Good morning,
Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a slight chance of showers with a high temperature of eighty-seven degrees.
In the City of Whitewater, there will be a Landmarks Commission meeting today, at 5 p.m. The agenda is available online.
On this day in 1901, Louis Armstrong was born. Upon his death, roughly seventy years later, a New York Times obituary describe Armstrong’s many accomplishments and unequalled role in making jazz a great art form:
Miles Davis, a contemporary jazz star, has asserted that “you can’t play anything on a horn that Louis hasn’t played.” Teddy Wilson, who played piano with Mr. Armstrong in 1933, has called him “the greatest jazz musician that’s ever been.”
And Leonard Feather, the eminent jazz critic and author of “The Encyclopedia of Jazz,” wrote of Mr. Armstrong:
“It is difficult. . .to see in correct perspective Armstrong’s contribution as the first vital jazz soloist to attain worldwide influence as trumpeter, singer, entertainer, dynamic show business personality and strong force in stimulating interest in jazz.
“His style, melodically and harmonically simple by the standards of later jazz trends, achieved in his early records an unprecedented warmth and beauty. His singing, lacking most of the traditional vocal qualities accepted outside the jazz world, had a rhythmic intensity and guttural charm that induced literally thousands of other vocalists to imitate him, just at countless trumpeters through the years reflected the impact of his style.
And this of his style, so very plain and American and wonderful, when he played for English royalty:
While he was in London, Mr. Armstrong demonstrated memorably that he had little use for the niceties of diplomatic protocol.
During a command performance for King George V, Mr. Armstrong ignored the rule that performers are not supposed to refer to members of the Royal Family while playing before them and announced on the brink of a hot trumpet break, “This one’s for you, Rex.”
(Many years later in 1956, Satchmo played before King George’s granddaughter, Princess Margaret. “We’re really gonna lay this one on for the Princess,” he grinned, and launched into “Mahogany Hall Stomp,” a sort of jazz elegy to a New Orleans bordello. The Princess loved it.)