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Now every musician has their creature comforts. For some whiskey, for dopadics,
it's ungodly shit like heroin, But not me. What women to try this?
What is it? Cligarette? Oh? No, cured you of pneumonia?
That was a night I first dried gauge. You call it weed.
Now, I know it's legal all over the place in the American house,
but back then, not that. What's legal in any place? And I
ever have a ball that night? It's just about every night there after.
Boy, we used to call ourselves the Vipers. We all used to smoke
the stuff. It's relaxing and it made the music flow. Man, you
know what I'm saying, right, You know what I'm saying. And you
know, over the years, I kept smoking, and I kept getting better
and better. Shit, I was encouraging my audiences to get high with me.
Before your baby blew my ass parish were born. Prohibition, everything was
prohibited, and everything was right there. This is part five of Pops.
Na Wilson is Pops, the remarkable story of jazz legend Lewis Armstrong, a
six part audio experience from Drop Biscuit Studios. Here it comes again. It's
part of the game. You get famous for your horn and every two bit
arrival comes out of the woodwork to challenge you. Then they do it on
stage in front of an audience. But this night was different. Wasn't just
some fresh phrase horn player coming up to the stage. This was the King
Joe Oliver, the man who was like a pappy to me, and the
man who cheated me and kept me in the shadow. He was damn me
to sight read a piece of music. Wanted to prove I was too big
for my bretches, wanted to show me up. He wanted me to know
that he was still the king. Reading music never been my strong truit.
So took a minute. I feel the sweat dripping from my head onto the
ground, and then I blew. Oh, I was whipping it. I
was swinging it. I was playing that ding. I put down my horn.
I looked at Papa Joe. He had this dead expression, numb like
all the women be kicked out of him. He said, at last you
made it, and then he walked out. Now I'd like to say I
felt like a winner, you know, like it was some kind of a
triumph, but in that moment I felt mostly like a big fat shit.
It would be a long time before I saw King Oliver again. News around
the world the year nineteen twenty nine. It begins with the astonishing artistry of
Lewis Armstrong playing what many say is the most famous horn solo in jazz.
And the year ends on Tuesday, October twenty nine, Black Tuesday. The
stock market crashes, millions are left jobless and hopeless. The boom in Harlem,
the boom in jazz, the recorded music boom. It all comes grinding
to a halt. Dear Lil, I am writing this to you fresh out
of jail. Man has plenty of time to collect it starts behind bars.
We'll figure now, don't worry. I didn't do nothing serious. I'm in
California and me and some boys were lightening up some gauge outside the Cotton Club.
We were having lots of laughs, maybe too many laughs, because that's
when the two big detectives came from behind the car and said to us,
we'll take the roach boys. And the next thing you know, I got
my hand behind my back. So I've been driving to the station. I
asked the cop how did it happen? And he said, listen, I'm
a big fan of your swops, but a jealous and leader at another club
tipped us off. Rather to pick you up, breaks our hearts. Nine
days I had to spend there, and I get to hear it. Meantime,
my cellies were two cops in for forty five years. They like to
fight bout yourself. Now one bit off the other finger. Finally I went
before the judge, mused to spending my sentence, and I blew my horn
that night, just like any other I had the ball that night. The
longer I was in jail, the more popular I had become. Even the
two cops that arrested me were there that night to hear me blow down the
house red beans and Rice Leurs Lewis. We were torn all over. I
remember one gig in Baltimore was as cold as a well digger's ass. We
were playing the Royal Theater was in a black neighborhood and like everywhere we went
these folks was dirt poor. Well you're freezing, Well I'm freezing too.
What two porter Ford coal that would not stand? So I ordered a ton
of coal and I had the company delivered to the lobby at the Royal Theater.
Yeah, go right ahead, get what you need. Stay warmed.
They kept coming and coming, carrying coal away in bags on their back in
their bare hands. One little boy must have been nine until he came up
to me with a big smile on his face. He took me back.
That boy, there's no difference from me and tonight. He would be warm,
tonight, he would be happy. I was so noivous. Oh,
I kept breathing deep and hard. It's my first time back in New Orleans
since I left home. I didn't know what kind of reception I expect.
Anyone even remember me, Sweet Jesus, They're stretching along the track of eight
bands, all swinging together. I barely set my feet on the ground when
the crowd picked me up on their shoulders carried me down Canal Street. All
at all, I think this was the happiest day of my life. Me
and the boys, we're going to raise the roof outs of Boyven Gardens that
night. Were the first black band to play. Everyone in the audience was
white. All High Society Joint was packed as we set up to swing it
for the white folks. Inside. There were ten thousand people outside. None
could get in. All were black. They hushed each other to hear what
they could was damned impossible. That mic in front of the bandstand, it
was for whites only. It was time for the white announcer. They introduced
me and the boys, ladies and gentlemen. I cannot introduce that nigga might.
Ladies and gentlemen. Your radio announcer will not introduce a nigga man,
So that nigga man will introduce himself. My name is Louis Obstruck, and
this is my back. Give me a hard. Ten thousand people outside,
all black, trying their best to hear. They didn't hear a lot of
music that night, but they hide something louder than music. They hide their
own time breaking down a wall. That's some kind of sweet music in it.
After spending years turning down invitations to go abroad, and finally said yes.
After England we sailed. I was going to open at the Palladium in
London. Some of those English folks, he didn't lower the mega us.
It was unbelievable. He shut his eyes, flashed his trumpet, twisted his
handkerchief. He sang in tears. He climbed up tweet notes with his neck
and his cheek so buff that I thought they were birds. What a revelation
net was. Armstrong is the ugliest man I've ever seen on a music hall
stage. He looks and acts like an untrained gorilla, like he came from
some African jungle, shoved through some slop tailor for a ready made suits and
was deposited on the stage and told to sing that last one from a critic.
I saved that one of my scrap book. But you know what,
during my whole trip to England, nobody called me nigga. Not one time.
We know Mammy falls fun of knees, Mom be sleeping time down jown.
I haven't talked about my lip jee. You think a trumpet is my
instrument, but it's not. My lip is and it takes a beating something
terrible. When I blow. I'm looking at it in the mirror between sets.
Oh good lord, it's all raw and swoll up gets so bad.
I carry lips off, but it's sorry medicine. I even get to picking
up it with a needle. And when I blow, oh hell Mary.
He was tearing his heart out. Everybody knew each time that horn touched his
lips. It was like a red hot poker to him. But he kept
blowing. He must have hit two hundred high seats. He was trying to
get all the way up to that high f. He clutched and crawled and
made that high f on his knees. He just barely made it. It
just shook the rafters in the place. He stood there in that applause,
panting his horn in one hand, his mangled lip oozing blood, and he
was smiling. Blow. And I was good at money, not so much.
Man, Show me a cat who needs some scratching. I'm pushing money
into his farm. Oh, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to return
home from the up and discover I was broke. That's where mister Glazier came
in. Joe Glazier. He was a tough sumbitch with a gangsters flag.
But he got my hat on straight and not after years away, got me
back on stage in Hall of I was there that night. The joint was
packed. He hadn't been on that stage in six years. Could he even
still blow? He was in a spotless white suit. At the way the
lights reflected off his trumpet looked like a cluster of stars. It was out
of this world. Then he blew this remarkable, seering high note. He
held that note so long swarms of women rushed the stage for us autograph.
He was signing, arms, legs, breaths. One woman took off her
pants and begged him to sign him. You know what he did. It
wasn't long before Hollywood called. They called, all right, and I did
their movies on the big screen. Couldn't dance with white folks, couldn't share
what one credit called social equality with white folks. Could much talk to white
folks, not unless I was carrying my horn inside and leaving my dignity outside.
I had to do a lot of that. I sat in from Rudy
Valley on his radio show. They told me later I was the first black
man or woman a host of sponsored national broadcast. How about that? But
most every day and every night we worked the road. On one of those
nights the road something special. I was laying in bed, staring, staring
at a Christmas tree. My wife had given it to me as a gift.
I couldn't turn out the lights. I didn't want to. I just
had to keep looking at it. I'm a grown man, been all over
the wild. But see this is the Foice Christmas tree I have had.
I couldn't tell her that. She didn't need to know. What did I
do to deserve this tree? What did I do to deserve any of it?
Times like these I feel like the luckiest man in the wild. I
see trees a green, the red roses too, I see them blue.
But me and you, that tree. It would go with me every night
at a new hotel. Every night, up goes the tree. We were
well pasted January until I could pack it up for good. That tree's coming
back onto our next year, you can bet on it. We were out
on tour in Savannah and I was out for some food. I'm in backup
a pushcart peddler with sacks of potatoes. Anybody can I buy some potatoes?
The old man turned around. Oh good lord, I was looking into the
eyes of Joe Oliver King Oliver. He gave me a little smile. I
can see it lost his teeth. And when the horn player loses his teeth,
that horn player loses his gift. Joe would never blow another note.
Joe pops, he said, and then the smile left his face, and
he turned around and gathered up some potatoes. He held them out for me
like he didn't know me, looking down in his raggedy shoes. I just
stood there. I reached into every pocket I had, and I pulled out
every last dollar, pressed all that cash into his hander, closed his hand
around it, took up cash from all the boys in the band for Joe.
Now, I want you to buy yourself a new set of clothes,
Joe today, right away. That night, we played a gig and we
played it for Joe. There he was standing in the wings, dressed in
his new suit from the pawn shop, looking shop that didn't had to turn
down, high button shoes, box back Cooke, and he was so happy
all over again. I got a letter from him later, Dipper. I
am too much of a man, I asked those that I have helped to
help me, but not too much of a band to say thank you.
My blood pressure is too high and my heart's giving out. But I'm not
afraid. I'm trying to live nearer to the Lord than ever before. Papa
Joe died two months later. He died all alone. Doctor said, what
doctor say, But I know what's true. King Oliver died of a broken
heart. It was getting hard for a lot of us out there say jazz
wasn't a new thing anymore. Now there was swinging and soon be pop.
Suddenly everything I had done, everything I stood for, seemed like it was
going out of style. I changed the times, and at the times you're
gonna mow me down. But I don't do something, I'm gonna die of
a broken heart too. But Pops still has some tricks up his sleeves.
That's next time on Pops. This has been part five of Pops. Rino
Wilson is Pops. Pops is distributed by Drop Biscuit Studios Executive producer Mike Agavino.
Pops is written by Mark Ramsey, with sound design and production by Jeff
Schmidt. Please subscribe to Pops on iTunes, Spotify, drop Biscuit Studios dot
com, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you here,
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