History of Jazz. Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke: Musical Styles and Philosophies

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Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke: Musical Styles and Philosophies 1. Introduction
In a jazz worldview, myth and lore often conspire to generate stories about jazz musicians and players. Originating in a South blues history and locale, and urbanized amid mass migration of black musicians and players to urban and metropolitan areas particularly to Chicago and New York, jazz has come to be a defining music genre in early 20th century and, revived, as a phoenix reemerging to confirm an enduring myth and an intergenerational lore. Perhaps, a few music genres – and, for that matter, musicians and players of such genre – continue to raise questions, and unearth new evidence, about origins, influences and developments such as in jazz. The mythical and folkloric aura of jazz becomes, moreover, further shrouded in mystery for musicians and players whose origins, development and, not least, performance styles date back to early heydays of jazz. The so-called founders or fathers of modern jazz are a case in point. Two musicians are, for current purposes, of central interest: Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. Recognized, critically and popularly, as “founding” figures of jazz, Armstrong and Beiderbecke might, however, share little, if at all, in musicianship. Against radically different social origins, racial affiliation, musical apprenticeship, and, not least, performance styles, Armstrong and Beiderbecke are, perhaps, at odds in several music and non-music-related ways. To put matters into perspective, a closer examination is required of how each artist, raised and
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developed differently, has come to be one as is now perceived and, perhaps, more importantly,
has been developed into one specific cast. In an attempt to understand Armstrong and
Beiderbecke, current essay aims to offer a critical overview of Louis Armstrong’s and Bix
Beiderbecke’s musical background and influences as well as political and social conditions each
developed under in order to understand each artist’s musical styles and philosophies and to,
ultimately, reflect on why Armstrong has risen to world popularity whilst Beiderbecke has lapsed
into relative obscurity.
2. Musical Backgrounds and Influences
Born and raised in jazz’s ultimate birthplace and development, or so myth and lore go, Armstrong had modest social origins – so common to most, if not all, African-Americans during his age. Born on August 4, 1901 to Mayann, an abandoned single mother, in “The Battlefield” neighborhood, New Orleans, Louisiana Armstrong dropped out of school early only to work for a Jewish family, Karnofskys (“Biography”). This early experience, cited by biographers and frequently recalled by Armstrong, was profound. Making money at an early age, well-treated by his employers, and, not least, having enough space away from his mother’s cramped quarters, enabled Armstrong to “stray” about listening to and learning from players in jazz’s iconic New Orleans. This sense of freedom could perhaps explain how, working in a fairly conventional ensemble-style for Joe “King” Oliver, largely on Mississippi riverboats (“Biography”), Armstrong developed a solo cornet, and later trumpet, performance now definitive of Armstrong and, for that matter, a long lineage of jazz cornetists and trumpetists who followed. By mid-forties, jazz became less of a big-band performance and more of quintets, sextets or septets. These changes, coupled by further expansion into film and vocal experimentation, elevated
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Armstrong into a new national status accentuated more by his international tours, a status perhaps best captured in his very well known “Ambassador Satch” designation (“Biography”). Up until his death on July 6, 1971, Armstrong continued to represent, in his performances and personality, an archetypal figure of jazz musicians by reviving and reinventing existing performance in and beyond jazz.
The influences on and musicianship of Armstrong are hardly reducible to a set of scores or, for that matter, early formative experiences alone. In his development, as a musician and a person, Armstrong showed peaks in his career not readily accessible if examined only from a linear progression perspective. Specifically, Armstrong’s early scores – including, most primarily until 1928, “West End Blues” and “Weather Bird” (“Music”) – are barely enough to explain Armstrong’s surprising reemergence in late 1940s, when jazz started to recede and to give way to an imminent rock and roll revolution, singing hits such as “Hello, Dolly!” “Mack the Knife,” and “What a Wonderful World” (“Music”). This is not to mention, of course, a development in musicianship, 1950s and on, where Armstrong, in contrast to early scores establishing him as one of jazz’s finest musicians and later in 1940s hits, developed a music sensibility in line to radically changing ears of new generations of musicians and listeners.
Beiderbecke had, in stark contrast to Armstrong, a completely different social background, music apprenticeship and influences. Born in 1903 to a prosperous Davenport, Iowa merchant, Beiderbecke had all home’s comfort and amenities Armstrong never knew as a child (“Bix Lives!”). Perhaps similar to Armstrong, Beiderbecke developed an early appreciation for and mastery of music, particularly playing piano, early on as child and, like Armstrong in his early childhood years, had little formal music mentorship. Picked early by bandleader Jim
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Cullum and hard pressed at home to pursue his education, Beiderbecke soon found his solace
and freedom in cornet, now a master player of. Coming of age in an era, i.e. Jazz Age, when not
only music scene was radically changed by emerging black artists in or coming from New
Orleans and playing on riverboats, Beiderbecke was increasingly under a jazz spell which further
drove him away from home – and his family – and into more lively – and dangerous – music
scene in Chicago. The Wolverine Orchestra, an eight-piece band he made his debut with in 1924
(“Bix Lives!”), was one early, major influence on Beiderbecke. Perhaps a formal arrangement of
musicianship, as opposed to free wheeling and solo improvised performances, The Wolverine
Orchestra offered Beiderbecke an essential debut not simply into his short-lived music career yet,
more importantly, into mastering his musicianship, particularly in reading notes...