Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi

Abstract

Reviewed by: Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi Vincent Pelote Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong. By Ricky Riccardi. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. [432 p. ISBN 9780190914110 (hardcover) $34.95; ISBN9780190914127 (e-book), $47.25.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong is author Ricky Riccardi's second book on the trumpet player and vocalist affectionately known to millions as "Satchmo." It follows his award-winning and critically acclaimed earlier book, What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years (New York: Pantheon Books, 2011). That earlier book covered the last twenty-five years (1946–71) of Armstrong's life and art, while his current work covers the years 1929–47. Riccardi, director of research collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum, relies on access to the hundreds of reel-to-reel tapes that Armstrong made during his lifetime. These tapes contain stories, reminiscences, jokes, and conversations with others and is a treasure trove of research source material for anyone writing a book on the great man. There are also scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings and other materials that Riccardi makes copious use of, along with material from other sources. In Riccardi's first book, he defended Armstrong from wrong-headed critics who consistently disparaged Armstrong's recordings and performances, mostly with his All-Stars. Once again, Riccardi takes on the critics in the jazz press as well as those in the Black and White mainstream press against criticism of Armstrong's recordings and performances from his big-band years. He was attacked by the jazz press for abandoning jazz and becoming "commercial" by leading a big band and performing pop tunes and other nonjazz material. The Black press criticized him for what they considered his racially offensive performance practices (e.g, jokes with Black stereotypes, references to "darkies" in certain songs, etc.), and the White press also took issue with Armstrong's performances, sometimes using racist language in doing so. All the while, he was generally very popular with audiences—both Black and White—who wanted to be entertained, and Armstrong knew how to do that quite well. It is Riccardi's assertion that Armstrong was more than just a jazz musician. He was a pop icon and entertainer who not only led a big dance band that showcased his playing and singing of popular songs but also was renowned as a radio and movie personality. In fact, Armstrong [End Page 231] can be credited with a number of firsts for Blacks in radio and movies. In 1937, as host of the Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, Armstrong became the first African American to host a commercial radio broadcast. The film Pennies from Heaven (1936) gave Armstrong the honor of being the first Black actor to get top billing, alongside Bing Crosby and the movie's other White stars. His popularity was such that he was the first African American jazz musician to publish his own autobiography (Swing That Music [New York: Longmans, Green, 1936]). The popular fairy tale that many jazz critics like to push is that after Armstrong's groundbreaking jazz recordings in the 1920s—starting with his early output with King Oliver, continuing with records made with Clarence Williams, and concluding with his own Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions—he had pretty much stopped creating meaningful contributions to jazz and went commercial. Nothing could be further from the truth. Riccardi chronicles Armstrong's career starting in March 1929, when he and Black musicians Happy Caldwell and Kaiser Marshall took part in the first integrated jazz recording session—with White musicians Jack Teagarden, Joe Sullivan, and Eddie Lang—that produced the jazz classic "Knockin' a Jug." The following recording session with Armstrong, accompanied by members of the Luis Russell Orchestra and White banjoist Eddie Condon, produced "I Can't Give You Anything but Love," which OKeh Records decided to issue in both the "race" records catalog (aimed at the Black buying market) as well as its popular series. Discographers should be aware that Riccardi, in his notes section (p. 344), clears up...