Tim Price Bloggin' For D'Addario Woodwinds- POPS - The Life Of Louis Armstrong ; book review

The impression that reading this book leaves is in complete agreement with Ellington's words on Armstrong: "He went from poverty to richness without hurting anyone on the way", which to me means a faithful description of the man and his work.
More than a biography, it is a well written & documented story of a beloved American and the music he nurtured for a lifetime.
Bottom line, if you want to learn about the man and ' the music ', this is the definitive source.
He was a man who applied his skills wisely to making a career in life, in the midst of terrible odds. He played his cards wisely (his God-given talent), minded his own business, and became an American icon. He is the 20th century epitome of hard work plus genius makes it. A true disciple of Frederick Douglass. He was also a man who couldn't hate or hold a grudge, and was despised for that by those pharisees in the business.History records soldiers, academics and others as American heroes. Rarely, if ever, are great artists so dubbed, although they are able to shape our thinking, change our perceptions and, subsequently, make changes in the world we live in.
As soon as popular critics and serious scholars started writing about that uniquely American pop music, jazz, they wrote about Armstrong. They couldn't avoid it because Armstrong, more than any other individual, set the standards and many of the conventions for jazz, in his playing and his singing. (Where would Bing Crosby have been without Louis to imitate?) He wasn't the first great jazz soloist: Sidney Bechet holds that honor by a few years. And Armstrong's seminal group, the Hot Five (later Hot Seven), played outside the recording studio just one time. It was never a working group, never a combo formed to play in the clubs and dance halls where jazz was being forged in the twenties and thirties.

Trying to imagine jazz without Armstrong is like trying to imagine modern art without Picasso or the essay form without Montaigne. His contemporaries knew it and admitted it. Even those who were on the outs with him -Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins--knew that Louis was The Man. Red Allen, the trumpeter with (to my mind) the most beautiful sound in jazz, wanted nothing more than to sound like Louis. Jack Teagarden tried to play him on the trombone (and succeeded).
POPS, Terry Teachout's biography of Louis Armstrong does that. With the skill of a fine writer, the accuracy of a fine journalist and the sensitivity of a musician (all of which he is) he approaches Louis Armstrong's innovative musical talent within the context of America's history; of the time that the book covers and America's past. Those things that made the man and his genius and personality almost inevitable.The admiration felt by the author does not mire the story: it is easy to read and fast paced, to the point, and no digressions are present.

To me- this book is one of the gateways into more than just Pops ....it's life and music as it should be.  

I loved it madly. . . . Tim Price