2 weeks Ago
Louis Armstrong, in an image from the documentary ‘Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues.’ Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save To all you wonderful Super Bowl visitors, a word to the wise: If you leave this city with memories only of football and booze, without a fuller appreciation of the unique culture of New Orleans, you will have massively shortchanged yourself. You also will miss understanding how this city’s music mirrors one of this country’s greatest character traits.
New Orleans hosts this Super Bowl during the winter marking the 100th anniversary of two recordings, both featuring the same jazz musicians from Louisiana, that arguably changed the entire trajectory of American music. Music historians may quibble whether these two recordings deserve primacy, in terms of cultural impact, over dozens of others made at the same time — but almost none will disagree about the musical significance of the two key, virtuoso performances in each song. Go ahead: Do a web search now for the Clarence Williams versions of “ Mandy Make Up Your Mind ” and of “ Cake Walking Babies from Home .
” Listen as you read this. Quin Hillyer The virtuosos from the Crescent City, usually acclaimed as the two greatest wind-instrument performers of New Orleans traditional jazz, were the young cornetist Louis Armstrong, just coming into his full bloom, and the soprano-saxophonist Sidney Bechet, four years Armstrong’s senior. They were brought together by band leader/pianist Clarence Williams of Plaquemine, Louisiana, and joined by New Orleanian banjoist Buddy Christian and two others.
Only in this short series of recordings in the winter of 2024-25 did Armstrong and Bechet record together before Bechet moved to Paris to find greater fame (while facing less racism). What resulted, especially in “Mandy” and “Cake Walking Babies” — the first on Dec. 17, 2024, and the latter three weeks later — was sheer magic.
In the second half of “Mandy,” Bechet brought out a rare instrument called a sarrusophone “to snort and bark his way through the ensemble,” as Armstrong historian Ricky Riccardi wrote. And in “Cake Walking Babies,” the two musicians seem to vie for supremacy, trying to outshine each other even as their instruments complemented one another, in what Riccardi likened to a heavyweight prize fight and another reviewer (name unknown) described as “a cutting contest between the dueling Satch and Bechet.” Most remarkable, and what was in some ways the essential facet of traditional New Orleans jazz, was that amid the dueling lead performers, the group never lost its character as an ensemble performance involving individual and collective improvisation around a still-recognizable melody.
The tune remained intact, but each musician experimented at the margins with his individual part. The result was an invigorating revelation to millions of listeners. Just as these recordings were being made, three culturally revolutionary developments were fully conjoining for the first time.
First, the music itself: What became known as “jazz” had been around by then for some 20 years, growing in New Orleans from its roots in ragtime, blues and other influences — but it still had been somewhat of a “niche” sound, vying with marching tunes, chamber music and popular ballads. Likewise, sound recording was half a century old and commercially available for two decades, but still essentially a novelty. Finally, radio broadcasts technically were available by the first decade of the 20th century, but not widely.
Suddenly, circa 1924 or 1925, all three came together for mass audiences. Jazz had become the popular rage in New York and Chicago music venues by the mid-1920s; the loss of patent protection made phonographs far more widely available in the exact same time frame; and improvements in broadcast capabilities resulted in an explosion from just five radio stations in the whole country in 1921 to 571 by 1925 . Into this mix, with fortuitous timing, came the extraordinary combination of the talents of Armstrong and Bechet, backed by mostly Louisianan compatriots.
That’s how, 100 years ago this winter, New Orleans jazz became the predominant sound in living rooms across America. Gone was the idea of music as being tightly controlled and centrally directed. Here was something more free to innovation, yet still innately collaborative.
And why should American music be anything else? This was music that was part of the American character. It was the sonic version of Americans’ embrace in the civic realm, so amply described by French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, of voluntary associations — not any centrally directed, command-and-control government — to fill social and communal needs. What de Tocqueville described was, indeed, collective and experimental improvisation amid collaborative goals.
The jazz of “Mandy” and “Cakewalking Babies” that played from phonographs and on airwaves 100 years ago this month was a perfect encapsulation, and musical expression, of American culture. So, visitors, don’t leave New Orleans this week without listening to some traditional jazz. And whether your team wins or loses, take home an appreciation of jazz’s joys.
.
