The greatest jazzman of them all, Louis ("Satchmo") Armstrong, was back on Broadway. The word spread, the devotees gathered. But jazz purists who went prospecting for his golden trumpet notes had to pan out a lot of wet gravel.
Satchmo arrived with one of the biggest (19 pieces), brassiest, and worst bands he ever had—a kind of unintentional satire on everything wrong with big bands: saxophonists who stood up and writhed as they played; a brass section with a nose for noise rather than an ear for melody. He opened last week at "The Aquarium," a gaudily mirrored Broadway seafood restaurant stampeded...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
