Jazz Condition -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

New Orleans is planning a massive celebration of native son Louis Armstrong's birthday from August 2-4. Music, food, a jazz mass, a club crawl and panel discussions featuring esteemed speakers from the jazz world promise a celebration to remember. The main event will focus on Armstrong's musical innovation and his legacy to the world.

Approximately five sessions will be held each day, with presentations, interviews and panel discussions from nearly 30 local, national and international jazz historians and Armstrong scholars. Most of the sessions will be at Louisiana State Museum's Old U.S. Mint.

There will be free live music throughout the French Quarter from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Some of the best local, traditional, brass, and contemporary jazz bands will give their tributes to Satchmo, including Wendell Brunious, Duke Heitger & the Steamboat Stompers, Dukes of Dixieland and Armstrong protégé Chris Clifton & His All Stars.

Other Armstrong-themed special events throughout the weekend will be coordinated with the Jazz Centennial Celebration and the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club.

Jazz critic Stanley Crouch opens the celebration on Friday with a keynote address, "Blues for Tomorrow." Then comes Michael Cogswell, Director of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives at Queens College. He will provide a glimpse into Armstrong's personality with a multi-media presentation using audio, video and slides from Archives' collection.

Bruce Raeburn then offers "Louis Armstrong: Playing With Words." Raeburn, jazz historian and curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University, will screen Armstrong's two earliest surviving films from 1932 and address his use of the song "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You" in both.

After lunch the conference continues with "Recollections of Satchmo," with George Avakian, Armstrong's producer in the 1950s and 1960s, interviewed by Dan Morgenstern, Director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University and former editor of Down Beat.

Both will share personal insights on the life and times of their friend Satchmo. Robert G. O'Meally, jazz writer and Director of the Columbia University Center for Jazz Studies, follows with "Satchmo Smiles: The Humor of Louis Armstrong," analyzing Satchmo's good humor, with audio and video clips, while considering how his "comic mask" affects the way we hear his music.

That evening historian and writer Tad Jones leads a "Walking Tour of Louis Armstrong's New Orleans," an informative tour of the historical benchmarks of Armstrong's childhood -- starting from the corner of Poydras and South Rampart Streets and continuing throughout the "Back O'Town" Red Light District.

The tour ends at the Eagle Saloon/Odd Fellows Masonic Ballroom at South Rampart and Perdido Streets, with complimentary refreshments courtesy of the South Rampart Street Jazz & Neighborhood Renaissance Project.

Saturday's program starts with "Louis Armstrong: The Musician." David Ostwald of the Gully Low Jazz Band and Dan Morgenstern explore Armstrong's contributions to jazz and examine his stylistic and technical innovations. After Gayle Hazelwood, Superintendent of the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, and Jack Stewart, local preservationist, jazz historian, musician and member of the New Orleans Jazz Commission, discuss the history, growth and future development plans for Armstrong Park in New Orleans, the conference moves to a panel on Armstrong and Louis Prima, "Dueling Louies."

Tad Jones and Garry Boulard, journalist and author of "Just a Gigolo: The Life and Times of Louis Prima," compare the lives and careers of two of New Orleans' most celebrated trumpet heroes.

Stanley Crouch then joins Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation President David Gold and Phoebe Jacobs, Executive Vice President of the foundation and long-time friend of Louis and Lucille Armstrong, to provide commentary following the premiere of a documentary, "Living Legacy of Louis Armstrong," about Louis Armstrong centennial tributes in New Orleans.

Richard Sudhalter follows with "Stardust Melody: The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael." "Modes of Reception: The Influence of Louis Armstrong" features Lawrence Gushee, Professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois at Urbana--Champagne, outlining how Armstrong's jazz contemporaries heard and responded to his music.

"Armstrong on Film" will be hosted by Jack Bradley, a life-long friend of Armstrong and the foremost collector of Armstrong memorabilia. The program presents film excerpts from Bradley's private collection spanning the 1930s-1970s, and comments on Armstrong's abiding image as the first black American crossover artist and media star.

Sunday's program opens with "Satchmo Comes to Saigon," with Joshua Berrett, Professor of Music at Mercy College of Dobbs Ferry, New York, explaining the dramatic function of Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" in the 1987 film "Good Morning. Vietnam." In "The Life and Times of 'Kid' Ory," John McCusker, local photographer, jazz tour guide and biographer of Edward "Kid" Ory, leads a discussion on Ory, the Creole jazz legend who, in New Orleans, employed Armstrong and, in Chicago, was a member of Armstrong's Hot Five. Michael Meckna, Professor of Music History and Musicology at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, then investigates Armstrong's response to the Civil Rights crisis in the late 1950s in "Louis Armstrong Blows Up Little Rock."

After jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis, who has worked with Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson and led the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, shares his thoughts on Armstrong and pays homage to Pops with Lolis Eric Elie, author and Times-Picayune columnist, the conference wraps up with a panel discussing "Memories of Louis," a Raeburn-moderated discussion of New Orleans notorious Storyville district and another program of memorabilia from Bradley's collection.