Ricky Riccardi: An Interview with the Author of “What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years”
Thursday, April 17, 2014
When the world was young and college students read books, one of my professors assigned our class a series of period novels.
“How can you understand what the world was like then if you read about it in books written now?”
“Context is everything.”
“These novels will give you the ‘flavor of the times.’”
In addition to offering a detailed view of the stateside and overseas musical journeys of the last two decades of Louis Armstrong life, this is exactly what Ricky Riccardi succeeds in doing in his book - What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years.
He puts Louis’ life in the context in which he lived it: the US and the world as it existed in the 1950s and 60s. Equally as important, Ricky stresses the continuity of all aspects of Pops’ life as a musician and entertainer. One now understands Pops as a totality.
“I loved and respected Louis Armstrong. He was born poor, died rich and never hurt anyone along the way.”
- Duke Ellington
What emerges as a result is a fitting tribute to a man, who by any standard of judgment, was a creative genius and not the Jazz equivalent of Pagliacci, the [operatic] clown, an epithet hung on Pops during his later years by those who never fully understood him or appreciated him.
The magnitude of Louis Armstrong’s achievements during the last 20 years or so of his life and author Ricky Riccardi’s work in documenting them is underscored in the following quotation from Dan Morgenstern, Director of The Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University:
“This is not only a tale of interest to Jazz fans or academics but the climatic portion of the inspiring life story of a man who, against all odds, rose from extreme poverty and discrimination to become, indisputably, one of the stellar figures of the twentieth century…. We need this book.”
Read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br
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