Louis Armstrong & King Oliver
The Power of Mentors
"At age eleven Armstrong was sent to a home for juvenile delinquents and stayed there for 18 months. He loved playing various instruments in the marching band, working his way up to the cornet under the tutelage of the director, Peter Davis. After he left the home he started hanging around older musicians, asking if he could sit in and play with them. Eventually he knew enough tunes to substitute in a pinch. Oliver become his idol. Like Armstrong, Oliver had dark skin, was raised with church music and blues, and had no father in his life. Oliver noticed his progress and invited him to his house for lessons at his kitchen table, teaching him "the modern way of phrasing on the cornet," as Armstrong described it. Oliver taught by example and by verbal instruction how to play a strong lead and not get lost in "figurations," how to play second and thus contribute to collective improvisation, how to attack notes with punch and sustain them with fire."
-Thomas Brothers
Citations
Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2014. 5. Print.
Joseph "King Oliver" & Louis Armstrong. ca. 1918. Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans. Web. http://www.knowla.org/image/105/&ref=entry&refID=837.
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