Review by Choice Review
How fortunate that a biographer of Bergreen's experience and literary stature has chosen a subject of such importance in US musical heritage. Armstrong's reputation as a technical innovator, entertainer, and musical ambassador is unsurpassed in jazz history. The author has fashioned a great deal of research into a lengthy portrait that is colorful and informative without being trite or tedious. The background information on the city of New Orleans is alone worth the price of admission. The educated but accessible writing style will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers at almost any level. Strongly recommended to the jazz researcher but also to the casual reader and undergraduate looking for a great story. Complete with a small collection of photos, a list of recordings, a select bibliography, and endnotes. R. L. Greenhaw; Valdosta State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Biography.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bergreen, who has published studies of James Agee, Irving Berlin and Al Capone, comments here, "This is the first biography I have written in which my opinion of my subject kept improving as I worked." This strong admiration for the great jazz pioneer (1900-1971) is apparent throughout his meticulously researched, vibrant biography; and though there is no shortage of books on Armstrong, this biography has the potential to become the definitive word on his life and remarkable career. Bergreen, working with Armstrong's ownthough not always reliablememories in his taped reminiscences, letters and diaries as well as secondary sources, presents a vivid picture of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, where the musician was born in direst poverty. We see young Louis struggling to keep himself afloat among gangsters and prostitutes, teaching himself the cornet as a way of calling attention to the coal cart he drove for a Jewish family who adopted him, turning himself, by innate musical genius and enormous force of will, into the trumpet virtuoso he became when barely out of his teens. In the 1920s, his small groups set a standard for imaginative, free-wheeling jazz with a power, humor and intensity that has seldom been matched. Though in later years Armstrong relaxed into schticks, especially in his gravelly-voiced singing and clowning, his instrumental mastery remained awesome. Incorrigibly optimistic and good-hearted, he spent as freely as he earned (though unfortunately filling the pockets of a boorish manager far more than his own); and throughout the darkest days of American racism he served as a beacon of possibility for all races. It's an epic American story, told with great warmth, skill and understanding. Photos not seen by PW. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This look at the life of one of this century's great personalities eschews meticulousness in its musical analysis in favor of a complete look at the man himself. Biographer Bergreen (As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, 1990, etc.) follows New Orleans's greatest from cradle to grave, as he travels to St. Louis, Chicago, New York, and Hollywood promoting jazz--the music he helped create. Along the way, we get colorful depictions of Armstrong's introduction to horn playing (he was the bugler at a reform school), the hard-drinking mother who taught him to hold his liquor, and the ``cutting contests''- -horn-playing competitions--in which he competed his entire life. Armstrong's career spanned many decades, and for much of that time he was a tireless performer and a frequent collaborator with other jazz greats, among them Charles Mingus, Earl ``Fatha'' Hines, and late in life, Ella Fitzgerald. As New Orleans jazz gave way first to swing and then to bebop, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis, among other musicians, dismissed Armstrong as old hat. Armstrong outlasted their dismissal, and many later came to value his distinctive, resilient, subtle style. Armstrong knew some shady figures, including his manager Joe Glaser, who fleeced the trumpeter for millions, and gangster Dutch Schultz, whose feud with Al Capone over ``rights'' to Louis forced the musician into exile for fear of his life. The most vivid element here is Armstrong's own words. Despite only a fifth-grade education, Louis was a prolific and talented writer with a flair for metaphor (``In less than two hours I would be broker than the Ten Commandments'') and an almost alarmingly confessional style regarding his sex life and heavy but apparently never abusive use of marijuana. The presence of Armstrong's unique voice turns what might have otherwise been a routine biography into a grand success. (16 pages photos, not seen) (Author tour)
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Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
