Required Listening - Potato Head Blues

Louis Armstrong was the innovator of many great steps forward in jazz. He changed vocal styles, recording styles, even the way solos are performed. A fantastic example of this is the 1927 recording of Potato-Head Blues.

The actress Talullah Bankhead said she played this song in her dressing room for it's‘invigorating effect’. In Woody Allen's 1979 film, Manhattan, his character Isaac Davis lists this recording as one of the reasons that life is worth living. That may be an exaggeration, but then again I’ve never needed to make a list to prove life is worth living.

In many ways it’s a perfect performance – fun for the audience, innovative and original, and a great showcase of talent. Really, what more does a song need?

Listen to it. The music races forward from the first second with Armstrong’s horn providing a swinging melody as the clarinet rises above to echo the feeling. Then the trumpet breaks off to perform a solo with only the banjo as accompaniment. The again clarinet in a higher register as the trumpet halts but the banjo continues its strumming rhythm. The trumpet comes back and the band gives stop-time backup. The trumpet solos shadow Armstrong’s famous singing style (or his singing shadows his famous trumpet style). The song comes together at the end as the ensemble joins to meld the parts together.

This song pushed forward trumpet playing, changed the way solos were recorded, was innovative in its use of time (using breaks during the clarinet solo, syncopated rhythm, and stop-time during the solo), and changed the way ensembles played with more focus on solos. Jazz ensembles were less like a mini-orchestra and more a collection of creative individuals who had their own voice and style.

This is one of the important points in the musical timeline where individuality and creativity won out over petulant pop preferences – and won big enough to keep jazz that way for decades.