LOUIS ARMSTRONG AN AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY (GREAT ACHIEVERS) (Great Achievers Series)

Rating:
Summary: Compulsive reading -even for a non Jazz 'buff'.
Review: This excellent, well written ,thoroughly researched book is an interesting and compelling read. My husband bought it for me following one of his regular sojourns to Hay-on-Wye where he searches for fishing books and the likes. I had started to collect books on the Blues to compliment my small collection of Albums,C.Ds even a few 78s. and so considered this biography an aside to the mainstream of my type of music. How wrong some of your assumptions can be! Collier dissects the man his music and the age in which he lived -dispelling many of the myths and giving factual credence to certain claims made by Armstrong and others alike. So,having picked up the book,out of politeness and consideration to my dear husband (!) I starting to flick through reading an odd passage here and there and then found that I had gone back to the very begining and was hooked 'line and sinker 'on the narrative. I am in awe of the depth of research /detective work the author has made on a man whom he obviously enjoyed researching with out any hint of hero worship or sycophancy, but! when it came to the technical abilities of his subject on his cornet playing well- there the author did leave me in ignorance (and boredom)- as not being in the least musically talented I found the discriptive passages on such matters way over my head and, I imgine, that of other readers with similar omissions in their musical education!! The author surmises that some Jazz enthusiasts may denigrate Armstrongs' later performances to that of genial buffoon, all round entertainer and despise this career change for what they take to be a sell out to white entertainment. But Collier can ,having made a thorough study of the man, make assumptions based on fact and not on personal fancy or nebulous notions as some do,that Armstrong fullfilled his ambition of becoming an entertainer which he set out to become but on route became one of the most innovative and influential and skilled exponents of Jazz that the world has ever seen. As Armstrongs' popularity and adulation grew among the general public so it waned on the Jazz circuit as purists disliked the way Armstrong courted popularity. Elitists often think the artist should suffer for his art form and saw Armstrong as a traitor to this. But, when, as you do here, see the history of the man his music, his suffering , etc., all put into the context of the social backdrop that Collier does so expertly you are leftin no doubt of the sincerity of both biographer and subject matter. A great piece of literature!