 fly into rages at noon that he would forget about at
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1:00. this time he was furious with the president of the united states. he spoke with the up most frankness and very strong language about the president and the governor. this is the story of a lifetime for a reporter. the world's most famous munich -- the world's most famous musician choose out the president of the united states. but the story is unprintable. he sits down with armstrong and they figure out euphemisms to use in places and they came up with "uneducated 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 pen and signs it and takes a picture with the two of them
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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. on the television networks the next night. a few days later, president eisenhower sends the national 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 had a temper, but when it was
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over, it was over. he 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? did he invent -- it eventually make that trip? >> not to the soviet union, but in 1960, he makes his first official tour. he had been playing in europe in 1932 and 1933. he did not travel abroad during world war ii and, of course. he was seen as an unofficial ambassador. his producer gave him the wonderful title. "ambassador satch." he performed regularly in europe. he was beloved there.
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he became a quasi official american ambassador 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 talked specifically about this on many occasions. he says that his contribution was to go before mixed audiences with a mixed band and play music that he loved. in his own person, as a black
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man, 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 just started calling everybody he met pops. his friends and colleagues were charmed by this. they started calling him pops. it stuck, not just because of his own habit, but because it had metaphoric value. he is the father figure of jazz. when i was searching for a title for my book, i actually said on my blog and that i wanted people to suggest a title. an artist wrote in and asked about "pops." i mentioned this on the blog.
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people who knew armstrong well said that is the perfect title. >> this is a little bit of trumpet and you can see it on the monitor. explain what you see when you see louis armstrong. >> you see the artist, the serious man. when you see performance photographs, he is a clown and silly, but put the instrument to his lips and then you're 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 got the most pleasure
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that was going out of life at any given moment. the greatest pleasure of all was the pleasure of making art with that horn. >> born new orleans, died in queens. married three times. -- four times. >> the first was a prostitute, the second was a musician. the third and fourth were chorus girls, and the fourth took. 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. ♪ when you press me to your arms
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and in a world apart a world where roses bloom and when you speak, angels sing from above everyday world turns into a love give your heart and soul to me and i will always be l'vie an rose ♪ >> 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 mixed blessing.
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most of this is either out of 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 a 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 the drama critic. he dropped the bomb on me at lunch. i said, let's try it for a while. that was seven years ago.
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>> he is the editor of the editorial page which means that you worked at the editorial department. >> coulter response to -- coulter reports to editorial, that is the structure of the paper. -- culture crisp -- reports to editorial, that is the structure of the paper. 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 90% 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 broadway musical, i
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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 play. i just want to watch life. all play that tries to see life as it is. >> how about the selection of what you will write about? the you see your ideology coming in to play in that? would you pick something because of your instincts? >> 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 plays. had to prop -- agitprop, i don't
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think they are very good. 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. once i get there, i am bringing my perspective to it. that is all --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
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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. >> st. john's college, how long did you spend there? >> just a semester. i was too far away from home. 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.
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and then i go half way across the country to annapolis. 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. that is where a started playing jazz and writing criticism. 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. i learned a lot there. i studied statistics bear. 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 --
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mental equipment to 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 string classical student. -- classical music critic. they did not have anybody doing jazz, so far too young, 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 showed up and typed the first page of the review and a copy boy comes up behind me and
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grabs it out of the typewriter and takes it to the copy desk and i have to finish the review. just like that, i learned my lesson that night. >> how long at the "new york daily news?" >> several years. it was my second time i came to new york. -- my second big job after i came to do york. -- to new york. i edited the "harper's forum." i worked on the editorial page and began to specialize in foreign policy. this is what jazz musicians call a day job, but it was our wonderful one. 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.
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jazz and modern dance and art. >> what is on your block and who -- what is on your blog and who do you write it with? >> it is a block about arts in -- blog about large in new york city. this was a national, and north carolina. i always have a daily " which usually comes from my reading. every wednesday, i posted video about the arts. there are teasers for my draw column in "the wall street journal." the name of the blog is "about last night." very often, it is about last night. when i go home tonight, i will probably right about this interview. >> i want to mention a footnote. this is from the louis armstrong
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biography. " a restaurant owner in connecticut, we set out headed north with everyone in a good mood. the band bus did not have a portion of so somewhere in -- toilet, 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 louis' face. >> 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.
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>> this is a black man in a white world. what kind of like did he lead? >> he was insulated from this experience because he was very famous throughout the first part -- throughout the last part of his life. but during 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.
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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 -- hardened by this, his spirit was never baowed. he never lost his fundamental optimism although he was realistic. he always looked on the bright side. >> this is a song that reflects some of this. ♪ i see skies of blue and clouds of white bright blessed days dark sacred nights. and i think to myself, what a wonderful world
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the colors of the rainbow so pretty in the skies also on the faces of people going by i see friends shaking hands and saying how do you do they're really saying i love you. i see babies crying i watch them grow they'll learn much more than i'll ever know and i think to myself what a wonderful world yes, i think to myself
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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. it was not nearly as much as his manager may. 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
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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. you could say that he was defrauded. 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
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activities relating to music and medicine. the museum and archive has been made possible by this. essentially it is incalculable. 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. i think it was probably sterile. >> where did you get that? >> 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
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new orleans. it was a boy that was mentally ill. he had had an accident, had fallen on his head. 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. all little bit of elementary school. he spent 1.5 years in reform school. that is where he had his only formal musical training. he learned the rudiments of reading music. after he left, he never went back to school. he was a self educated and did an extraordinary job of it, because not well known about
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armstrong, 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. jazz over there is as strong as the masons. it is like a religion. >> house reception been when you play over there? >> a note is a note in any language. they really appreciate it. they come in like they're going to a football game. >> 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.
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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. and he was just as influential as a singer as he was as a trumpet player. the influence spread beyond the world of jazz when he started to make feature films in 1936 it spread throughout the whole world. what he said was absolutely true. whenever he appeared in europe, he was mobbed. in the united states, he could not go out on the street. 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
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sang. he touches everybody. >> what up people who accused him of being an uncle tom? >> i think it was understandable. dizzy gillespie was one of the first. we think of him as being more contemporary than he is. but he was born in 1901. the formative influences on him as an entertainer was bob dole and minstrel shows. -- volvelle -- vaudeville in minstrel shows. 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
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artist rather than entertainers. they become comfortable with armstrong. they talk about that in the -- to become uncomfortable with armstrong. they talk about that in their 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. of tomming. the discomfort that was evident at the time but is this bill --
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is now largely dispelled 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 anybody who had never heard of louis armstrong. you find someone occasionally he does not have the story straight. 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. at least he knew that we were talking about a trumpet player. sammy davis jr. criticized armstrong for not having spoken
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out more about racial matters and performing in front of segregated audiences as with -- as if 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 armstrong. everyone else was all struck that he had stood up to the president of the united states. 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
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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 -- discs 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. there is nothing recognizable. his birthplace and ishaqi was -- the shackk he was born in
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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 like. new orleans has the great statue of armstrong. his world is a world that he left in 1922. the sites are mostly gone. >> it is interesting to hear him talk about rock-and-roll and the impact. >> when i was a kid they would -- in the churches, they would shout, the sisters would shout
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and they had the banjos. ñiquite naturally thought it is beautiful music. it was the same as rock-and- roll. ñiit was about love and happine. ñiall kind of music that you wat to find, and the music is beautiful. >> what about the beatnik crowd? >> at my age, you know i love it. they're having a good time. i just watch it. >> as a culture critic, put that in context. rap music, whatever, how does that fit into our history?
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>> 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. black gospel music. he loved the bills which he -- the beatles which he knocked off the top of the charts with "hello dolly." he made a record with jimmie rodgers. he performed with johnny cash. 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? what is not so good for you? >> i cannot say i am particularly interested in rap. what we're supposed to call hip- hop.
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i don't find it has enough ingredients, musically speaking, the hold my attention. rock and its successor music continue to fascinate me. remember, i am 53 years old and i grew up listening and playing rock and country music. i played in a power trio, and i always tried to keep an open ear to what ever is going. >> what is next for you? what i am going to write a biography of duke ellington along the same lines as a armstrong but. -- the armstrong of book. i got the idea during the summer. the success of the armstrong book has surprised us. 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." i will be working on this in my spare time. ellington is just as captivating
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as armstrong. completely different ways. i cannot wait to roll up my sleeves and get going. >> how much has been written about this? where were you find something that has not been written about him? >> 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 art and 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.
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some say it is the best biography of the year. 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. -- generalist language. 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. >> was she a fan? >> yes. >> armstrong remains a communicative character.
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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. you cannot concentrate. there was always armstrong used to go in when i was doing the editing. i forget how many numbers my ipod has on it, it is in four figures. 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.
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-- they can be downloaded from itunes. 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. i really suggest that you consider approaching it for download. >> 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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i see skies of blue clouds of white bright blessed days dark sacred nights and i think to myself what a wonderful world the colors of a rainbow so pretty in the sky are also on the faces of people going by i see friends shaking hands saying, how do you do they're really saying i love you i hear babies cry i watch them grow they'll learn much more than i'll ever know

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