“Potato Head Blues,” Lois Armstrong and His Hot Five, 1927. Nearly every great original jazz composition has been recorded a multitude of times except this one. As Miles said four decades later, ”You can’t top it, so you just stand there in awe of it.” My jazz professor in college, Bill Evans, told us in class that it would be as if some sculptor wanted to dabble with Michelangelo’s David. “Potato Head Blues” is a perfect performance from the opening second to the closing beat. Louiss stop-time solo....really, would anyone in their right mind try to replicate it or improve on it? Thomas Ward once called this recording, “one of the most astonishing accomplishments in all of twentieth century music.” “Potato Head Blues” also inspired Woody Allen to list it as a reason to live in his masterpiece, Manhattan: “ Why is life worth living? Well, there are certain things I guess that make it all worthwhile: Groucho Marx; The Second Movement of the Jupiter Symphony; Willie Mays; Swedish movies; Sentimental Education by Flaubert; Frank Sinatra; Those Incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne; Louis Armstrong’s version of ‘Potato Head Blues’…”
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 10:54:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015