A Quote by Terry Teachout
Few of us boggle - though we should - at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists.
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I actually wanted to be a jazz musician first. My grandparents introduced me to Louis Armstrong. I loved Louis Armstrong so I took up the trumpet and just did that every day and practiced that.
The greatness of America is that it produces exuberant geniuses like Louis Armstrong and Fred Astaire and Leonard Bernstein. We are meant to be a jazzy people who talk big and jump on the table and dance; we aren't supposed to be dopey and glum and brood over old injuries.
My uncle gave me a trumpet, but I loved the Louis Armstrong sound and the Harry James sound and I played by ear and I played always soulful or very direct from the gut.
He wanted us to play whatever we played in the most characteristic and appropriate style. Even it was the theme from 'The Godfather,' you needed to play that then the way that a Hollywood producer would expect it to be played. Whether it was that or the posthorn solo from Mahler's Symphony No. 3, he would expect that to be played in the way that Leonard Bernstein wanted to hear it. In retrospect, I think it was a sensational way to teach this particular group of students. By the time you graduated you could absolutely read anything with any trumpet.
My tastes went all over the place, from Strauss to Mahler. I was never a big Wagner or Tchaikovsky fan. Benjamin Britten, Tallis, all the early English Medieval music, Prokofiev, some Russian composers, mostly the people that were the colorists, the French.
In my opinion, Louis Armstrong is the greatest trumpet stylist of all time and has influenced every trumpet player of his time and long after
And my dad wanted me to play the trumpet because that's what he liked. His idol was Louis Armstrong. My dad thought my teeth came together in a way that was perfect for playing the trumpet.
A very few musicians passed across all decades. In terms of trumpet playing, Louis Armstrong does it of course but Sweets [Edison] is right up there too. He is unique, in every sense of the term.
My dad always pointed out Louis Armstrong's pad when we passed by there. And me and my dad were both proud Louis Armstrong was from New Orleans.
Louis Armstrong playing trumpet on the Judgment Day.
I think that anybody from the 20th century, up to now, has to be aware that if it wasn't for Louis Armstrong, we'd all be wearing powdered wigs. I think that Louis Armstrong loosened the world, helped people to be able to say "Yeah," and to walk with a little dip in their hip. Before Louis Armstrong, the world was definitely square, just like Christopher Columbus thought.
A mission that comes from the heart to promote these things and to encourage composers to write, then of course they should do it. And there are more than a few pianists these days who do this, fortunately.
I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.
When my sister and I were kids, swimming down in Charleston, there was this pizza parlor that had this old Dixieland band play, and I just loved Louis Armstrong and the sound of his voice, and I got up there with the band and started singing Louis Armstrong songs when I was a kid. I have no idea why, but I did it and I loved it.
I applied, and I got in as a pianist. Their idea in the music department was that pianists, if they were good enough to get in, they were good enough to learn a new instrument. They felt sorry for pianists being alone in the practice room all the time, and they really wanted to socialize us pianists.
I had a dream that Louis Armstrong was playing the 'Swept Away' melody. I have no idea where it came from. But Louis Armstrong was playing it and singing the song to me. I woke up-it's a borrowed melody no doubt-and wrote it down. If I hear a song and I choose not to put it down, that's me neglecting to accept that song. I think there's a very spiritual and godly-type ting that happens, and it happens to way more people than we know. It's just that very few of us choose to engage it.
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