My appreciation of jazz was piqued when I travelled to Greece in 2000. Wherever we went on tour buses, on island hopping ships, in romantic hotel hideaways, the music that was piped in for our amusement was Louis Armstrong. He is not dead in Greece, he rules.
Actually on board ship, the ship's band played Louis Armstrong, and the white Greek sang his songs and his voice was like an Elvis impersonator's but convincing. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and Louis Armstrong's work lives on and probably influences the thoughts and motivations of those people living in Greece who are exposed to his music.
I remember seeing Louis Armstrong performing on television and I am tempted to say it was on the Ed Sullivan show but I would have to check my memory with fact. The only facts that most of us know about jazz was that it originated in New Orleans, Louisianna, or maybe I am wrong. That it was developed by musicians who were into progressive music and thus the term progressive jazz was formulated and that jazz musicians were a proud advocate of real American music mixed with Negro spirituals. I could be wrong.
What is of interest though is that countries like Greece that are amusingly anti American for you see they see America as being a land that discriminates and has racial bias. What is of interest is that countries like Greece who are anti American because they are not afraid of criticizing America since they are openly under the protection of Russia, what I see as of interest is that Greece has chosen Louis Armstrong, his music that is, because it is for them a symbol of an artist who was in their eyes probably disciminated against and managing by sheer will power to produce a music that is like magic. Actually to hear the music of Louis Armstrong played on board a tour bus is magical when looking out and seeing the ruins of thousand of years and remembering.
Jazz took a turn for the worst though when a certain politician assumed its identity. I don't think musicians should be assumed by politicians. But that is my personal bias. Jazz and the saxophone and Louis Armstrong, are hitting Greece like an American success story being emulated by a self important Greek intellectual class probably to the financial detriment of their own struggling secret majority.
And, perhaps, that is what jazz is, a minority of musicians, without racial conscienceness playing music and hitting notes for their own entertainment and for the good of their own souls. If jazz is a mixture of American swing and Negro spiritual then playing Louis Armstrong in Greece is an mixture of ancient classic and modern imitation.
Learn more about this author, Nora Nick Katsourakis.
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