Armstrong was a charismatic, innovative performer whose inspired, improvised soloing was the main influence for a fundamental change in jazz, shifting its focus from collective melodic playing, often arranged in one way or another, to the solo player and improvised soloing. One of the most famous jazz musicians of the 20th century, he was first known as a cornet player, then as a trumpet player, and toward the end of his career he was best known as a vocalist and became one of the most influential jazz singers.
Early life
Armstrong often stated in public interviews that he was born on July 4, 1900 (Independence Day in the USA), a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it wasn't until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4th, 1901 was discovered through the examination of baptismal records.[5] He was recorded as an illegitimate black child.
Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty in a rough neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, known as “Back of Town”, as his father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant, and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary Albert Armstrong (1886–1942), then left Louis and his younger sister Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987) in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys where he likely had his first exposure to Creole music. He brought in a little money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants but it wasn’t enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls particularly the “Funky Butt” which was the closest to his home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. He hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala’s where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.
Armstrong grew up at the bottom of the social ladder, in a highly segregated city, but one which lived in a constant fervor of music, which was generally called “ragtime”, and not yet “jazz”. Despite the hard early days, Armstrong seldom looked back at his youth as the worst of times but instead drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans...It has given me something to live for.”
After dropping out of the Fisk School at eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys in similar straits as he, and they sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans,[7] although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. His first cornet was bought with money loaned to him by the Karnofskys, a Russian-Jewish immigrant family who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. To express gratitude towards the Karnofskys, who took him in as almost a family member, and fed and nurtured him, Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life.
Armstrong seriously developed his cornet playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones)[9] instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen year old began to draw attention to his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career.[10]At fourteen he was released from the Home, and living again with his father and new stepmother, and then back to his mother and also back to the streets and its temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.
He also played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and first started traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.
In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and he resigned his position in Kid Ory's band, then regarded as the best hot jazz group in New Orleans. Armstrong replaced his mentor and played second cornet. Soon he was promoted to first cornet and he also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
But I hate to lose you
You've got me in between
The devil and the deep blue sea
I forgive you
'Cause I can't forget you
You've got me in between
I ought to cross you off my list
But when you come knockin' at my door
Fate seems to give my heart a twist
And I come running back for more
I should hate you
But, mama, I guess instead I love you
You've got me in between
The devil and the deep blue sea
The lyrics of "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" seem to tell a story of a complicated relationship. The singer is torn between his desire to let go of his lover and his fear of being alone - "I don't want you/ But I hate to lose you/ You've got me in between/ The devil and the deep blue sea". He acknowledges that he should hate his lover for the pain they've caused him but instead finds himself unable to let go ("I should hate you/ But, mama, I guess instead I love you"). He wants to cross this person off his list, but when they come back to him it's as if fate is intervening, causing him to come running back for more.
Overall, the song paints a picture of a person who feels trapped in a dysfunctional relationship, unable to break away from someone who brings them pain. It's a complex set of emotions that Armstrong and his orchestra manage to convey with both the lyrics and their soulful musical arrangements.
Line by Line Meaning
I don't want you
I do not desire to be with you
But I hate to lose you
However, I fear the loss of what we had
You've got me in between
I am torn between two difficult choices
The devil and the deep blue sea
To be doomed no matter which path I choose
I forgive you
I pardon your past wrong-doings
'Cause I can't forget you
Because I am unable to erase you from my memory
I ought to cross you off my list
I should remove you from my life completely
But when you come knockin' at my door
Yet, when you seek my company again
Fate seems to give my heart a twist
I feel conflicted and uncertain when we are together
And I come running back for more
Still, I find myself returning to you despite the turmoil
I should hate you
There is reason for me to loathe you
But, mama, I guess instead I love you
Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I find myself still loving you
You've got me in between
I am trapped within this dilemma
The devil and the deep blue sea
No clear way out of this quandary
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC , S.A. MUSIC , Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: HAROLD ARLEN, TED KOEHLER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@Trombonology
Louis was always sublime, but I have a special fondness for both his material and manner of presentation in this period. His vocal, complete with lyrical alteration ("I should hate you but, Mama, I guess instead I love you") and aside ("Oh, you little devil"), is beautifully phrased. Though never closely associated with the use of mutes as certain other trumpeters are, at this time he was still fairly frequently employing a straight mute, as here, in which takes all but the last four bars of a full 32-bar chorus muted before going open for the the last four bars of that chorus and an additional eight bars. In his open passage, you can hear figures that one of his keenest admirers, the great Bunny Berigan, would adopt.
@BensPhonographs07
Wonderfully put, I agree.
@Trombonology
@@BensPhonographs07 Thank you!
@yaelpalombo4604
❤️❤️❤️🙏🌹🙏
@thomassmith5400
1:40