Records

Art of the Improvisers

Given the current penchant in jazz circles for ancestor worship, it’s hardly surprising that Louis Armstrong and Ornette Coleman have garnered more publicity and acclaim this year than virtually any other musicians—Pulitzer Prize-winner Wynton Marsalis excepted. Since Armstrong and Coleman are among the select few whose instrumental approach and personality single-handedly changed the music’s direction, you might even label them jazz’s Alpha and Omega. Armstrong was jazz’s first great recorded virtuoso, while many consider Coleman the music’s last innovator. Although these two might seem worlds apart stylistically, 1997 has seen a celebration of both men’s accomplishments.

Armstrong, the subject of a recent high-profile biography by Laurence Bergreen, changed the way trumpeters (and virtually all other musicians) viewed their instrument; he played and sang with a majesty and sonic brilliance previously considered impossible. From his earliest days with King Oliver through the ’30s and early ’40s, Armstrong was the star among stars. Whether he was hitting incredibly high notes, scatting, or engaging in dramatic dialogues with fellow musicians, he shattered assumptions about what jazz musicians could play, how fast they could play it, and how consistently creative they could be. Even during the ’50s and ’60s, after his alleged peak period, he could still play strikingly beautiful trumpet choruses or elevate insufferably mawkish melodies with moans, ad-libs, and verbal twists.

Somewhere along the line, Armstrong evolved into what many in the jazz world detest: a pop star. Coleman, on the other hand, is Armstrong’s opposite. He was widely viewed as a renegade when he emerged as a player, composer, and bandleader during the late ’50s. A mostly self-taught, former blues and R&B artist, he ignited a firestorm among players, fans, and critics from the outset. His earliest aggregations featured his own whirling, splaying alto sax solos, along with equally unorthodox work by trumpeter Don Cherry and bassist Charlie Haden. Coleman upset many listeners because he didn’t adhere to the standard bebop/hard-bop manner; he made sudden breaks, incorporating squawks, broken lines, and distortion. Sometimes he’d conclude in a different key than the one in which he’d started.

Coleman was the principal architect of a movement that urged independence from established notions about harmony, melody, and song structure. The mid-’60s manifesto Free Jazz featured Coleman leading two units that merged into one sprawling ensemble on a pair of lengthy, wailing opuses. For one audience, the LP represented jazz’s pinnacle; for another, it was the music’s demise. Coleman switched gears in the ’70s, creating what he dubbed “harmolodic” electric fare. He renamed his band “Prime Time” and incorporated dual guitarists, bassists, and drummers. Explanations of the harmolodic concept inevitably disintegrate into confusing rhetoric about shifting tonal centers and rhythmic cores; in essence, the harmolodic player melds harmony and melody into a nexus in which all the musicians respond to what they hear without being locked into a chordal framework.

In the last decade or so, Coleman has composed a symphony, written a multimedia work with parts for rappers and dancers, and recorded with the late Jerry Garcia and the Master Musicians of Joujouka. He has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, and this year, he was granted membership into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The accolades and tributes to Armstrong and Coleman have triggered a wave of reissues and, in Coleman’s case, some new releases. With Armstrong, the most exciting development is the discovery of some long-lost material. This year’s JVC jazz festival featured a performance of eight compositions that were unearthed during an extensive search at the Louis Armstrong Archive in Flushing, N.Y. The songs were culled from some 650 reels of audio tape and 240 acetate discs, the bulk of which remain unreleased.

Meanwhile, three masterful Armstrong reissues came out earlier this year: The Complete Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (Verve), The Great Chicago Concert: 1956 (Sony/Legacy), and The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (RCA). Verve has issued the Fitzgerald/Armstrong material many times in piecemeal fashion, but never the complete date. Hearing the two verbally joust with each other in a remarkable version of “Mack the Knife” is unforgettable. The Chicago two-disc set is mostly rote New Orleans material; still, almost no Armstrong collection is totally worthless, and there are enough good moments on the Chicago concert to balance the mugging and hokum that had become part of his stage show by this time.

The Complete RCA Victor Recordings is a more satisfying collection. Highlights include “Laughin’ Louie,” a 1933 big band date in which the entire ensemble eventually disintegrates into mad laughter (thanks in part to Armstrong’s insistence that everyone light up joints). Also included is a remarkable 1930 collaboration with Jimmie Rodgers in which the Blue Yodeler’s aching country wails are countered by some of Armstrong’s most mournful laments ever.

Coleman himself was the subject of a different sort of retrospective this year: A four-night celebration at Lincoln Center this past July featured a performance of his “Skies of America” symphony by the New York Philharmonic, a revival of his original ’50s quartet, and performances by Coleman with both Prime Time and his multimedia aggregation.