In addition to tons of great live music, Satchmo SummerFest included a series of eighteen seminars on all aspects of Louis Armstrong's life and career. If you missed them, never fear! You can see all of them here on WWOZ.org.
The six seminars held on Sunday, August 3, 2014 are below. Here are the other twelve seminars:
Friday, August 1, 2014 | Saturday August 2, 2014
Satchmo Seminars from Sunday, August 3, 2014
11:30 am – From the Streets to the Academy and Beyond: the Brice Miller Story
Brice Miller describes himself as “a New Orleans-based jazz musician, performance artist, music/jazz educator, scholar, lecturer, and public humanities/cultural-scholarly engagement specialist” who is deeply appreciative of the legacy of Louis Armstrong. As a musician, Miller led the popular Mahogany Brass band for over 20 years, and performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the North Sea Jazz Festival. As an educator and scholar he has worked with New Orleans public school marching bands and most recently, completed his doctorate at University of Alabama. He’ll discuss his multi-faceted life and career with interviewer Fred Kasten.
12:30 pm – Satchmo the Singer
Singer/pianist Daryl Sherman focuses on Louis Armstrong the singer and his importance to American Popular Song. With recordings and live examples, she’ll discuss lyrics, melodic line, and phrasing to show how Louis made them his own. Satchmo crossed over and outside the box with songs from Broadway, film, pop songs and brought out the best in them.
1:30 pm – Taking Louis’ Lead: Armstrong’s New Orleans Clarinetists
Acclaimed New Orleans clarinetist Evan Christopher discusses the clarinet magic of Armstrong sidemen Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, Barney Bigard and Edmond Hall. Collectively, these New Orleans reed masters and their varied approaches to creating counter-melodies to Louis’ trumpet lead represent a fascinating “how-to manual” for ensemble playing in the New Orleans style.
2:30 pm – Hello Pops!
That’s the title of the masterful, widely acclaimed 2012 cd-tribute to Louis Armstrong from renowned trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. The eight-time recipient of the Jazz Journalists Association Trombonist of the Year and DownBeat Magazine’s Critics Choice Trombonist two years running, Wycliffe Gordon credits the life, legacy and music of Louis Armstrong as a primary influence on his own life in music. He’ll talk about Armstrong’s influence, and his own burgeoning career as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, conductor, composer and educator, with interviewer Fred Kasten.
3:30 pm – Seminar All-Stars Talk and Play Pops
Back by popular demand, members of the Satchmo SummerFest All-Stars’ band – including David Ostwald, Dan Morgenstern, Ricky Riccardi and Bruce Raeburn – play and talk with Fred Kasten about the music of Louis Armstrong. A real treat!
4:30 pm – Cinematic Satch: Louis Armstrong’s Last Years
After two stints in intensive care and nearly a year off to recuperate, Louis Armstrong returned to the public spotlight in 1970 and 1971 with a series of highly-entertaining TV appearances. Ricky Riccardi returns to close out the 2014 seminars with a moving assembly of performances and interviews from the last stage of Armstrong’s career, including the last surviving television footage of Armstrong from The Dick Cavett Show, just four months before he passed away.
