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Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong Paperback – Bargain Price, October 7, 2010

by Terry Teachout (Author)

88 customer reviews

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Louis Armstrong is widely known as the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century. He was a phenomenally gifted and imaginative artist, and an entertainer so irresistibly magnetic that he knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. Offstage he was witty, introspective, and unexpectedly complex, a beloved colleague with an explosive temper whose larger-than-life personality was tougher and more sharp-edged than his worshiping fans ever knew.

Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers, including hundreds of candid after-hours recordings made by Armstrong himself, to craft a sweeping new narrative biography. Certain to be the definitive word on Armstrong for our generation, Pops paints a gripping portrait of the man, his world, and his music that will stand alongside Gary Giddins’s Bing Crosby and Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis as a classic biography of a major American musician.

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Product Details

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (October 7, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0547386370
ASIN: B004H8GM2G
Product Dimensions: 1.5 x 5.5 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #739,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #281 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Jazz
- #1024 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Musical Genres > Jazz
- #4717 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National

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Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars

5 star		75%
4 star		16%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 56 people found the following review helpful

Easily sets the new standard for Armstrong biographies

By MarkK VINE VOICE on November 10, 2009

Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )

Louis Armstrong stands as one of the legends of twentieth century music. During five decades as a performer he thrilled audiences with his cornet and trumpet virtuosity, while his gravelly voice made him one of the most popular and recognizable singers of his day. Such a career became the stuff of legend, making it difficult to discern the truth underneath. In this book, Terry Teachout undertakes the difficult task to sift though the legend to discover the man underneath.

In this he is aided by Armstrong, who left behind two autobiographies and numerous audio recordings. From them we learn a man unashamed of his impoverished beginnings in the "black Storyville" neighborhood of New Orleans. The musical scene of the town's brothels and clubs provided the young Armstrong with both his early musical education and his first employment. Teachout goes on to describe his journey during the 1920s from promising young cornet player into the headlining talent he became by the end of the decade. Teachout rightly gives this period, one that saw some of his most innovative music, considerable attention, but he challenges critics such as Gunther Schuller who dismiss Armstrong's work with the big bands of the 1930s and 1940s. These decades dominate the biography, taking up eight of the book's twelve chapters. The final chapters chronicle the established entertainer who faced the twin challenges of aging and the disdainful attitude of the younger generation of musicians who followed in his giant footsteps.

In examining Armstrong's life, Teachout brings to bear his skills as detective and storyteller. He succeeds in depicting a very human yet enormously gifted performer, a talented musician who was also a superb entertainer.Read more ›

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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful

A FIRST RATE BIOGRAPHY OF A TRUE AMERICAN HERO

By David Keymer TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on November 17, 2009

Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )

Pops isn't just a good biography of Louis Armstrong's full and varied life. It's an exceptionally good biography. It shouldn't replace Laurence Bergreen's excellent Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant life (New York Times Notable Book for 1997) in anyone's library. But Teachout's book complements Bergreen's and it stand on its own as a model of sympathetic, scrupulously researched biographical writing. For those who are interested in him, there is little new that they can learn about the well examined life of this American icon.

As soon as popular critics and serious scholars started writing about that uniquely American pop music, jazz, they wrote about Armstrong. They couldn't avoid it because Armstrong, more than any other individual, set the standards and many of the conventions for jazz, in his playing and his singing. (Where would Bing Crosby have been without Louis to imitate?) He wasn't the first great jazz soloist: Sidney Bechet holds that honor by a few years. And Armstrong's seminal group, the Hot Five (later Hot Seven), played outside the recording studio just one time. It was never a working group, never a combo formed to play in the clubs and dance halls where jazz was being forged in the twenties and thirties.

Trying to imagine jazz without Armstrong is like trying to imagine modern art without Picasso or the essay form without Montaigne. His contemporaries knew it and admitted it. Even those who were on the outs with him -Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins--knew that Louis was The Man. Red Allen, the trumpeter with (to my mind) the most beautiful sound in jazz, wanted nothing more than to sound like Louis. Jack Teagarden tried to play him on the trombone (and succeeded).Read more ›

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

Teachout has scored a hit with his biography of one of the most iconic and original personalities in musical history

By Bookreporter on December 28, 2009

Format: Hardcover

In reading POPS, I figured that I was going to fill in some of the few gaps of my personal knowledge of Louis Armstrong. After all, I told myself, I played trumpet for a third of my life, have been a fan of jazz for nearly four decades, and actually own several albums of Armstrong's solo and collaborative works. So, how much more could I learn about one of my musical heroes?

A lot, it turns out. My personal gaps were both many and multi-dimensional.

My perception of how Louis (never "Louie") Armstrong and his music were affected by his environment --- his family, contemporaries and mentors --- as well as the influence he had on others and their music was woefully incomplete and in some instances downright inaccurate.

In POPS, author Terry Teachout uses numerous sources simultaneously to paint a picture of what was happening at several points in Armstrong's career --- including adding his subject's own voice via his legacy of letters and personal writings to complete the canvas. He goes into great detail describing Armstrong's relationship with his early mentors and how they shaped both his style and his outward personality. Despite talent and fame that had surpassed those of his mentors, Armstrong always remained deferential; even while occasionally playing second fiddle as a guest in his former master's bands, he never showed them up by outplaying or upstaging them. His respect for the craft and those who had introduced him to it was immense.

In describing Armstrong's early recording sessions, Teachout details the technology available at the time and the limitations it imposed on the instrumentation for the recordings. He then portrays how each member of the recording ensemble related to Armstrong both personally and musically.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Shows the greatness of a true music master.

Comprehensive history. Well written story. I felt I got to know him as a man and a performer.

Published 2 months ago by Victoria Rose

I highly recommend this book as a biography of an American Icon ...

I highly recommend this book as a biography of an American Icon and a great man! Even non musicians should read this book! Read more

Published 2 months ago by Lawrence E. Knier

Five Stars

great

Published 6 months ago by Booklover

Great book.

Great book ... deserves the high rating others have provided. You get the feeling to start to understand the man behind the stage presence and music genius. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Paul B.

Five Stars

My 93 year old mother also loved this.

Published 10 months ago by Dave Davidson

Five Stars

excellent

Published 11 months ago by Daniel Vernhettes

Absolutely A-1, start to finish!

The book arrived way before the estimated delivery date. It was well packaged and in excellent shape. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Jim J. Rogers

Fascinating

As a musician, and a multiple-time viewer of Ken Burns' Jazz documentary (including reading and re-reading the companion book), I thought I knew a great deal about Louis Armstrong. Read more

Published 14 months ago by Amazon Customer

Very good value

Book has several library stampings on page ends & within book, but otherwise it is in very good condition & certainly well worth the price.

Published 16 months ago by ( :-}D )

The finest biography of a jazz superstar

Biographies are not the easiest to read (ie boring) unless there are things outside of a persons known genius; e.g. Read more

Published 18 months ago by Taylor