Music Is My Life JAZZ PERSPECTIVES Lewis Porter, Series General Editor Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter By William R. Bauer Jazz Journeys to Japan: The Heart Within By William Minor Four Jazz Lives By A. B. Spellman Head Hunters: The Making of Jazz’s First Platinum Album By Steven F. Pond Lester Young By Lewis Porter The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980–1991 By George Cole The André Hodeir Jazz Reader By André Hodeir Edited by Jean-Louis Pautrot Someone to Watch Over Me: The Life and Music of Ben Webster By Frank Büchmann-Møller Rhythm Is Our Business: Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express By Eddy Determeyer Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music By Eunmi Shim Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser’s Art By Andy Hamilton Delightfulee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan By Jeffery S. McMillan “Ellington Uptown”: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the Birth of Concert Jazz By John Howland New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History By Bruce Boyd Raeburn The Music of Django Reinhardt By Benjamin Givan Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz By Daniel Stein OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920–60 By Lars Bjorn with Jim Gallert John Coltrane: His Life and Music By Lewis Porter Charlie Parker: His Music and Life By Carl Woideck The Song of the Hawk: The Life and Recordings of Coleman Hawkins By John Chilton Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music By John Chilton Music Louis Armstrong, Is Autobiography, and My Life American Jazz Daniel Stein The University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2012 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America cPrinted on acid-free paper 2015 2014 2013 2012 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stein, Daniel, 1975– Music is my life : Louis Armstrong, autobiography, and American jazz / Daniel Stein. p. m. — (Jazz perspectives) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978-0-472-07180-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn978-0-472-05180-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — isbn978-0-472-02850-4 (e-book) 1. Armstrong, Louis, 1901-1971. 2. Jazz musicians—United States—Biography. 3. Jazz—History and criticism. 4. Autobiography. I. Title. ml419.a75S75 2012 781.65092—dc23 [B] 2012011073 Acknowledgments This book began as a master’s thesis on Charles Mingus’s and Louis Arm- strong’s autobiographical writings and grew into a doctoral dissertation on Armstrong’s autobiographics. I am deeply indebted to Winfried Herget at the University of Mainz for supervising the master’s thesis and the disser- tation in its early stages and for being part of my doctoral committee, as well as to Frank Kelleter at the University of Göttingen for being my dis- sertation supervisor. I have bene‹ted from their critical suggestions and wish to thank both of them for their intellectual investment in the project, for their professional and personal advice, and for their crucial sponsorship of my academic activities. I also want to thank Alfred Hornung at the Uni- versity of Mainz, whose expertise has greatly advanced my understanding of American autobiography and whose professional support I appreciate very much. At the English Department at the University of Michigan in Ann Ar- bor, where, thanks to Winfried Herget and Martha Vicinus, I was able to work as a lecturer from 2001 to 2003, I met a host of wonderful and sup- portive people who shaped not only my outlook on the subjects discussed in this book but also my views on American culture at large. My of‹ce mate, Charles Taylor, was a continuing source of knowledge about jazz, while brief talks with Richard Crawford and Travis Jackson reinforced my belief that I was working on a promising project. I had the chance to sit in as a guest in Paul Anderson’s magni‹cent class “Ralph Ellison and the Blues Aesthetic,” which turned out to be a formative experience I still trea- sure. Working for Eric Rabkin, I got a sense of what rigorous critical thought can accomplish. Moreover, my two years at the University of Michigan were very much de‹ned by John Rubadeau and Pat Rubadeau, whom I wish to thank for their endless hospitality and their great sense of vi acknowledgments humor, as well as by Bonnie Campbell and Terry Jansen, whose open- heartedness always made me feel welcome. At the University of Göttingen, where I have been a member of the American Studies division since 2003, I have found a highly productive and personally rewarding academic environment. My biggest thanks go to Frank Kelleter, who was, and continues to be, a constant source of advice, inspiration, and intellectual challenge. His astute comments and thought- ful suggestions proved absolutely invaluable throughout the many years in which I grappled with Louis Armstrong’s music and writings and struggled with the latest literary and cultural theories. I further want to express grat- itude to my fellow colleagues and friends in Göttingen: Heinrich Detering for being part of my doctoral committee; Barbara Buchenau (now at the University of Bern) for our many brainstorming sessions; Harald Kittel for putting everything into perspective; John Coates for musical inspiration and coteaching courses on jazz; Gabriele Rippl (now at the University of Bern) for sharing her vast knowledge of intermedia theory; Philipp Schweighauser (now at the University of Basel) for brie‹ng me on the forms and functions of book proposals; Klaus Herrgen for being the per- fect librarian; and Christy Hosefelder for her continual help and assistance. I have also bene‹ted greatly from my fellow doctoral candidates in the American Studies program: Bernadette Kalkert, Kathleen Loock, Eva Morawietz, Birte Otten, Diana Rosenhagen, Stefanie Schulz, Stephanie Sommerfeld, and Alexander Starre. Beyond this immediate academic environment, I have had the pleasure of bouncing ideas back and forth and discussing the ins and outs of the aca- demic profession with Nassim Balestrini (University of Regensburg), Micha Edlich (University of Mainz), Alexander Fischer (University of Er- langen-Nürnberg), and Christina Meyer (University of Hannover). Rein- hold Wagnleitner (University of Salzburg) deserves additional gratitude for his interest in my work on Armstrong, as does Charles Hiroshi Garrett, who allowed me to preview his chapter “Louis Armstrong and the Great Migration” before it was published as part of Struggling to De‹ne a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century(Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press, 2008). In the fall of 2009, I spent several days at the Louis Armstrong Archives at Queens College, New York, and I wish to thank Michael Cogswell for granting me access to Armstrong’s original manuscripts and for his will- ingness to share his insights on particular texts and individual passages. I acknowledgments vii also want to thank Lesley Zlabinger, my contact person at the archives, who helped me set up my research visit and answered all my questions about print permissions and copyrights, as well as Ricky Riccardi, whose blog “The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong” offers superb analyses of Armstrong’s life and music and whose monograph What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years (New York: Pantheon, 2011) was published just a little bit too late to play more than a cursory role in the following pages. I did not get a chance to visit the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University, but I communicated in writing with Bruce Boyd Raeburn and Lynn Abbott, whose readiness to help me with my re- quests and provide me with the materials I coveted was exemplary. I also communicated with Elizabeth Esherwood at the Louisiana State Museum Jazz Collection and wish to thank her for granting me permission to re- produce Edmond “Doc” Souchon’s photograph of Louis Armstrong as King of the Zulus in chapter 5. Additional requests were handled ef‹ciently and competently at Oxford University Press (Ben Alexander), Magnum Germany (Norbert Neckritz), and LIFE/Time Inc. (Amy Wong). Finally, I wish to thank Oscar Cohen and Phoebe Jacobs of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc., for granting me permis- sion to cite from Armstrong’s writings and reproduce facsimiles of previ- ously unpublished material. I am also thankful for Lisa Cohen’s many ef- forts to process my requests and for her kind responses to my questions. While none of the chapters of this book was previously published, I have occasionally drawn on essays that have appeared in the following pub- lications and under the following titles: “The Performance of Jazz Autobi- ography,” in Blue Notes: Toward a New Jazz Discourse,ed. Mark Osteen, spe- cial issue of Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 37.2 (2004): 173–99; “Hearing, Seeing, and Writing Thelonious Monk: Toward a Theory of Changing Iconotexts,” Amerikastudien/American Studies 50.4 (2005): 603–27; “Jazz-Autobiographie und kulturelle Intermedialität: Theore- tische und praktische Überlegungen zur Beziehung von autobiographis- chem Text und improvisierter Jazz-Musik,” in Literatur und Musik in der klassischen Moderne: Mediale Konzeptionen und intermediale Poetologien, ed. Joachim Grage (Würzburg: Ergon, 2006), 327–46; “The Things That Jes’ Grew? The Blues ‘I’ and African American Autobiographies,” in Blues and Jazz, ed. Lisa Graley, special issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities 23.2 (2006): 43–54; “From Text-Centered Intermediality to Cultural Interme- diality; or, How to Make Intermedia Studies More Cultural,” in American viii acknowledgments Studies as Media Studies,ed. Frank Kelleter and Daniel Stein (Heidelberg: Winter, 2008), 181–90; “Louis Armstrong as a Model for Intermedia The- ory,” Annual Review 2009/10, Heidelberg Center for American Studies (2010): 164–73. I want to thank the editors of these publications as well as those who organized the conference panels and colloquia at which I pre- sented papers on topics related to this book for their support. At the University of Michigan Press, editor-at-large Chris Hebert and his assistants Scott Grif‹th and Susan Cronin were tremendously knowl- edgeable and immensely supportive. Chris’s belief that I could squeeze a worthwhile book from my initial proposal helped me through the rougher moments of the revision process. I have always admired John Szwed’s work on American music and culture, and I am humbled by the fact that he ac- cepted this book for publication in the Jazz Perspectives series. I have bene‹ted greatly from his suggestions and from the detailed remarks by the anonymous university press reviewers, and I want to thank all of them for their efforts and insights. I also appreciate the help and advice I received from project manager Marcia LaBrenz and administrative assistant Debra Shafer, as well as the copyeditor’s careful corrections and suggestions. Two generous dissertation awards allowed me to cover the print per- mission and copyright fees for this book (apart from the cultural capital they also award). My thanks go to the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, where I was privileged to receive the Rolf Kentner Dissertation Prize in October 2010, and to the Graduate School of Humanities Göttin- gen (GSGG), which awarded me the Christian-Gottlob-Heyne-Preis in November 2010. Above all, I want to thank my family: my parents, Thomas Michael Stein and Johanna Stein; my brother, Simon Stein, and his wife, Verena Barthel-Stein; my in-laws, Kresimir Petricevic and Beate Petricevic- Rompf; and my wife, Cornelia, who has accompanied this book from the very ‹rst day and has provided crucial feedback and smart suggestions countless times. Contents introduction “Music is my life, and I live to play” Louis Armstrong’s Jazz Autobiographics / 1 chapter 1 “I have always been a great observer” New Orleans Musicking / 30 chapter 2 “I done forgot the words” Versioning Autobiography / 66 chapter 3 “Diddat Come Outa Mee?” Writing Scat and Typing Swing / 108 chapter 4 “A happy go lucky sort of type of fellow” The Productive Ambiguities of Minstrel Sounding / 145 chapter 5 “He didn’t need black face—to be funny” The Double Resonance of Postcolonial Performance / 183