Kink of the Road

When in 1996, as he exited his beloved Kinks after more than thirty year to enter a new career as a solo artist, the risks were great.  When his U.S. tour came to Chicago, my brother-in-law and I attended his performance at the Apollo Theatre on the North Side in 1998.

The Apollo was nothing like its namesake in Harlem.  There was seating for an audience of about 200 people, with folding chairs set up in the front row.  From beginning to end, Ray and his extra guitar player managed to put on a show that was one of the best I've ever seen, including Kinks shows promoting their latest album, from Everybody's in Showbiz in 1972 to Phobia in 1993.

Ray's show, 20th Century Man, coincided with the publication of his first memoir, X-ray, so it came as no surprise to hear tales from his childhood, a narrative punctuated by songs both old and new.

Before going on about 20th Century Man, it's useful to jump ahead a couple of years to Ray's first album, apart from soundtrack music for the film Escape to Waterloo decades earlier:

• The Storyteller (EMI/ Konk, 1998) 

• Other People's Lives (V2, 2006)

This is finely crafted verse set to music that isn't memorable and really doesn't rock.

• Working Man's Cafe (V2, 2007)

Same as the previous year's stuff.  I want to like it, but aside from the title tune, I couldn't name any of the others.  Nothing seems to stand out.

• The Kinks Choral Collection (Universal/ Decca, 2009)

Here Ray returns to the tried and true and scores through the beautiful choir behind his lead vocal.

NPR download, 2009 New York City

• See My Friends (Decca, 2010)

Going back to his Kinks material seems to be a habit, this time with various artists in duets.  I wonder if Ray's guests were in the same room with him when they laid down their vocals.  It's time for something truly new.

•  Americana (Legacy, 2017) and Our Country:  Americana, Act II (2018)

This is the album I'd been waiting for.  Ray's backing band, the Jayhawks, rocks with a slant all its own.  In fact, it is the musical equivalent of Ray's second memoir, which bears the same title.  This album, in fact, picks up where Storyteller left off, the Kinks' arrival in America in 1964.  The next chapter in Ray's story involves the USA exclusively and examines his experience here with an outpouring of music that is Ray's best since the Kinks called it quits in 1996.

It really does require a second act to complete the story of Ray's travails in America. 

IN ROTATION:

The Red Norvo Trio with Tal Farlow and Charles Mingus: The Savoy 6 Sessions (Savoy, 1950, '51)

lightly & politely....

• Phineas Newborn, Solo Piano (Atlantic/ 32 Jazz, 1975)

• Brian Wilson,  In the Key of Disney (Disney, 2011)

• Lee Wiley, Nights in Manhattan/ Sings Vincent Youmans/ Sings Irving Berlin (Columbia, 1950-'51)

• Various Artists, Time and Love: The Music of Laura Nyro (Astor Place, 1997)

• Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Dance With the Ancestors (Chameleon, 1993)

Kahil El'Zabar, perc; Edward Wilkerson, ts, alto clarinet, percussion; Joseph Bowie, tbn perc.  All members contribute vocals.

• Red Rodney, Quintets, 1950-1955:  Borrowed Times (Fresh Sound reissues, 2009)

NEXT:  The 1960s revolution

Satchmo!

• Gary Giddens, Satchmo, Anchor Books, 1988

Garry Giddens's critical biography of Louis Armstrong,  is slim at 238 pages, but it remains my favorite Armstrong reference ever since it appeared thirty-five years ago.   The book is scholarly, authoritative and still up-to-date after more than thirty years.  Drawn from primary sources, including Armstrong's baptismal certificate, news articles, and Armstrong's own writings, Giddins disputes many  common assumptions (such as Armstrong's  having the middle name Daniel, though even Wikipedia still says otherwise).  Most importantly, Giddins approaches his subject by challenging the prevailing notion that Armstrong's greatest works were all recorded before 1930, and that he "sold out" for the rest of his long career. 

The author's approach is to divide the book into two parts:  "The Artist As Entertainer" "The Entertainer As Artist."  Within each sections he provides necessary details to make his case.  At the start Giddins investigates documents concerning Armstrong's true date of birth.  He follows his subject's early years in New Orleans:  how a Jewish family from which he had a job took him under its wing; Armstrong's brief residency in the New Orleans Colored Waifs' Home, for which he received his first cornet; his early musical training and jobs and his first, short-lived marriage.

We learn of his apprenticeship on the Mississippi riverboat band led by Fate Marable, then on to Chicago in 1923 to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (Armstrong had played previously in Oliver's band in New Orleans.).  Oliver's band with Armstrong made their first recordings for the Okeh and Gennett labels the same year.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band

Fletcher Henderson, seated at piano.

In 1924 Louis Armstrong joined the famous orchestra of Fletcher Henderson, playing alongside Coleman Hawkins and recording often, thereby broadening his  influence and building his reputation as a popular artist.  He returned to Chicago to play in Erskine Tate's band at the Vendome theater on State Street, along the "Stroll," as it was then known, on the South Side.  Armstrong made a pair of recordings as a sideman for Tate, as well as for Carroll Dickerson at the Sunset Cafe. From the 1920s through the 1940s, he became an icon nationally and internationally, regarded as a great American creator, along with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney.

Almost all dismissive criticism of Armstrong, beginning in the late '40s, is directed at the small-groups with Louis and his All-Stars and the end.  The critics carped at Armstrong's sidemen, asserting their inferiority beside the Hot Five recordings.  The enormous, chart-topping success of "Hello Dolly" seemed to anger them. 

Such a viewpoint stems from the assumption that Armstrong, after his pioneering records of the 1920s, began his decline only a decade after he left New Orleans.  The unspoken assumption that Armstrong "sold out" in some way to become an international success with millions of admirers.

Gary Giddens begins his book with a discussion of the assumed dichotomy between art and entertainment.  Satchmo continues by arguing persuasively in favor of Armstrong's professional career, from beginning to end.

 

"Struttin' With Some Barbecue"

  

    Not least of this book's features are the full bibliography and useful album discography appended directly after the text.

My closing thought on Satchmo and Armstrong himself is to repeat Duke Ellington's comment about him after his death in 1971:

"I loved and respected Lous Armstrong.  He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone on the way."

        

IN ROTATION:

• Elis Regina, O fino do Bossa (Velas 3-CD set, 1965-1967)

posthumous release, begins in her first year in Rio, television show broadcast nationally, soon to be the highest paid singer in Brazil; Jaire Rodrigues, Baden Powell, Zimbo Trio, etc. guests

• Jazz Artists Guild, Newport Rebel s (Epic/ Legacy, 1973-2005)

outstanding compilation; Jeff Lynne; ends with Chuck Berry, oldies tribute "Rock & Roll Is King"

• Erroll Garner The Greatest Garner  (Atlantic, 1949 and 1950)

• Charlie Haden, The Montreal Tapes: with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell(Verve, 1979)

This has been a longtime favorite of mine and part of a weeklong series of duets with Haden at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

• The Velvet Underground &Nico (Verve, 1967)

• Thelonious Monk, Solo Monk (Columbia, 1964)

NEXT: Ray Davies