Charles River Editors - America’s Most Influential Jazz Artists

Americas Most Influential Jazz Artists

Louis Armstrong

Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it. Duke Ellington

Louis Armstrong once claimed that Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mineI look right in the heart of good old New OrleansIt has given me something to live for. This statement conjures an image which most anyone familiar with jazz music can recall: Armstrong clutching his trumpet forcefully, his eyes closed in a manner that distances him from his physical surroundings in favor of a perfect harmony between the man and his instrument. As Armstrong alludes to in this remark, this connection also speaks to the enduring influence of his New Orleans background, which informed his musical style and indeed continued to live on through his music. To be sure, while performing, Armstrong appeared lost in a reverie, a condition that imbued his performances with a kind of mythical flair, as if one were watching a man consumed by a moment of transcendence. In other words, if the music of Louis Armstrong produced an emotional response in the listener, this invariably paled in comparison with the deep, organic pathos he was able to produce through his music.

Of course, Armstrongs testament to the power of New Orleans is also particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that New Orleans was hardly the benevolent city that one might assume on the basis of his testimony. It is well known to anyone with even a passing knowledge of Armstrong that New Orleans was the site of Armstrongs nascent love for music, but also an environment that took no prisoners and exposed him to sights that would traditionally be shielded from the eyes of children: extreme violence, prostitution, and abject poverty. Throughout his life, Armstrong was not afraid to make frequent reference to New Orleans, yet the frankness with which he spoke did not preclude maintaining an appreciation for the cityand, indeed, crediting it with fostering his nascent interest in music as a boy. There was, accordingly, a remarkably complex relationship between Louis Armstrong and the city of New Orleans, as the city simultaneously served as an environment that forced him to confront extreme adversity, and assumed a crucial role in developing his musical sensibilities.

In 1956, Duke Ellington was featured on the cover of Time Magazine after a bravura performance at the Newport Jazz Festival that summer. This remains one of his most iconic achievements, and a landmark for jazz music as a whole (only four jazz musicians were ever displayed on the cover of Time ). At the same time, however, this recognition stands as one of the prevailing ironies of Ellingtons career, as he was deep into the latter stages of his performing life by this point. Indeed, there is a way in which everything that Ellington had done up to that point in his career was obscured. Put differently, it is misleading to recognize Duke simply for his accomplished performance at the festival, as one could justifiably argue that he transformed the very nature of jazz (both its stylistic qualities and its cultural identity) in his career up until this point.

Duke Ellingtons career covers such a vast scope that it is difficult to locate exactly where it began. Born into a relatively well-to-do family in Washington, D.C., Dukes mother saw to it that he received quality musical instruction from a young age, yet this did not lead to immediate investment in the musical arts. It was not until early in his teenage years that he began seriously playing music, but his performing career began soon thereafter. From that point forward, Ellingtons shift through adolescence through adulthoodhis very maturation processwas inextricably tied to his growth as a musical performer. Moreover, Ellington was both a pioneer and someone invested in the cultural history of his race. He was able to implement new motifs to jazz, but did so in a manner that was forever committed to honoring the heritage of African-American music. In addition to live performances, Ellington worked in radio and film, and his work remains some of the most important in American culture during the time period. His music addressed not only race but also influenced the evolution of jazz through the first half of the 20th century.

While those two men became jazzs most famous performers, others rose as legendary singers. If Billie Holiday wanted to become a jazz singer, she chose the best of all eras in which to attempt it. A wave of great jazz and jazz/pop crossover artists swept over the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s, generating a golden age for the genre. This wondrous jazz era was well represented by both black and white master artists, men, women, vocalists, and instrumentalists, and Billie Holiday has stood the test of time as well as any, despite struggling with an environment that easily could have doomed such aspirations.

Emerging from such a powerful group of talented vocalists was not easy. The woman who has come to represent a model of great, instinctive jazz singing came from nowhere, had nothing, and virtually had no one who was truly helpful in her background. She was raw and untrained but went forward regardless, with limited and quirky vocal gifts, the likes of which had never been heard in the highest circles of jazz. This especially was true among women, where perfection of phrasing and a smooth style of delivery stood as the unspoken guidelines of vocal success. No female counterpart of Louis Armstrong, one of Holidays idols, was ever going to survive in the female jazz world for long, except perhaps as a novelty.

Holiday lacked the delicious vocal timbre of soprano Jo Stafford, another of her favorites, or of the mezzo, Jane Froman. She could not hope to compare with a vocal athlete like Sarah Vaughan, who could fashion five-minute masterpieces of filigree out of mere fragments. Likewise, she could not scat in the manner of Ella Fitzgerald, lacking both the range and ease of movement. With a vocal range of barely more than an octave, she could not switch registers and vocal colors at will as these great colleagues could, and despite possessing a passably pretty and fresh sound in her careers first years, her vocal powers were compressed into a more confining style, with fewer options for vocal imagery.

It was not only hard-headed persistence that made Holiday a preeminent female jazz vocalist

Etta James, the legendary jazz, gospel, rhythm & blues, and soul singer, was perfectly positioned to reign as the supreme artist in the emerging soul genre of the 40s and 50s in America. No one ever doubted her talent, the highly distinctive and versatile nature of her voice, or her drive to succeed, and yet, she has been woefully overlooked in the history of indigenous rock and blues music in the United States. She is famous and recognized for several iconic hits with which she is eternally associated, such as Id Rather Go Blind and At Last, but her place in the pantheon of great soul artists is unsteady and not always instantly recognizable by those outside of a knowledgeable group of devotees. For the rest of soul musics listeners, mention of her name will result in a hasty inclusion into the inner circle of leading artists, as though James had been momentarily forgotten. Once the object of focus, however, she is revered as one of the titans of the genre, and those who had allowed her to slip from their minds are immediately reawakened to her powerful vocal and interpretive gifts.