Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly-recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man.
Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn't travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver's band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong's role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise.
Other hits followed through the twenties and thirties, as well as troubles: crooked managers, lip injuries, mob entanglements, failed big-band ventures. As jazz styles changed, though, musical purists never lost any respect for him -- although they were sometimes irritated by his hammy onstage persona. Around the late forties, with the help of a good manager, Armstrong's business affairs finally stablilized, and he began to be seen as an elder statesman of American popular entertainment, appearing in Hollywood films, touring Asia and Europe, and dislodging The Beatles from the number-one position with Hello Dolly". Today many people may know him as a singer (a good one), but as Miles Davis said: “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him."
The 62-year-old Armstrong became the oldest act to top the US charts when "Hello Dolly" reached #1 in 1964. Four years later Satchmo also became the oldest artist to record a UK #1, when "What a Wonderful World" hit the top spot.
Swing Low Swing Chariot
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Coming for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home
A band of angels coming after me
If you get there before I do
Coming for to carry me home
Tell all my friends I'm coming too
Coming for to carry me home
I'm sometimes up and sometimes down
Coming for to carry me home
But still my soul feels heavenly bound
Coming for to carry me home
The brightest day that I can say
Coming for to carry me home
When Jesus washed my sins away
Coming for to carry me home
The song “Swing Low Swing Chariot” is a traditional African American spiritual song that has been recorded by many artists, including Louis Armstrong in 1958. The song is about the hope and faith of the singer that they will be carried home to heaven by a heavenly chariot. The song uses metaphorical language to convey this message, comparing the chariot to the passage to after life, and the angels to messengers of God.
The song's first verse, Swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home, immediately sets the tone for the rest of the song, focusing on the promises of the afterlife and heaven. The singer is tired and seeking refuge and hope in the promise of salvation. The second verse, I looked over Jordan and what did I see? / Coming for to carry me home / A band of angels coming after me / Coming for to carry me home, refers to the biblical story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land. The singer sees a band of angels, symbolizing God's divine messengers, coming to carry them home.
The third verse, if you get there before I do / Coming for to carry me home / Tell all my friends I'm coming too / Coming for to carry me home, highlights the communal aspect of the song. The singer is reaching out to their community, asking them to be aware that they too will be in heaven. In the fourth verse, I'm sometimes up and sometimes down / Coming for to carry me home / But still my soul feels heavenly bound / Coming for to carry me home, speaks to the struggles of everyday life that the singer faces, but despite it all, they are still spiritually bound for heaven. Finally, the fifth verse, the brightest day that I can say / Coming for to carry me home / When Jesus washed my sins away / Coming for to carry me home, is an expression of the moment that the singer was baptized, finding salvation and the ultimate source of hope.
Line by Line Meaning
Swing low, sweet chariot
Oh, sweet chariot, please come down swinging low and take me home
Coming for to carry me home
I know you're coming for me, ready to take me to my eternal home
I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
As I gaze across the river Jordan, what do my eyes behold?
A band of angels coming after me
It's a group of angels who are coming to accompany me on my journey Home
If you get there before I do
If you arrive before I do
Tell all my friends I'm coming too
Please let my friends know that I'm on my way
I'm sometimes up and sometimes down
My life has its highs and lows
But still my soul feels heavenly bound
But still, I'm confident that I'm going to Heaven
The brightest day that I can say
I can remember the happiest day of my life
When Jesus washed my sins away
It was when Jesus absolved me of my wrongdoing that this happened
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: DP, JEROME J. GARCIA
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Anonymous
on What A Wonderful World
What A Wonderful World - Casey Abrams - Lyrics
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Singing how do you do
They're really singing
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Musical Interlude
The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Singing how do you do
They're really singing
I love you
I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They goin’ learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I think to myself
What a wonderful world