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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reliving the Legend of Louis Armstrong

Aired August 04, 2001 - 09:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Let's all sing along with Louis Armstrong, if we can, because this weekend in New Orleans, it's the Satchmo Summerfest in the French Quarter, the centennial celebration of Armstrong's birth.

On Thursday, the New Orleans Airport was renamed in honor of the jazz legend, and tonight there's a star-studded concert in Armstrong's honor.

And now here is a man who helped to make Louis Armstrong a legend, Armstrong's former music producer, George Avakian. He's a man who's been making jazz history for decades himself. George Avakian's in our New York bureau this morning, and we welcome you.

GEORGE AVAKIAN, FORMER ARMSTRONG PRODUCER: Hi, glad be here anytime for...

NELSON: Great to hear from you.

Now, listen, tell us a bit about working with Louis Armstrong. What was it like? You've known him since college, I understand.

AVAKIAN: That's right. Well, he was the easiest artist imaginable to work with because he was always prepared, and he was able to adjust with any problems that came up in the studio, not that we had many, although we did have one strange one, when he didn't bring the music for "Mack the Knife." And hadn't learned it yet, and we did it stone cold in the studio because Turk Murphy, who wrote the arrangement, brought an extra copy with him to New York just on the chance that maybe it's needed.

NELSON: What kind of a man -- I'm sorry. What kind of a man was he?

AVAKIAN: He was the finest person that I ever knew among all the artists I worked with. I mean that as a human being. He was a terrific guy, just as genuine as can be, and he was a gentleman in every respect, treated people very, very well. He was a -- he's just one of the finest people I ever met in my life.

NELSON: At some point in his career, he was called an Uncle Tom. Do you think that was a fair accusation against this man?

AVAKIAN: No, no, not at all. Armstrong's theory of life was very simple. He appreciated what had come his way, worked hard for it, and what he wanted to do, he always said, was make people happy. And that's what he did. And he did it with complete, complete sincerity. Those smiles were for real.

NELSON: His music, since his death, of course, in 197 -- the 19 -- early 1970s, has endured, has become as big a legend and a legacy as Armstrong himself. What is it about his music that grabs us so much?

AVAKIAN: Well, first of all, it's extremely basic, because it comes out of really the lives of so many different kinds of people, that comes out of, of course, the Negroes of the South and the people who were their forbearers in Africa. But it's also part of the white heritage in the United States. There's influences of Cranz (ph) in the southern part of the nation, England, and the northern part of Europe, in the form of the folk music that went into the stream that created jazz.

Jazz is a complete mixture, and it's real, and it's from the people, and that's where it gets its strength.

NELSON: Mr. Avakian, Louis Armstrong grew up on poverty on the streets of New York, and was making money on the streets of New York, and then was introduced to the horn. Do you want to bring us up to date on how that happened and what transpired, what kind of transformation took place in this man?

AVAKIAN: Well, he was raised in an extremely poor family, and he made enough money to help put food on the table when he was as young as 6 years old, and it was a lesson that he never forgot. And he also deeply appreciated the fact that the people who loved him at that time were a Jewish family named Karnovsky (ph) down in New Orleans.

And as a result, one of the things that people remember about Louis and his photographs and all is that he always wore a Star of David around his neck. And that was symbolic of his feeling that people are people no matter who they are, what race, what religion.

And so that symbolized his appreciation of the fact that he was treated so well as a young child, and that's the way he treated everybody else.

NELSON: Now, if you look across the landscape, the musical landscape in the world, is there anybody that can match his skills today?

AVAKIAN: I'm sorry, there isn't. Louis was all alone, because he really literally created jazz out of his own way of playing the music that he heard. And you can hear it on phonograph records. One of the great examples is the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra of 1924, which was the leading jazz orchestra of the time. When Louis joined it in 1924, it had a certain sound, and you can hear the records. And by the time he leaves, that's a very different orchestra.

And even one of the great soloists of all time, Coleman Hawkins, the father of the tenor saxophone, changed his playing entirely when he started to sit next to Armstrong in that orchestra. And that is the birth of the saxophone in jazz, other than Sidney Bechet, the pioneer New Orleans musician who played the soprano saxophone, which today is used, I'm sorry to say, mainly in soupy, ridiculous elevator music.

But Bechet showed the way first, and then came Hawkins, and out of Hawkins came everybody else, Lester Young, Dan Webster, all the other greats.

NELSON: George Avakian, you were a very lucky man to have worked all those years with him. Let me ask you this...

AVAKIAN: That was the greatest -- that was one of the greatest privileges of my life. I was born at the right time, had the right opportunity, and thank God I was able to take advantage of it.

NELSON: So he was your very good friend. Tell me now...

AVAKIAN: Yes, he was.

NELSON: ... tell me now, some 30 years after he died, what do you think his greatest legacy is going to be?

AVAKIAN: I think it's himself, absolutely Armstrong himself. His music is great, and it will never, never be underrated by people who understand what it was all about. But to me, Armstrong as a person, that's the greatest thing about Louis. I'll tell you, he was one of a kind. There'll never be anybody like him.

NELSON: He always seemed to have a smile, I understand, huh?

AVAKIAN: I'm sorry?

NELSON: He always seemed to be smiling no matter what was going on in his life.

AVAKIAN: Well, he did, but it was a smile that came from within all the way. He took everything that came his way, and he turned it into an asset no matter what happened to him.

NELSON: All right, well, I want to thank you on this centennial of Louis Armstrong's birth. I want to ask you one last question. Where did the nickname Satchmo come from?

AVAKIAN: Well, he was known as Satchel Mouth as a young boy because he had a very wide mouth, and when he smiled, it was all the way across. So it was like a satchel. And that's where it came from Satchel Mouth turned into Satchmo.

NELSON: That's great. Well, this is the centennial of his birth, and we thank you for being here to celebrate it with us. New Orleans is celebrating today, and so we say hello to all the people in New Orleans, and thank you, George Avakian, Louis Armstrong's long- time producer, for joining us from New York. Thank you very much.

AVAKIAN: Thank you. And believe me, Louis will never die. He's with us always.

NELSON: All right.

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