Here's a question for you. Who do you think was the first Black pop star? The answer is Louis Armstrong, according to one of the leading experts on Armstrong's life and music, my guest Ricky Riccardi.
He's just published his third book about Armstrong. This one is about Armstrong's early years - his rough childhood, his first recordings with other bands and his famous first recordings with his own group, the Hot Five and Hot Seven. As Riccardi points out, those two early groups that Armstrong led, recorded between and '28 over the course of 25 months - those recordings have been studied by up-and-coming musicians around the world because they provide the foundational language necessary to master the art of improvisation.
For instrumental soloists and vocalists, Riccardi says Armstrong's innovations as both a trumpeter and vocalist set the entire soundtrack of the 20th century in motion. Riccardi has been the director of research collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum since It's the world's largest archive focusing on one musician. It gave Riccardi access to previously inaccessible documents, including hours of Armstrong recordings of his thoughts and his music, the unedited and unsweetened version of his autobiography, and several chapters of an unpublished autobiography by his second wife, Lil Hardin, who was also the pianist in the Hot Five.
She wrote or co-wrote several songs Armstrong recorded and was instrumental in landing his first recording date. Through writing about Armstrong, Riccardi's new book has a lot to say about segregation in New Orleans in the first part of the 20th century. The new book is called "Stomp Off, Let's Go," which is the title of a song he recorded with another band led by Erskine Tate. What a joy it was to do the research for this - you know, being forced to listen again to Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings.
I love Armstrong's recordings, particularly like the ones through the s. But you've written about all of them - like, his whole life of recordings. So let's start with one of his great recordings, and this is "West End Blues. Tell us why. Actually, it's probably everything you need to know about him in the first 13 seconds 'cause that unaccompanied opening trumpet cadenza - people are still learning it. I mean, during the height of the pandemic, there was a hashtag, Louis Armstrong "West End Blues" challenge, and they had musicians around the world trying to nail that cadenza.
