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Part III: The Beat Goes On: Jazz Appreciation 101
Casting Louis Armstrong in the beginning
Louis Armstrong made his most important music in the 1920s (see Chapter 5
for details), but he became a star in the 1930s through films that cast him as a
stereotypical black entertainer, on hand to provide a lighter interlude, but
not as a serious artist or actor. Lead roles went to white actors.
To some extent, the film roles represented Armstrong’s public persona as
required by a segregated society of that time. In live performance, he camped it
up just as much as on film. Many jazz fans feel that as a jazz musician, his most
important years were the 1920s, and thereafter Armstrong became a mainstream
entertainer more than a jazz innovator. While some African-American
critics feel that Armstrong sold out by taking roles as the always-happy black
entertainer, he was still one of the first black actors to be prominently featured.
Even if his performances on film were more Broadway shtick than serious jazz,
the appearance of a prominent jazz trumpeter on screen brought jazz into the
American mainstream. I cover some of Armstrong’s film roles in the following
sections.
A Rhapsody in Black and Blue
In the 1932 short film A Rhapsody in Black and Blue, Armstrong appears
in a black man’s dream. The dream unfolds after the man, distracted from
his household chores by Armstrong’s music, is knocked unconscious by
his demanding wife. In the dream, Armstrong plays trumpet in a nightclub,
dressed in a leopard skin — a typical portrayal of a black man in those
times as primitive and naïve.
Pennies from Heaven
In the 1936 film Pennies from Heaven, starring Bing Crosby, Armstrong plays
a musician who negotiates a poor contract for himself, then sings the tune
“Skeleton in the Closet” as a skeleton chases him. On one level, this can be
seen as a fantasy or bad dream. On another, the image of a black man being
chased by a skeleton verged on the slapstick approach of minstrel shows in
which blacks were cast as buffoons.
Going Places
Armstrong often hammed it up like a clownish minstrel performer on film,
speaking throwaway lines, making faces, widening his eyes in exaggerated
amazement. In the 1938 film Going Places, Armstrong plays the groom of a
racehorse, a disappointing role that has him serenading the horse but not
interacting significantly with human characters. Again, Armstrong’s appearance
was a mixed blessing for jazz. Audiences saw a famous black musician in
a prominent part, introducing him to new audiences. But he could have had a
much more positive impact had he been cast as a hero.