What Did I Do To Be So, Black And Blue

Louis Armstrong’s performance of “(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue”, along with many of his other works, helped establish the “bluesy” feeling as part of Jazz’s harmonic foundation. In observing Armstrong’s performances, the meaning of his lyrics and the emotion behind the words are what helped makes jazz music so unique. Some of the lyrics that he sings, such as “I’m white… inside… but, that don’t help my case…” helped give Jazz expressivity as well as shows how Jazz could be very blue. Louis’ voice while singing this particular song comes off as sad or down. There seems to be a lot of emotion and pain behind his words. This is some of the expression in Jazz music that helped to set Jazz apart from most other music, which at the time was more upbeat and happy. With Armstrong being able to sing and play, along with his creativity and ability to throw together his own style within the music, he helped to bring improvisation into jazz music. Armstrong essentially is the main reason that Jazz is soloist music. Edith Wilson’s version of “Black and Blue” has a much more soother and slower background compared to Louis Armstrong’s. She describes many of the discriminations that happen
I believe that he was a good advocate but not an effective one. My reasons why are because he was not looked up to by everybody. Armstrong was constantly criticized for certain choices that he had made. One of these choices was that Armstrong had appeared in multiple movies where he would be wearing stereotypical clothes such as leopard skins or talking in a stereotypical way. This did not please the Black community and Armstrong was thought to be okay with playing into these stereotypical roles. Another choice that he made that, although he was pleased with, did not please others was in 1949 when Armstrong appeared in a parade as King of the Zulu Social club wearing black