Word: satchmo
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Stick with Satchmo." As Davis recounts it in Yes I Can, he acquired his hard-driving habits almost from the cradle. His vaudevillian father took him into his act when he was three, saw him a headliner before his ninth birthday. The hours young Sammy kept were not those recommended by Dr. Spock, but in a way he was luckier than many of his Negro contemporaries. He never dropped out of school because he never dropped in, avoided the ghetto life by staying on the road. He was eight years old before he heard the word "nigger," did not really...
...service with a spirit that was unbroken, determined to scrub out his color as a bar to reaching the top in show business. He began breaking down the taboos that have long circumscribed Negroes, including the rule that colored entertainers must never imitate white celebrities. "You just stick with Satchmo and Step'n Fetchit," begged his manager. But Davis listened only to Davis, joined forces with his father and "Uncle" to form the Will Mastin Trio, soon had his audiences pounding the tables and begging for more as he imitated Sir Laurence Olivier, tough-talked his way through impersonations...
...mighty blast anyway. Cheering throngs of East Berliners, from the youthful hip to the Party drip, shelled out a capitalistic 15 to 25 marks ($3.75 to $6.25) apiece just to soak up all that jazz. Playing to packed houses on his four-week trip behind the Iron Curtain, Satchmo neatly muted the inevitable questions on race and politics ("Some of my best friends are Southern whites," he grinned) and gave the Volk encores and encores of Blueberry Hill and Hello, Dolly! Said he: "I'm an entertainer, and I'll play for anybody who wants to hear...
HELLO LOUIS! (Epic). Cornetist Bobby Hackett, freed from the treacly bondage of those Jackie Gleason albums of a few years back, pays tribute to Satchmo the composer. Louis Armstrong's compositions have always been overshadowed by his virtuoso performances of other people's work, though he has written several hundred pieces, among the better known being Gate Mouth Blues, Brother Bill and Hear Me Talkin' to Ya. Hackett proves to have a real feeling for the Armstrong style, and his cornet solos, backed by authentic-sounding tuba, saxophone, banjo, trombone, piano and drums, are incisive and bouncy...
Jerry Herman originally wrote it just as a production number to get Carol Channing onstage in the second act of his Broadway musical. Then Louis Armstrong's recording hit the counters. Typically, Satchmo gave it a rasping rhythm and lowdown authority-qualities it never had in the original-and his single recording knocked the Beatles right off the top of the bestselling lists. Both Republicans and Democrats wanted to cash in on the song's popularity, but Dolly Producer David Merrick, a loyal Democrat, gave the tune exclusively to Johnson for Hello, Lyndon! and threatened to sue Barry...