The scene was Louis Armstrong’s sitting-room. We had just been watching a selection of home-made films on a cinematograph machine which the trumpet king bought last year. It is one of his proudest possessions, and he always takes a great deal of joy in running through some of the pictures he and Alpha have taken in various corners of Europe and America.

I wish you could have seen Louis just then. The success of his cinema performance and the presence of a number of friends combined to put him in great spirits. The pictures had been accompanied by a series of good records, and occasionally there came the thrill of hearing Louis give vent to a spontaneous burst of song. As a special favour for he is a modest soul I had been allowed to play, during the last reel, his own famous record of "Confessin’," which he had played for me by request on the stage last time I went to see him.

A Great Disc "It’s still a grand record, Louis," I said as it ended.

"D’ya like it? Remember when I played that number for you the other day?"

"Yes, I remember... and as a matter of fact I enjoyed this record even more, frankly. You don’t mind my saying that?"

Louis was surprised, but not offended. With a broad grin he asked me why I preferred hearing the record to seeing him do the same number on the stage. I told him there were several reasons: firstly, of course, the unparalleled set of men he had behind him in the record, the lovely backing of the vocal by Hawaiian guitar, and his own glorious climax which made the whole thing seem so symmetrical. I expect you all know the disc well enough to realize what I mean. As to the stage version, there had been one or two disturbing factors, I explained the band, a certain amount of gallery-courting technique and the unfortunate distortions of an amplifier which had either been fixed up in too much of a hurry, or else just couldn’t cope with the volume when Louis got close to the mike.

"In fact," I concluded," the best way to listen to your music, or anyone else’s, if it comes to that, is in one’s own home, on a good electric gramophone."

"My, my, my!" cried Louis. "D’ya mean that serious?... I reckon a phonograph record ain’t worth half as much as a personal appearance or even a radio concert. Folks get much more kick out of a show when they know the cats are playin’ while they’re listenin’: that’s what makes ‘em go to the stores afterwards and buy the records."

Publicity Value "No , you’re wrong," I replied, "so far as this country’s concerned, anyway. People were buying your records in thousands long before anyone ever dreamed you’d appear or broadcast in this country. When you came over, everybody flocked to see you because of the reputation you’d made on records. And apart from the publicity value of records, think of the perfect performances you get on them. That’s why I feel you’re pretty certain to get hot music at its best on the gramophone."

Louis had to admit the reputation his discs had built up for him. But he disagreed on the question of performance on records. "When the boys get together in the studio," he declared, "they’re all kinda nervous; there’s so much waitin’ about an’ everything it ain’t so easy to make records. Then they gotta take care where they’re placed during the solos: they gotta think about a million things at once, and sometimes it spoils the performance. It’s like Johnny Hammond said in The Melody Maker not so long ago.* That’s why you get people like Rex Stuart losin’ themselves like Rex did in Bugle Call Rag and Chinatown. Now I can tell you Rex is one of the swellest trumpet men in Harlem you certainly oughta hear him swing with the cats at the Roseland! But as soon as he gets inside the studio bang! it all goes."

And here I had to agree, too. But surely, I added, this nervousness betrayed itself just as destructively at important concerts? After all, in the case of most records, if a serious error is made, part of the disc can be recorded again, and the results patched together, so that the final product is a composite of the best work of each soloist. But when a soloist is about to take a chorus on the stage, he knows that every note he plays, right or wrong, will reach the public ear. He has to reach perfection right away.

Stage Tension Louis saw another point slipping away, and tried to retrieve it. "Well," he replied guardedly, "when he’s on the stage maybe you don’t notice so much. After all, there’s the excitement of seein’ the boys swing for the first time, and you can get a lot of fun watching what’s goin’ on with each separate instrument."

"That’s just what I have against personal appearances, As you say, for the first few times, of course, they are extremely thrilling and interesting. But later on, when the novelty’s worn off, the visual point of view’s nothing more than a distraction, really. If we want to believe in music for music’s sake, then it ought to appeal to one of our senses only the sense of hearing, in fact. But when we go to watch, say, Ellington at the Palladium, we have our eyes clogging our brains with gaudy settings, tap-dances, Freddy Jenkins being funny and so on. There’s nothing you can get, musically, on the stage under those conditions, that you can’t get just as well or better in your own sitting-room with a gramophone."

A Score!

Here Louis waxed almost indignant. "Say, d’you mean to tell me you’d rather hear the Duke’s brass section at home than in the theatre? Didn’t everybody notice the difference in tone, and volume, when he came over here?"

Clearly a score for Louis!

"Mm...yes, there you’re quite right. But that brass is literally unique. In most other cases, the studios can deal with everything adequately."

"How about all the brass playin’ you get on the stage?"

"Oh, I don’t know...recording in the bass register’s pretty nearly perfect nowadays, you know..."

"Huh, maybe. But it ain’t just a question of recordin’; you gotta look at it from the standpoint of the artist. Now you listen to a band like Don Redman, see, say on the radio you’ll get a totally different impression from just listenin’ to the records. Don’s one of the greatest arrangers of ‘em all. Yeah, man!"

"Well, I certainly wish I could hear him on the radio and judge for myself; in his case the recording definitely hasn’t done him justice." By now I felt on slippery ground; Louis was clearly getting the best of the argument.

"I mean American radio, of course," he added. "Over here it’s quite a different job doin’ work for your BBC."

"Over here there aren’t so many people to use it."

"Even then," Louis continued, "if your radio was organized same as ours, it’d be the same thing, like in the States the radio industry’d cut the phonograph industry right out. Why over there it just broke the record companies; know why? ‘Cause people could enjoy a good radio program without botherin’ to go buy records. They could always hear the best hot music or anything they liked by just choosin’ their own station."

"Do you honestly think that means that hot music is heard to greater advantage on the radio?"

"Sure, I do."

"Well, perhaps you’re right about the States, but over here radio definitely plays second fiddle to records. You get bands playing down to the public, just as they do on the stage; and there’s a constant background, in most cases, of noise. Cutlery and dancers and similar evils. If "

"That’s all atmosphere, though,..." Louis hesitated a little. One pretty definite point back to me, I noted.

"It may be atmosphere, but to anyone who wants to appreciate music it’s just a damn nuisance. Of course, atmosphere in Harlem or at the Roseland must be quite a different thing, but for the purposes of the argument I’m only dealing with Europe. Now even your own relay from the Palladium last year was a little disappointing because it was difficult to tell just what was going on. You couldn’t entertain two different audiences at once, so those who’d paid for their amusement got all the benefit, and the listeners had to suffer."

Louis again jumped at the opportunity for a big point: "How about my broadcasts from Holland?"

"One to you, Louis," I agreed. "You’re right. It was a big thrill every number: even with the atmospherics. "

"‘Statics’ to you," I translated. "But it’s not often you get a radio performance as completely successful as that. And as far as radio’s concerned, think of the simple and obvious advantages of the gramophone being able to choose your own program in a moment, your own artists, and make comparisons between any two records "

"But on the radio sometimes you get commentaries ‘n’ explanations," argued Armstrong, "and you don’t have to bother ‘bout changin’ the records. You just lie back and enjoy it."

"Well, judging by the way gramophones are improving, there’s not much in that nowadays. You can get a record changer for a few pounds that’ll give you half-and-hour’s music straight off."

"Ah," said Louis, wagging a finger, "but there’s plenty of folks that still have to wind it up before every record, and get lousy tone on a cheap portable. They could get much better tone on a radio for the same money. And then there’s another thing: companies don’t let the boys compose anything more’n three minutes long. Sometimes they have to cut the compositions down to fit ‘em on a ten-inch record. One up to me?"

I let him have it.