Creating the Jazz Solo: Louis Armstrong & Barbershop Harmony

As if the origins of Jazz weren’t already mired in countless controversial theories and myth (founded and unfounded, scholarly or otherwise), along comes Vic Hobson’s, new book, Creating the Jazz Solo: Louis Armstrong & Barbershop Harmony, with yet another radical, but beautifully argued new position on the subject. According to musicology Ph.D., Hobson, it was barbershop quartet singing and its “ear” arranging methods that specifically gave rise and form to Louis Armstrong’s trumpet playing, and ultimately shaped his solos, which, by extension, influenced all of Jazz (from Armstrong’s position as a seminal pioneer and trendsetter of early Jazz). Meticulously and systematically calling on civil, school, church, and newspaper records, eyewitness oral histories, and a great many of Satchmo’s own accounts (spoken, televised, written or performed—including those slightly dubious and not) Hobson vividly lays out (without pretense of scholarly authority) the earliest, and less explored years of Armstrong’s vocal and musical development prior to 1920. Hobson’s premise aside, the book is engaging and worthwhile reading filling in the details of Louis’ earliest musical years—particularly those before and during his days detained at the Waif’s Home- before he began playing trumpet. While a technical understanding of music theory adds value and support to H