Louis Armstrong & Paul Whiteman: Two Kings of Jazz.(Book Review)

Louis Armstrong & Paul Whiteman: Two Kings of Jazz, by Joshua Berrett. Yale University Press (P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520), 2004. 242pp. $30.

This book provides a fascinating picture of two towering figures in the development of jazz: one, Paul Whiteman, is now largely overlooked in favor of Louis Armstrong, typically seen as the "King of Jazz." But it was not always so--that title was once given to Whiteman--and Joshua Berrett makes a compelling case for the contributions of the classically trained Whiteman, a musician whose efforts to promote "symphonic jazz" led to the commissioning of George Gershwin to create his epochal Rhapsody in Blue.

Whiteman was well ahead of his time, hiring black musicians and fiercely defending them when it was not politically correct to do so. One also finds that many great names in the history of American jazz and popular music, such as Bing Crosby, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden and Bix Beiderbecke, honed their craft as part of Whiteman's organization. Whiteman's major role was promoter and impresario, in charge of hiring the best performers and arrangers in the business, such as Ferde Grofe and Bill Challis, while Armstrong clearly was more elemental in creating and performing talent.

Growing up fatherless in New Orleans (in contrast to Whiteman's childhood under a dictatorial father in ...