happy fourth, part 2
Saturday, 4. August 2007, 06:23:42
happy fourth of august!!! -- today is one of my high holy days, and i do mean high...
in fact, today is an international high holy day, as it marks the date on which Louis Armstrong, the most revolutionary musician of the twentieth century, who taught the world not only how to swing, but how to sing and how to solo, would have thought himself a year and a month older than he had been the previous calendar year... and, he would have been wrong... since Armstrong's death, it has been discovered through baptismal records, that today, august fourth, is his actual (or, what i prefer to call, his "after-the-factual") birthday...
Armstrong was not only unaware that he celebrated his birthday on the wrong day, but that he was a full year and a month younger than he believed himself to be his entire life... all he knew was when, as a child, he asked his mother, "when was i born?", she told him he was born on independence day, in the year of the riots, which occured in 1900, and Louis had no reason to doubt her... one need look no further for a mark of sincerity in Armstrong's mistaken belief that he had been born on July 4, 1900, than the fact that he registered for the draft in force during WWI; a full year and a month before he was actually eligible for the draft... not exactly the actions of a man who chose the date for its symbolic associations, nor one who had it thrust on him in his early career as a publicity stunt, or even a man who was simply attempting to appear a year older than he actually was...
the fact that Armstrong has two birthdays starkly illustrates that one needn't travel too far back into american history, to find individuals who were completely illiterate, temporally as well as in the usual sense of the word, associating important life events not with specific dates, but tied to significant events...
if you are in NYC on august 4th, you can hear WKCR's twice-anual aural celebration of Armstrong, from midnight on the 4th through midnight on the 5th (local time, UTC -4) at 89.9 on the FM dial; if you don't live close enough to new york to pick up WKCR's signal, can always listen to WKCR's live audio stream, which comes in 2 flavors:
and, if you read this after the fourth, you can still listen to archived tributes to Louis Armstrong (as well as a number of other festivals and marathons, from Bix Beiderbeck to Ornette Coleman) -- there's also the wealth of archived materials of Armstrong's precedent shattering early recordings at RedHotJazz.org
don't ever forget: Pops is Tops!
in fact, today is an international high holy day, as it marks the date on which Louis Armstrong, the most revolutionary musician of the twentieth century, who taught the world not only how to swing, but how to sing and how to solo, would have thought himself a year and a month older than he had been the previous calendar year... and, he would have been wrong... since Armstrong's death, it has been discovered through baptismal records, that today, august fourth, is his actual (or, what i prefer to call, his "after-the-factual") birthday...
Armstrong was not only unaware that he celebrated his birthday on the wrong day, but that he was a full year and a month younger than he believed himself to be his entire life... all he knew was when, as a child, he asked his mother, "when was i born?", she told him he was born on independence day, in the year of the riots, which occured in 1900, and Louis had no reason to doubt her... one need look no further for a mark of sincerity in Armstrong's mistaken belief that he had been born on July 4, 1900, than the fact that he registered for the draft in force during WWI; a full year and a month before he was actually eligible for the draft... not exactly the actions of a man who chose the date for its symbolic associations, nor one who had it thrust on him in his early career as a publicity stunt, or even a man who was simply attempting to appear a year older than he actually was...
the fact that Armstrong has two birthdays starkly illustrates that one needn't travel too far back into american history, to find individuals who were completely illiterate, temporally as well as in the usual sense of the word, associating important life events not with specific dates, but tied to significant events...
if you are in NYC on august 4th, you can hear WKCR's twice-anual aural celebration of Armstrong, from midnight on the 4th through midnight on the 5th (local time, UTC -4) at 89.9 on the FM dial; if you don't live close enough to new york to pick up WKCR's signal, can always listen to WKCR's live audio stream, which comes in 2 flavors:
and, if you read this after the fourth, you can still listen to archived tributes to Louis Armstrong (as well as a number of other festivals and marathons, from Bix Beiderbeck to Ornette Coleman) -- there's also the wealth of archived materials of Armstrong's precedent shattering early recordings at RedHotJazz.org
don't ever forget: Pops is Tops!
