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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for November 30, 2009

TT: Here we go

November 30, 2009 by Terry Teachout

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong will be officially “published” on Wednesday. That’s a formality, of course: it’s been available from online booksellers for a month and started showing up in bookstores three weeks ago. Over the long holiday weekend, Pops appeared on Michiko Kakutani’s top-10 list in the New York Times and was prominently featured in the the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Kansas City Star, the Los Angeles Times, and my own paper, The Wall Street Journal. For the past week, it’s been Amazon’s top-selling jazz book.
All this good news notwithstanding, December 2 is still a big day for me, not least because that’s when my coast-to-coast book tour gets going. I leave for Boston in the afternoon after making two radio appearances, and on Thursday night I’ll be speaking at the Boston Athenaeum. After that I’ll be in and out of New York City through December 18, when I wrap up my tour in New Orleans and head home to Smalltown, U.S.A., for the holidays.
LA%20IN%20DRESSING%20ROOM.jpgIn case you didn’t see it in this space the other day, here’s a complete and updated list of the personal appearances I’ll be making in December. Come out and see me!
* * *
• BOSTON, DECEMBER 3: Boston Athenaeum, 10½ Beacon St., 6 p.m.
• NEW YORK, DECEMBER 7: Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle, 1972 Broadway, 7:30 p.m.
• LOS ANGELES, DECEMBER 8: Los Angeles Public Library, 630 W. Fifth St., 7 p.m.
• BALTIMORE, DECEMBER 9: Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St., 6:30 p.m.
• PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 10: Philadelphia Free Library, 1901 Vine St., 7:30 p.m.
• CHICAGO, DECEMBER 15: Highland Park Library, 494 Laurel St., 7 p.m. (note the time change)
• ST. LOUIS, DECEMBER 16: Maryville University (with Left Bank Books), Buder Commons, 650 Maryville University Drive, 7 p.m. (note the address change)
• NEW ORLEANS, DECEMBER 17: Garden District Bookshop, 2727 Prytania St., 5:30 p.m.

TT: From the horse’s mouth

November 30, 2009 by Terry Teachout

Terry%20Teachout.jpgMarc Myers, whose JazzWax has become one of the most widely read and influential jazz sites on the Web, interviewed me about Pops earlier this month. This week he’s posting a five-installment series devoted to that interview.
Here’s part of today’s installment:

JW What did Armstrong understand about simplicity that was lost on so many other musicians?
TT Simplicity is absolutely central to Louis’ development as an artist. Louis started out as a young virtuoso who was in love with the sound of his own horn. When you can play anything you hear, you want to hear yourself play. Louis apprenticed with King Oliver, who ingrained in him the centrality of melody to the jazz musician. Armstrong’s exposure to Oliver and his view of melody made him feel that it was not only appropriate to embrace simplicity but also vital to appeal to audiences in an immediate way.
JW But Oliver was certainly less technically gifted than Armstrong.
TT That’s true. Yet it’s Oliver who made Armstrong believe it was far better to be simple than complicated. Armstrong internalized these lessons at age 21, and he lived by them throughout his career….

To read the whole thing, go here.

TT: A week of Satchmo snapshots (1)

November 30, 2009 by Terry Teachout

To celebrate the publication this week of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, I’ll be posting Armstrong videos every day.
In today’s video, an excerpt from a 1958 Timex All Star Show telecast, Armstrong, Ruby Braff, and Jack Teagarden perform “Jeepers Creepers,” originally recorded by Armstrong in 1939:

TT: Almanac

November 30, 2009 by Terry Teachout

“Ain’t nobody played nothing like it since, and can’t nobody play nothing like it now. My oldest record, can’t nobody touch it. And if they say, ‘Which record do you like the best?’ I like them all, because I didn’t hit no bad notes on any of them.”
Louis Armstrong (quoted in Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong)

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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