It got a theatrical release. I watched it thanks to Apple+. The new documentary on jazz genius, Louis Armstrong, hits several high notes. It's titled LOUIS ARMSTRONG'S BLACK & BLUES.
The documentary opens with a friend on a network TV talk show giving him an introduction before he enters as the show's next guest. The friend is famed filmmaker Orson Welles who introduces "the greatest influence on jazz of all time." Armstrong was -- and still is -- the greatest. A brilliant musician, a globally beloved showman and a disrespected American. Disrespected because he was Black. By the 1920s, his recordings had revolutionized the American art form of jazz. By the early 1930s, he was performing tour dates in Europe. Also, by the 1930s, he showed his natural acting ability in some Hollywood roles -- minor roles that rarely displayed his sophistication, intelligence and his stature as a master in jazz. One example is the 1938 musical/comedy from Warner Bros., GOING PLACES. In that, Armstrong introduced the song "Jeepers Creepers." It got an Oscar nomination for Best Song. In the movie, Mr. Amstrong is cast as a stable worker. He sings the song to a horse. In other 1930s movies, he was basically a special guest as the trumpeter in a musical number.
He got better roles in the 1950s and, especially, in the 1960s. In the 1960s, he topped the Beatles in the Billboard charts with his recording of the extremely popular Broadway showtune, "Hello, Dolly!" His vocal was such a huge hit that he was incorparted into the film version of HELLO, DOLLY! so he could sing it opposite Barbra Streisand. In that era, the Civil Rights decade, Armstrong became a controversial figure with younger Black American entertainers -- like trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis -- who saw his early Hollywood image as passive and designed to entertain White folks more than trying to break racial stereotypes. Those young Black performers would come to learn learn Armstrong's racial angers, how much of an outspoken radical he really was and how relevants his struggles were to theirs. He was not just the constantly smiling horn player with the gravelly voice.
We see clips of Louis Armstrong speaking frankly on American and British talk shows. We hear his wisdom and racial angers in previously unheard personal tape recordings. We learn accounts of the racial disrespect he challenged at peaks of his fame not only down South but in Southern California while he's on movie sets in Hollywood. We hear from his wife. We see him with famed journalist Edward R. Murrow. We hear a comment about Armstrong from novelist/essayist James Baldwin after Armstrong performs "The Star Spangled Banner." Ossie Davis reveals the evolution of his regard for Armstrong that starts with anger at the musician's 1930s Hollywood image. We see movie clips of Louis Armstrong in THE GLENN MILLER STORY, THE FIVE PENNIES, HIGH SOCIETY, GLORY ALLEY and HELLO, DOLLY!
This documentary from Sacha Jenkins gives us more grit on Louis Armstrong than we get in Ken Burns' excellent JAZZ in 2000 and in the 1989 AMERICAN MASTERS documentary presented on PBS.
If I was Jenkins, I would have included a film clip from Martin Ritt's progressive 1961 movie, PARIS BLUES. It was Armstrong's smartest, most sophisticated role -- one that respected his natural acting ability. He played "Wild Man" Moore, a figure who -- like Armstrong -- was an internationally beloved jazz great and a music scholar to whom a young jazz composer, played by Paul Newman, goes to for advice. The films also stars Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll and Joanne Woodward as fellow Americans in Paris. In its casting and the material given him, PARIS BLUES was the first film to treat Armstrong as an intelligent, dapper, famous master in an American musical art form. It's a movie you should see. Compare Armstrong's role in 1961's PARIS BLUES to his role in 1938's GOING PLACES.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG'S BLACK & BLUES is a totally fascinating and powerful documentary. It explains his jazz genius and it explains the remarkable man.
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