Another Look at Satchmo

The NY Times has an interesting article on ol Satchmo :

“It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country,” a furious Mr. Armstrong told him. President Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced,” and had “no guts.” For Governor Faubus, he used a double-barreled hyphenated expletive, utterly unfit for print. The two settled on something safer: “uneducated plow boy.” The euphemism, Mr. Lubenow says, was far more his than Mr. Armstrong’s.



Mr. Armstrong bitterly recounted some of his experiences touring in the Jim Crow South. He then sang the opening bar of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” inserting obscenities into the lyrics and prompting Velma Middleton, the vocalist who toured with Mr. Armstrong and who had joined them in the room, to hush him up.

I play the piano and have been influenced by Satchmo. I've never really gone into his politics but was put off by his "black and blue" record in which he states: "I'm white inside, but that don't help my case." I really can't see how any self-respecting black person could make such a comment. I'm not sure whether that comment predates the quote above but it would be interesting to know.

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