Louis Armstrong in His Own Words: Selected Writings, and: The Louis Armstrong Companion: Eight Decades of Commentary (review)

Louis Armstrong in His Own Words: Selected Writings. By Louis Armstrong. Edited by Thomas Brothers. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. [xxvii, 255 p. ISBN 0-19-511958-4. $22.]

The Louis Armstrong Companion: Eight Decades of Commentary. Edited by Joshua Berrett. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. [xvi, 299 p. ISBN 0-02-864669-X. $15 (pbk.).]

After a life dominated by journalistic coverage, jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) has more recently won the attention of scholars. The interest began with the 1988 publication of Gary Giddins's biography, Satchmo (New York: Doubleday; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1998). Though directed at a popular audience, the book aroused scholarly interest with its revelation of Armstrong's actual birthdate. Even more surprising, Giddins presented lengthy excerpts of previously unknown autobiographical writings. The writings, it turned out, formed part of Armstrong's estate, which became a public matter upon the death of his fourth wife, Lucille, in 1983. The executors entrusted Armstrong's property to Queens College in New York, which founded the Louis Armstrong Archives to house and administer Armstrong's personal collections. Since opening in 1994, the archives have drawn a steady flow of researchers to examine Armstrong's beguiling writings and memorabilia. The anthologies by Thomas Brothers and Joshua Berrett are among the firstfruits of these visits.

In retrospect, the discovery of new Armstrong writings should not be surprising: Armstrong showed a lifelong passion for writing unmatched by most jazz musicians. The books by Brothers and Berrett take their place alongside older Armstrong collections, including two autobiographies, Swing That Music (London: Longmans, Green, 1936; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1993) and Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (New York: Prentice Hall, 1954; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1986). Whereas the latter were more or less prettified by editors, Brothers and Berrett have let Armstrong speak freely, without a filter.

Louis Armstrong in His Own Words sets particularly high standards of editorial judgment and fidelity. The book contains nineteen items, all written by Armstrong and all previously inaccessible except through research libraries or photocopies from decades-old periodicals. Brothers has made his selections wisely, starting with the indispensable "Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907." Other essential entries include source material for the first Armstrong biography (the "Goffin Notebooks") and the incomplete sequels to Armstrong's second autobiography ("The Armstrong Story" and "The Satchmo Story"). To contextualize the writings, Brothers provides useful ancillary materials: an appendix of well-informed commentary on each of the entries, a bibliography of sixty-five extant writings by Armstrong, and an annotated index compiled by Charles Kinzer.

Brothers takes a scrupulous approach to editorial policy. He preserves Armstrong's idiosyncratic uses of capitalization and punctuation, which he views as inflections of Armstrong's prose similar to the expressive devices of his trumpet playing. Brothers argues convincingly that such unorthodox writing style is neither meaningless nor consistently ironic (as some have proposed), but rather a way of conveying a specifically vocal emphasis. Indeed, one can almost hear Armstrong speak the following sentence from a letter he wrote to his manager Joe Glaser in 1955: "I--Just, Love, Your, Checks, in, My POCKETS--"OH" They look so pretty, until, I hate like hell to cash them" (p. 163). Since Brothers normalizes spelling, spacing, and other minor aspects, this book should not be seen as a critical text. Rather, it strikes a compromise between two somewhat contradictory goals: "To make Armstrong's writings accessible to the general reader and to preserve the unique features of his style" (p. xxv).

Despite some redundancy of material, The Louis Armstrong Companion complements Brothers's collection. Not limited to writings by Armstrong, Berrett's volume includes such important items as transcribed excerpts from Satchmo and Me, an LP memoir (Riverside RLP 12-120, 1959...