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CREEP brought them together!!!
The Haley/Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) Creep Connection . . . A “SIGN???”
So last week Haley got bumped from #1 down to #2 on the iTunes Jazz Chart. As I write this she is back at #1. The fact that she was bumped by a guy who has been dead for 44 yrs., and who was 66 yrs old at the time he recorded this number might be a bit of a bummer until one knows “the rest of the story.”
As it is, it should be easy for Haley to actually be “honored” by this bump. I’m going to share some amazing (to me!) points of connection between the lovely Miss Haley and Mr. Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong. Everything here is sourced from Wikipedia. I know nothing on my own!
New Orleans
This city seems to have become Haley’s 2nd home away from home. When traveling to and fro she travels out of the Louis Armstrong NO Intl. Airport. Being his birthplace, and honoring his contribution to the city’s jazz history and presence, she sees props given to him everywhere.
House of the Rising Sun
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I'm one
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
There is a question as to whether there was an actual ‘house?’ But if there was, it would likely have been in Armstrong’s neighborhood, perhaps involving his own family.
Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood, known as “the Battlefield”, which was part of the Storyville, the famed red-light district where legal prostitution ruled the day . . . and night. His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1927), then left Louis and his younger sister, Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987), in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades.
He attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to to the infamous Storyville, , and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
Tony Bennett
The song Satchmo recorded to push Haley down a notch was What a Wonderful World. The song had first been offered to Tony Bennett and he turned it down, It was instead given to Armstrong, Bennett’s good friend.
Beatles
She is not the first #1 artist to get the Armstrong boot from #1. In 1964, when he was 62, he recorded Hello Dolly. At the time, the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 had been dominated by an upstart British group from Liverpool who had three songs taking turns atop the charts holding the #1 spot for 14 weeks straight. Songs were: I want to Hold Your Hand, She Loves Me, and Can’t Buy Me Love. Then along comes a 62 yr old trumpeter from New Orleans who knocks out the Beatles from #1 and gladly takes their place.
So, Haley, now that you are a bona fide member of the Abbey Road gang you’re in pretty fun company who know how the Armstrong bump feels!
Chicago
In the early 1920s, Armstrong moved to Chicago, America’s ‘other’ jazz epicenter, where he would split time between there and NYC for several years.
Scatting
Though Louis Armstrong's 1926 recording of Heebie Jeebies is often cited as the first song to employ scatting, there are many earlier examples. But it was from the 1926 recording of "Heebie Jeebies" arose the techniques that would form the foundation of modern scat.
Hand Trumpet
Though this is not a direct connection to Armstrong, it’s people closely related to him and his world. On October 26, 1927, Duke Ellington's Orchestra recorded "Creole Love Call" featuring Adelaide Hall singing wordlessly.[17] "She sounds like a particularly sensitive growl trumpeter," according to Nat Hentoff. The creativity must be shared between Ellington and Hall as he knew the style of performance he wanted, but she was the one who was able to produce the sound. In 1932, Ellington repeated the experiment in one of his versions of "The Mooche", with Baby Cox singing scat after a muted similar trombone solo by Tricky Sam Nanton.
I think it would be difficult to find another young artist with the number of points of connection as these two. I hope if Haley ever hears about this commonality, she is encouraged by the connection between one who is so prominent at the very roots of jazz, and herself as an old jazz soul in a bright young precocious package!
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