John Loengard (1934–2020)

A photographer, prominent in the pages of Life. The New York Times has an obituary.

I’ve posted a number of Loengard photographs from the Life Photo Archive, mostly of Louis Armstrong. Someone needs to tell the Times: in one of Loengard’s photographs, Armstrong is applying salve to his lips because they endured considerable damage from his trumpet playing. It was not a matter of “chapped lips.”

I guess that someone will be me.

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[“Musician Louis Armstrong (L) in his neighborhood barber shop.” Photograph by John Loengard. Queens, New York, 1965. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a much larger view.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

“Musician Louis Armstrong waving to the audience seated at back of the stage.” Photograph by John Loengard. Manchester, United Kingdom, 1965. From the Life Photo Archive.

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901.

WKCR-FM is playing Armstrong all day.

Related reading
All Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[“Rear view of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong waving to a crowd of adoring fans as their applause rolls over him.” Photograph by John Loengard, 1965. Via the Life photo archive.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901.

A few Armstrong posts
Armstrong and Arlen, blues and weather
The day Louis Armstrong made noise
Invisible man: Louis Armstrong and the New York Times
“Self-Reliance” and jazz
Louis Armstrong, collagist
Louis Armstrong’s advice

National Coffee Day

[“Diner.” Photograph by John Loengard. 1962. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

Here in the United States, it is National Coffee Day. The Wilbur Curtis decanter is as recognizable as ever.

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[“Musician Louis Armstrong with neighborhood kids.” Photograph by John Loengard. Queens, New York, 1965. From the Life Photo Archive.]

From “Our Neighborhood” (c. 1970):

When my wife Lucille + I moved into this neighborhood there were mostly white people. A few Colored families. Just think — through the (29) years that we′ve been living in this house′ we have seen just about (3) generations come up on this particular block — 107 Street between 34th + 37th Ave. Lots of them have grown up — Married′ had Children. Their Children + they still come and visit — Aunt Lucille + Uncle Louis.

Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words, ed. Thomas Brothers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. Columbia University’s WKCR is playing Armstrong today.

In light of current events, I’ll borrow from something I said I said to my students when I played a recording in class not long after a 2013 mass killing: There are people whose work is to perpetrate suffering, and there are people whose work is to create joy. Musicians engage in that second endeavor.

Nobody more so than Louis Armstrong.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

[I’ve followed the editor’s use of the prime for the apostrophe, a mark Armstrong used to convey emphasis.]

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[Louis Armstrong. Photograph by John Loengard. Undated. From the Life Photo Archive.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. My title for this photograph: Bodhisattva at Work.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[“Closeup of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong massaging his lips w. balm to keep them strong for playing his trumpet.” Photograph by John Loengard. New York, 1965. From the Life Photo Archive.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901.

The plaudits will continue for some time yet. But the sift of time is unceasing: soon we shall be looking at Louis over a gap of five years, then ten. The books will come out (how about a selection of his letters?); the wilful tide of taste will turn. Armstrong will become as distant as [King] Oliver. What will the twenty-first century say of him?

Philip Larkin, “Armstrong’s Last Goodnight,” in All What Jazz: A Record Diary, 1961–1971 (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1985).

What indeed? It might say something like this:

Hello all,

This is the twenty-first century speaking. I am happy to report that Louis Armstrong’s music is alive and well in me. I shall now repair to my listening rooms, to listen.

Sincerely yours, &c.

[Armstrong used a salve made by the German trombonist Franz Schuritz. It became known as Louis Armstrong Lip Salve. The physical toll of Armstrong’s trumpet-playing is a grisly story; the index of Terry Teachout’s Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009) has sixteen entries for “lip damage.” A book with letters, Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words: Selected Writings (Oxford University Press) appeared in 2001. A book of Armstrong’s collages, Steven Brower’s Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong (Harry N. Abrams) appeared in 2009. Like Bird, Armstrong lives.]

A few Armstrong posts
Armstrong and Arlen, blues and weather
The day Louis Armstrong made noise
Invisible man: Louis Armstrong and the New York Times
Louis Armstrong’s advice
Louis Armstrong, collagist
On Louis Armstrong’s birthday (2010)
“Self-Reliance” and jazz

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[“Musician Louis Armstrong signing autographs for neighborhood kids.” Photograph by John Loengard. Queens, New York, 1965. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901.

What I love about this photograph: the food (is that red beans and rice?) and the Coca-Cola must wait. The kids come first.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

Jimmy Durante, Beat poet?

[Photograph by John Loengard, 1962, from the Life photo archive.]

Note the cap, beret, and turtleneck: Jimmy Durante and Peter Lawford are doing a beatnik routine. (They're even wearing fake goatees.)

And now I'm imagining Allen Ginsberg's Howl, Durante-style: "I saw da best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starvin', hysterical, ha-cha-cha-cha!" "Mrs. Calabash! I'm with you in Rockland, or wherever you are."