Louis Armstrong

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:09

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty eight.

Presenter0:13

Desert Island Discs

Presenter0:23

Each week a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which aid gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

Presenter0:32

As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:36

Our castaway this week, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the great men of jazz and a celebrated entertainer, Louis Armstrong.

Presenter0:44

Satch, have you ever imagined yourself as a Robinson Crusoe?

Presenter0:47

Absolute cruise up? Yeah. Do you like yourself in that road? I never thought of it that.

Speaker 10:49

On that road.

Louis Armstrong0:50

Uh

Speaker 10:50

Yeah.

Presenter0:52

That way, but uh

Presenter0:54

I thought he had a beautiful, charm life.

Presenter0:57

But since I played music, I didn't want to be fooling around with them snakes and trees and all that no snakes. I'm a I'm a a a city boy after all, you know What do you want your eight records to do for you on the island remind you of the past cheer you up bring you voices of friends? What what was the reason for choosing these discs? Well, you have all kind of reason. I mean the the people you love through life and

Presenter1:23

Chick, I I mean the women and men you like and uh the things you do, my show business and my horn. I don't care where it is, I still have my horn with me, I don't care what I have. We have we've arranged for you to have that round your neck when you're shipwrecked.

Speaker 11:34

Uh

Speaker 11:37

Alias.

Presenter1:41

Yeah. What's the first record you've chosen?

Presenter1:45

Well, the first record I'd like V2.

Presenter1:48

Is uh this little good one here. Which one? Blueberry Hill? Blueberry Hill.

Speaker 11:51

So

Louis Armstrong1:51

Over

Speaker 11:51

Yeah.

Presenter1:52

Right, here it is.

Speaker 11:53

Right, here it is.

Louis Armstrong2:04

I found my true home on

Presenter2:10

Blueberry Really?

Louis Armstrong2:11

Yeah

Presenter2:11

Yeah.

Louis Armstrong2:11

Well, I all

Presenter2:14

I'm Blueberry Hill.

Presenter2:20

When I found you

Louis Armstrong2:23

Prabhupada

Louis Armstrong2:25

Yeah.

Presenter2:26

The words

Louis Armstrong2:27

Spirit.

Presenter2:27

Good stealth. Uh

Louis Armstrong2:31

I live with you.

Presenter2:36

And it was until

Presenter2:41

My dream come true

Presenter2:47

The wind the willows play

Presenter2:53

Come sweet melody

Presenter2:56

That's a pretty thing. What are we having next?

Presenter2:59

Well you got uh Mike the Knife here, which is uh

Presenter3:03

A German tune that I was the first one to record, you know, Jazz Right.

Presenter3:09

And uh I believe you sold several copies. Yesterday. And I met Ladilenia, you know. And we made a recording together. She's singing her English.

Speaker 13:17

We a we made a recording together.

Presenter3:22

German fight, you know, and I'm putting the old Satchmo spade fired, and they sent it to Germany, and they sold millions of copies.

Presenter3:30

And here's another copy that's been sold to go to the desert island. Yeah, it is a good one.

Louis Armstrong3:32

So let's go to the desert island.

Presenter3:35

Everybody in Harlem sings this when he comes on the the nickel of the vitrola.

Presenter3:40

The whole bar singing Worth Award acting. Look at you, Louis Miller.

Presenter3:47

Disappeared, dear.

Presenter3:50

After drawing

Presenter3:52

Now this case

Presenter3:55

And my geeks then like a sailor.

Presenter4:00

Did our part do?

Presenter4:03

Something range.

Presenter4:06

Suki Tawdre.

Presenter4:09

Senate diver

Presenter4:11

Lot in and ya

Presenter4:13

Sweet Lucy Brown.

Presenter4:16

Oh, the lion forms on the right deer.

Presenter4:22

Down that Mackey!

Presenter4:24

Back in town, take it such.

Presenter4:45

Map the Knife

Presenter4:47

Satch, both you and Jazz were born in New Orleans, Louisiana, right? That's right, Bob. That's the way it should be worded, because that's where I...

Presenter4:57

When I was five years old I used to hear buddy bowling.

Presenter5:00

You heard Bodybull. Yeah, well they used to play on the sidewalk before they go into the funky butt hall on Saturday nights.

Speaker 15:01

Had Body Baldwin.

Presenter5:08

So we couldn't go in there, we're too young, but we could hear that half hour they play before they go in. So when people pass by,

Presenter5:15

They stop in and hear a few sets on their way home. This was a great come-on to get the people in.

Speaker 15:19

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter5:20

How far could Buddy Bolden be heard, right across the city? He allowed me here from here to Sheffield.

Presenter5:30

Satch, it would be a um an understatement, I think, to call your childhood underprivileged. You were brought up in the back of town district.

Presenter5:37

Is it in Chanditan? Yeah, around honky tonks. When did you get a chance to learn music, to learn to play an instrument? Well, uh in the orphanage, uh when I was in the orphanage, you know, for shooting my father's gun celebrating uh New Year's Eve, you know. This was just everybody shoot their guns uh but if they if they get caught there's a different story and I got caught. So I stayed in the orphanage home.

Speaker 15:53

Yeah, everybody sh

Presenter6:01

which they called uh Colored Wave Home for Boys. And uh they had a little band there for which they made me the

Presenter6:08

The drum was

Presenter6:10

And they hand me the bugle, that's when I really shine'cause they couldn't eat, they couldn't do nothing until I blow them different uh calls, you know.

Presenter6:19

Are you paid on the river boats, too? Yes, sir. Whose banned was that?

Presenter6:24

Fate Maribles Band.

Presenter6:25

Yeah, from 1919 to 1921. We used to play at the foot of Canal Street during the winter and then we'd go up the river all the way up to Davenport Highway.

Presenter6:37

But that's where it's made.

Presenter6:38

Big Spider-Bet

Presenter6:40

This little kid just coming up with his horn, he's come on the boat. Mhm. He used to come and look to you. Yeah, and we used to sit around and blow a little

Presenter6:49

That's when I found out he could play that piano in the mist. That was a great kid.

Presenter6:55

What was the first break you had as a musician, joining King Oliver, was it?

Presenter7:00

Well, I think all uh whatever I've ever done in music was my brakes'cause uh I never did look back after I left the officers.

Presenter7:09

I used to playing all them good

Presenter7:13

Top

Presenter7:13

horn players place when they want to get off. It's a send l little lure in my place, I love little fella, you know. Never did weigh over a hundred and twenty pounds.

Presenter7:23

I don't know where I picked up all that weight, eating all the cabbages.

Presenter7:29

Anyway, Louis, um King Oliver sent for you from Chicago in 1922.

Speaker 17:32

Yeah, 1922.

Presenter7:35

And I was just finishing up a funeral with the Tuxie the breastpan when I got the telegram. So I didn't go home, I just went right to the IC station and mama that fixed up that little fake salvage mistake with me, you know. This was another useful thing. 1820. That that's about the highlights of all of it.

Louis Armstrong7:48

Yeah.

Presenter7:52

Uh

Presenter7:53

But playing playing in in funerals was another useful source of income as well as the hardest.

Louis Armstrong7:53

But play

Louis Armstrong7:56

That's our life.

Presenter7:58

Yeah. We play a field of march and you stand there watch it pass and tears come out your eyes.

Presenter8:03

The way them boys phrase them notes, all that's jazz. Didn't be ramble.

Presenter8:09

Yeah, and uh the saints

Presenter8:13

Let's have another record. What have you got there next?

Presenter8:15

Well, yes, um

Presenter8:18

Madame Streissen here is

Speaker 18:18

Damn.

Speaker 18:19

From here

Presenter8:21

Singing up a breeze and I mean look like she trying to outsing everybody, didn't she?

Presenter8:26

Just left a big sequence in a movie, Hello Dolly, where she and I walk home and home singing, Hello Dolly. It's gonna hang you when you hear it.

Speaker 18:37

Let him go.

Presenter8:39

She don't have that record, so let's uh put people on. She sang that too. People. Yeah.

Louis Armstrong8:49

Lovers.

Louis Armstrong8:53

Very special people.

Louis Armstrong9:05

I live in the world with one person

Louis Armstrong9:17

One very special person

Speaker 19:18

Very sp

Louis Armstrong9:23

A feeling deep in your soul.

Louis Armstrong9:30

Says you are half now your home.

Louis Armstrong9:36

No more hunger and thirst.

Louis Armstrong9:42

First be a person who needs people

Presenter9:46

Barbara Streiser.

Presenter9:48

So you joined Joe King Oliver in 1922? 1922. How long did you stay with his band? I stayed with Joe uh about uh

Presenter9:57

Nineteen early nineteen twenty-four

Presenter10:01

Because we traveled the first band that traveled all through Iowa and you know booking agents just getting together there

Presenter10:08

Anyway, when I got this wire from Fletcher Anderson to come to Roseland in 1924.

Presenter10:14

Please Henderson was a big band. He was using yeah, he had the first big band in New York and he and he's sending for characters to fill that band up like he wanted. So he done heard me playing New Orleans. But you were playing Dots wi with Fletcher Anderson. You played Dots and Them Funerals too.

Louis Armstrong10:16

He was using

Louis Armstrong10:29

Yeah.

Presenter10:32

They got them cards up there, you know.

Presenter10:35

There ain't no magna glass to you. You got to read. A lot of people think musicians don't know how to read'cause they don't have the same tune up in front of them every time like some guys. It's stereotype, you know. We had a memory.

Presenter10:47

Sure. You run it down once and that's it. Don't won't see that no more. Don't need it. Yeah. So that's the way that was. When did you start taking vocals? Vocals, never did take vocals. Well, when did you start? Well, we all learn if uh anybody got it in them and you learn it from the church, you know. So I used to sing in church, me and my mother. Yes. Yeah, she used to fray them highs there and I was right there with them barytones. And I used to sing tenor when I was twelve years old anyway. Really? You know, as you as you grow up in the South, you know, the kids don't want to go to bed, they're scared to go miss something.

Presenter11:21

So your voice get heavier. But I had them vocal tones and I kept them, you know.

Presenter11:26

They're great tongues. No double losing. You telling me I got a divorce with this voice one time.

Speaker 111:27

Yeah.

Presenter11:32

When did it

Presenter11:35

And uh

Presenter11:37

I'd been up all night.

Presenter11:40

So did you really ask me something? I said, well, uh

Presenter11:43

Signs out of case, judge.

Presenter11:45

You know, you say, look here, boy.

Presenter11:48

You got a cool?

Presenter11:49

Was it no?

Presenter11:51

Just the sawmill voice my fans think I hear. You said, yoke, yoke, yoke, the voice granted.

Speaker 111:55

Who's that go?

Presenter12:01

Um

Presenter12:02

When did you form your own band for the first time?

Presenter12:04

Oh well, uh in New Orleans, uh we always had them six piece combinations. So when I got out of office at fourteen I had a little band with all uh Joe Olivers, gigs. They had good boys. They all raised up under them horns. They had to be good. You've always been a band leader. Oh, not uh say always been a band leader, but

Speaker 112:21

Alright, so

Presenter12:25

Uh

Presenter12:26

Everybody plays good down there, so even if you haven't seen the guy before and you got a gig, you're gonna play good music anyway. Right. Let's have another record. What next?

Presenter12:37

Yes, my man, brother Galambara. Nobody plays any true perfect music than this man. The sweetest music. I was within my sweetest music.

Speaker 112:45

I was within uh

Presenter12:49

Well you said uh this side of heaven.

Presenter12:51

The side of heaven, isn't it? Well, what about the other side? You ain't been down here. There's some great cast and cut out, you know.

Presenter12:59

And they'll allow the bee

Presenter13:00

The other way there.

Presenter13:03

Hope not.

Presenter13:05

But uh you know the the

Presenter13:07

Years ago, the Christians used to say, the devil gonna get you playing that kind of music.

Presenter13:13

So maybe that's what it?

Presenter13:15

But anyhow, here's Garland Barton. I had a lovely engagement with him last summer at uh Jones Beach.

Presenter13:22

And this big

Presenter13:23

Production of Monica and his band, our band played together seventy years ago.

Presenter13:29

So you better put something on bar botta about gallon bottle. Sweet old dump bread or anything like that.

Presenter13:36

A hole a late

Presenter13:37

So name.

Louis Armstrong13:43

Fine, fine, blue

Louis Armstrong13:48

Bells ring!

Louis Armstrong13:50

Birds sing, sun is shining, no more pining, just we do

Louis Armstrong14:02

Smiling through

Louis Armstrong14:07

Don't sigh.

Louis Armstrong14:09

Don't cry.

Louis Armstrong14:12

Bye, bye, blue.

Presenter14:40

Guy Lombardi

Presenter14:42

In the past few years you've been pushing aside the eighteen-year-olds and topping the pups. Does that make you feel good?

Presenter14:48

Well, I mean, that's uh it's a good feeling to the extent, but uh I ain't surprised.

Presenter14:54

Well, if I please myself, I I know somebody in the audience is gonna have the same mind and

Presenter15:00

Thoughts I have about music. So I don't worry about uh this uh that that goes for the office too, you know, business deal. Yes. You just sound on four, I'll be along with that four enjoy, one of them they

Speaker 115:09

Play a second.

Presenter15:13

I wear about the top record, but it's nice to know. You just play on saying what you want. Saying what I want and feel. And the people in the studio enjoyed.

Presenter15:23

Even the musicians and the visitors. So why get other people dig the little rudimentals there, you know?

Presenter15:32

Where's your home now, in New York or California? Well, in the Queens. Uh, Corona, New York. Mhm. Right out of the Manhead.

Presenter15:42

Now you have a beautiful home. You're a very rich man. Don't you want to sit at home a bit and put your feet up?

Presenter15:47

I put my video every time I take a view there.

Presenter15:51

Doing all right.

Presenter15:53

But I mean, you don't have to just stay with your feet up, you know.

Presenter15:56

Your life gets so old you can't even put them down. So who wants to retire when they don't have to? Sit around and look at four walls and deteriorate.

Presenter16:04

You're about half the size you were when I last saw you. Haven't you been getting enough to eat? What wh what's been going on? No. I've been getting enough to eat. I've been getting too much to eat.

Presenter16:13

But I've learned the psychology of leaving it all behind me every morning.

Presenter16:18

Mm. Understand? Yeah.

Presenter16:22

There's a lot of play in here.

Presenter16:24

Well, you're looking great. Yeah, that's it. You don't need it after taste is gone. Mm-hmm. And that's the way I look at it.

Presenter16:30

Well, back to records. What's uh

Presenter16:32

What's the next one?

Presenter16:34

Well, uh, here's a record uh that Ella and I have made I like very much. Ella Fitzgerald. Yeah, well I do say hello.

Presenter16:43

Uh uh Poggy and Bess. Now it's uh one here we do together.

Presenter16:50

Would that best you as my woman now?

Presenter16:54

That's a pretty dangerous

Louis Armstrong17:03

As your woman now, I is I is and I ain't never going nowhere.

Speaker 117:07

I

Speaker 117:09

What?

Louis Armstrong17:15

Bless you share the flow

Louis Armstrong17:23

There's no wrinkle on my brow, no how But I ain't going You hear me saying if you ain't going

Speaker 117:37

Go away.

Louis Armstrong17:45

With you, I'm staying Orgy.

Presenter17:58

Yes, that's a pretty thing.

Presenter18:00

Now, what's number six?

Presenter18:02

Well

Presenter18:03

My man, yeah, Bobby Hector.

Presenter18:05

Your man will be happy.

Speaker 118:06

And we'll be hanging

Presenter18:07

All his notes are sub player. Don't care what you play up here.

Presenter18:11

And I mean

Presenter18:12

You see that his notes fall in just right with that beautiful tone of his.

Presenter18:17

And I'm a freak for donation.

Presenter18:21

Care who it is.

Presenter18:23

Now they play good and got a beautiful tone.

Presenter18:26

And uh

Presenter18:28

That'd be, you know, and I'd overdo it.

Presenter18:31

So that that's why I want you to play something about that and you're talking

Presenter19:38

BOBBBY HACKET playing New Orleans.

Presenter19:41

You're on this desert island. Could you endure loneliness?

Presenter19:45

Well

Presenter19:46

I'm pretty good at being, I wouldn't say lonely, but I'm pretty good when I'm alone because I can think of so many things to do. I like to write letters. I like to read letters.

Presenter19:57

Right now I'm not finishing my engagement here.

Presenter20:01

And I had to take a big box and put the letters in that I'm receiving here so when I get home and have a week or so off, I'll get in that box and that'll and then it don't have to be nobody in the room but me for days if it's that way. See, the average person can't do that, but I can. One of the sad things about being on this desert uh desert island is you get no mail at all.

Presenter20:25

No females. No females. What kind of island is that? Kids are terrible islands.

Presenter20:32

Could you look after yourself? Could you build a hut?

Presenter20:35

Well, I don't know about

Presenter20:38

Oh led

Presenter20:39

Strategy of building and brute strength and all that. I mean, I can sleep on the one if somebody else, you know.

Presenter20:46

What are you going to eat?

Presenter20:47

Yes, can you fish?

Presenter20:49

You like fishing?

Louis Armstrong20:50

Uh

Presenter20:51

It's all right, but it never fazed me. I'd just sooner play baseball, you know.

Presenter20:56

and swim

Presenter20:58

Let's have another record. What have we got next?

Presenter21:00

Yes, uh

Presenter21:02

To the Stars Fellow in Alabama.

Presenter21:05

Bye.

Presenter21:06

Oh, yeah, the uh Jack T-Gun, he he ever was in my house.

Presenter21:10

I'm gonna go.

Presenter21:12

Bunch of player.

Speaker 221:23

He loved our little drama.

Speaker 221:29

We can stand a field away.

Louis Armstrong21:33

Oh, remember

Speaker 221:35

And start

Speaker 221:38

Bella, Alabama.

Speaker 221:41

Last night, ooh, last night. Yeah.

Speaker 221:49

I can't forget the glamour.

Speaker 221:56

Your eyes held a gentle eye.

Speaker 222:03

And stars

Speaker 222:06

Bella remembers

Speaker 222:10

Last night

Presenter22:14

Jack Teagarten Starz Fell on Alabama

Presenter22:18

And what's your last record going to be?

Presenter22:20

Well, I mean, like I always say.

Presenter22:24

It's a wine of a rubber.

Presenter22:26

And everybody's saying the same.

Presenter22:29

So I think you oughta give it a little spin on that.

Presenter22:33

We do it every night at the club.

Louis Armstrong22:37

Shake your hand.

Presenter22:37

Uh

Presenter22:39

Uh

Louis Armstrong22:39

See

Louis Armstrong22:43

Uh

Presenter22:44

Really saying I love you.

Presenter22:48

I hear babies cry.

Presenter22:52

I watched them grow.

Presenter22:56

They'll find much more.

Presenter22:59

Then I'll never know.

Presenter23:02

And I think to myself

Presenter23:07

What a wonderful world

Presenter23:13

Yes, I think to myself

Presenter23:20

What a wonderful

Presenter23:36

What a wonderful world.

Presenter23:38

If you could take just one disc out of the eight you've played a satch, which would it be?

Presenter23:42

World.

Presenter23:43

I'd like to take Blueberry Hill because right now it's like Star-Spangled Banner in America when I think

Presenter23:50

And one luxury to take with you to this island, just one object that you'd like to have.

Presenter23:56

And one book. You've already got the Bible on the island. Choose one book.

Presenter24:00

One book outside of mine.

Presenter24:02

So choose yours if you want.

Speaker 124:03

Yeah.

Presenter24:06

Sometimes you got to read about yourself sometime. Like I hear my records, all from the first record, you can learn something. I feel that I feel just as fresh. If I want to play the old tune or the new ones, I got them right there. I don't have to be worrying about derangement loss. I got them right there. So you're going to say

Speaker 124:25

You can thank yourself

Presenter24:27

I can look back.

Presenter24:29

and uh sees things I did from the youngsters uh

Presenter24:33

You know, nothing wrong with it, but that's the way I look at it. Your own book, Satchmo. Sometimes you got to pat yourself on the shoulders, you know. Why not? And thank you, Louis Armstrong, for letting us hear your desert island is. Please come back and see us again soon. Okay, now.

Presenter24:47

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 124:55

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.