© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“When Brubeck agreed to appear at the fifth annual Monterey Jazz Festival [1962], it seems that a performance of The Real Ambassadors was not yet in the cards. The contract stipulates only that the Quartet should play "one concert between 9:00 p.m. & 12:00 midnight daily" on September 22 and 23,1962. About three months in advance of the festival, Brubeck's attorney began circulating tapes of the 1961 recording sessions, before Columbia had released the album. He sent them to the jazz critic Ralph Gleason and told him that only "about ten people in the whole world have heard the tapes, including no one at Columbia!" He also mentioned that he had given one to the promoter Jimmy Lyons, "so he can think about Monterey feasibility." By the end of June, the decision to present The Real Ambassadors evidently had been made, and Iola Brubeck gave free rein to her angst about the details in a remarkable handwritten letter to Lyons. She promised to send him a complete set of lyrics, so he could arrange for the preparation of cue cards, and remarked that she "can only pray" that the principal cast members were learning their parts. Moreover, she implored him not to promise more than could be delivered:
Please, Jim, be careful in your announcements regarding the show that you make it extremely clear that this is a concert version, or excerpts from the score—not a full mounted production! If the rumor persists, everyone will expect to see a Broadway show, which, of course, they will not—and cannot. With such short rehearsal time it will be a miracle to get through it! Do not build it up as the big event! It just cannot be with so little time. Please, in ads and press releases, refer to it as a "concert version" of The Real Ambassadors.
The general unease about the upcoming presentation in Monterey was shared as well by the star of the show, Louis Armstrong. About one month out, the booking agent for both Armstrong and Brubeck told the latter that Armstrong was "quite upset" when he heard they were going to do eight numbers together, rather than just one or two. Despite his protestations that "neither of you have ever done the numbers, haven't done them together, and haven't had an opportunity to rehearse," the show went on as planned.
All indications are that the concert was a resounding success. Ralph Gleason seems to have been profoundly touched by Armstrong's performance:
Louis Armstrong . . . wound up the Monterey Jazz Festival Sunday night [September 23, 1962] with an eloquent, moving rendition of excerpts from Dave and Iola Brubeck's "The Real Ambassadors." Louis' golden horn blew the notes out into the cold night air, and his rough voice turned sweet to sing the lyrics that told of love and human dignity, and hope and inspiration___It was a difficult chore to bring off the amalgam of jazz humor, religiosity, and social comment, but the gentle charm of Louis Armstrong was equal to the job. When the performance was finished, Iola Brubeck was in tears . . . and Ambassador Satch [Armstrong] was smiling from ear to ear. The audience gave them all a standing ovation, complete with cheers. It was a deep, emotional moment. [San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 1962]
- Stephen A. Crist, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out [2019]
"No jazz album released in the last year has made a more immediate impression of freshness, vitality, and reality than THE REAL AMBASSADORS," wrote Leonard Feather in the October 25, 1962 issue of Down Beat, still chronicling Armstrong's career after so many years. "The chief strength, of course, lies in his delightfully appropriate interpretations of the songs, all of which, of course, were tailor-made for him. It is both pleasure and relief to find him tackling some new and ideally suited material instead of repeating the same tired old jazz-festival standards."
Feather concluded, "There has never before been anything quite like THE REAL AMBASSADORS in the entire history of jazz. It sets a precedent for which the Brubecks, producer Teo Macero, Columbia records, and all others concerned should be heartily congratulated."
© -Ricky Riccardi/Michael Cuscuna/Mosaic Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.
What happens next in the plot is discussed in great detail in Iola Brubeck's script, covering Armstrong's arrival in the fictional new African nation of Talgalla: "A tiny, tribal monarchy, it had been unknown and unrecognized as a nation until two great powers [Russia and the United States] simultaneously discovered its existence. Suddenly Talgalla was a nation to be reckoned with." About to have a delegation in the United Nations, the United States appointed an ambassador to Talgalla, "due to arrive momentarily." Almost simultaneously, the weeklong "Festival of Talgalla" was about to commence, a time when "the tribal social order was turned upside down for one week" and the people of Talgalla "honored their most loved citizen by crowning him king for 24 hours."
Naturally, Armstrong's plane lands in Talgalla in the middle of the Festival and as he emerges from the plane, a local greets him, "We did not expect you so soon. You are the American Ambassador, aren't you?" "That's what they call me," Armstrong responds. "Ambassador Satch." The Talgallans are overjoyed that the United States chose "such a wondrous man" as its Ambassador, immediately hoisting him onto their shoulders and singing BLOW SATCHMO, as essayed on the album by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. On Disc 7, we have included an alternate version where the vocal trio are answered from dynamic blasts of Armstrong's trumpet, even adding a bit of a typical All Stars ending. In the end, it was decided to save Armstrong's blowing on this number for the finale.
After such a joyous demonstration, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross stay put to launch THE REAL AMBASSADOR, repeatedly asking, "Who's the Real Ambassador?" to which Armstrong defiantly answers, "I'M the Real Ambassador!" The lyrics that follow might be the most autobiographical of Armstrong's career:
I'm the Real Ambassador
It is evident, I wasn't sent by government to take your place
All I do is play the blues, and meet the people face to face
I’ll explain, and make it plain, I represent the human race
And don't pretend no more.
Recording THE REAL AMBASSADORS took a lot of work and the session tapes are filled with short breakdowns and insert takes that we have chosen not to include in this set. However, we had to include Lambert, Hendricks and Ross's first attempt, with the double-timed section catching Macero by surprise ("What is this, a flag waver?” he exclaims) plus a breakdown of Armstrong's section where he makes a Freudian slip in the lyrics, singing "In our nation, segregation IS a legality," causing everyone in the studio to burst out in laughter. He wasn't wrong though; the Civil Rights Act was still three years away.
With all the celebrating and with "Pops" stepping into his role as "The Real Ambassador," he subsequently forgot about his romance with Rhonda. That's a cue for McRae to start off side 2 by singing about being jilted on IN THE LURCH, another effortless performance with a tasty solo by Brubeck, one of his only outings on the record. (Note that in the 1962 script, the Brubecks flipped the order of IN THE LURCH and THE REAL AMBASSADOR, but we're following the original sequence of the album, not any later revisions.)
But "Rhonda" needn't sulk for long. According to the script, "His brief days as official ambassador had given Pops his first taste of responsibility...He suddenly found himself thinking in terms of the future — not his future, particularly — but everybody's future. Suddenly, everything Pops thought or did began to matter. The girl — she had been just another girl in a long series of girls — suddenly she mattered very much." The stage notes to ONE MOMENT WORTH YEARS describe McRae sitting on a stool with her back to Armstrong as she opens, singing, "Must I spend a lifetime just in waiting, while others have fun?" But "Pops crosses over to Carmen's mike" as he begs to "Let me plead my case and I will win it." Indeed, he does win her over by the end of the magnificent love song, one that should be much better known. Armstrong radiates such conviction and humility, it's impossible not to fall in love with him after this performance, especially on the slower, arguably more emotional first take. The original source was problematic with some issues with McRae's microphone, plus a noticeable dropout early on, but the producers of this set realized that the musical value was too great to leave on the cutting room floor. Let's hope you agree.
Now back with Rhonda, Pops hears vesper bells at the mission. The celebration would resume the following day with the crowning of the king for a day, but "now was the time for solemnity and prayer." As the service began inside the church, Iola wrote, "Pops sat on the steps outside the church and pondered its message and the puzzle of men."
The result was THEY SAY I LOOK LIKE GOD, a mournful piece that pitted Armstrong's blues-infused singing against Gregorian chant-like lines delivered by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. The Brubecks intended the song as satire, with such lyrics as "They say I look like God, could God be black, my God! If both are made in the image of thee, could thou perchance a zebra be?" Expecting Armstrong to deliver the line with his usual jocularity, they were shocked and moved by Armstrong's chilling seriousness. Armstrong had tears in his eyes when he got to the song's final line, "When God tells man he's really free;" he repeated "really free" with haunting sincerity. "Goose pimple, I got goose pimples on this one," Louis said after recording it, according to Jack Bradley.
The session tapes contain three complete attempts at the song. The first take, except for Armstrong missing one entrance, and some hesitation behind him during the "You raised us from the dust," is surprisingly strong for such a challenging piece, Armstrong clearly taking it seriously from the start. Macero called a take 2, but Ross instead asked to go over the "Set man free" cadenzas. Another excellent, moving attempt followed, called take 3 by Macero and issued here for the first time. The following take 4 provided the basis for much of the eventual master, but even on that one, Macero called a quick timeout, almost seemingly to allow everyone to catch their breath before picking it up at the same point and taking it to the finish, Armstrong singing the final lines with tears in his eyes. According to Keith Hatschek, Jon Hendricks remembered that everyone was too emotional upon completion and a break in the session needed to be called.
After arguably the most emotionally wrenching recording of his career, we're hit with a blast of joy as Armstrong launches into SINCE LOVE HAD ITS WAY, backed by his All Stars and the Brubeck quartet, making for two rhythm sections, one playing with a swinging backbeat, the other with an almost Louis Prima-type shuffle, Iola Brubeck passed up any script notes for this and the following ballad, l DIDN'T KNOW UNTIL YOU TOLD ME, both meant to wrap up the love subplot between Pops and Rhonda.
Both performances required some extra effort to complete. On the former, Armstrong once again struggled with the tongue-twisting lyrics, Brubeck doing his best to teach him the tricky phrasing on "suddenly it's spring/There's a wedding ring/on your finger." After 8 called takes and 10 inserts, Armstrong went for himself on take 9 and delivered his own perfectly appropriate phrasing, in addition to nailing the joyous instrumental portion. On I DIDN'T KNOW UNTIL YOU TOLD ME, Brubeck planned to have Armstrong sing the lead in the second half, with McRae offering a harmony part. But in the studio. McRae suggested they switch parts. Armstrong had clearly never looked at the song before and with only the written melody in front of him, now had to improvise a harmony part on the spot. Fortunately, his training in barbershop quartets in New Orleans made the task bearable, but it still required numerous attempts, with Armstrong trying different note choices on different takes, the best being insert takes 5 and 6 (though they kept going until take 11). We have included the previously unissued complete take 5, which has a rough spot or two but is still a most affecting duel between two vocalists with undeniable chemistry and affection for each other, even though they had never met before joining forces in the studio that day.
With the love story wrapped up, it was time to set up the finale, which, once again, could have sounded a little confusing as just a listening experience on the original album. Iola wrote of the Festival of Talgalla, "Each year their ritualistic drama was enacted with fervor and hope that somehow, someday it could be translated into action. With the arrival of the trumpet playing, swinging Ambassador from ibe United States, the people of Talgalla felt that day was about to dawn. Talgalla would become a monument to freedom." As bells began to toll, Iola delivered ihe last lines of the script: "On the morning of July 10, 1961, a small child, clad in white, with a garland of flowers upon her shoulders, placed a crown upon our hero. The real ambassador was the symbol of the universal dream."
Those last words were a cue for Lambert, Hendricks and Ross to launch into SWING BELLS, effectively setting the Festival of Talgalla in motion. Armstrong enters with one delightful vocal chorus, stating the purpose of his trumpet playing to "Bring peace to earth" and "wipe out all fear." Lambert, Hendricks and Ross recorded their parts at a previous session, but Brubeck proved to be a bit of a perfectionist when it came to Armstrong, recording five takes of the single chorus on the September 12 session, then four more "remake" takes at the September 19 session and a further three attempts on September 20 before finally settling on the last one for the master. Listening to them all, the differences are negligible as Armstrong never seems to have struggled on this one, but we've still included a previously unissued alternate for variety.
Lambert, Hendricks and Ross then reprise BLOW SATCHMO without Armstrong before an African-inspired WORK SONG, as it is called on the session tapes, the singers dramatically conjuring up the darkness of slavery as they ask about "the day that we long for, the day we'll be free," praying to the Lord for help and dreaming about going to heaven, "And we will be free, Lord, the day that we die."
Matters conclude with one more reprisal of BLOW SATCHMO but this time with Satchmo himself answering the question, "What are you waiting for?" On the previously unissued first take, the 60-year-old Armstrong hurls one searing high concert F after another into the stratosphere. After the first take, Macero exclaimed in the studio, "You're gonna kill 'em! It's like Stan Kenton!"
On that heroic note, with applause presumably ringing in Dave and Iola's ears, Armstrong was tasked with the FINALE, poignantly singing the show's final lines, "Now I leave you, now I go/Now you know as much as old Satchmo." The session tape contains earlier attempts in a higher key; we've chosen one of those as an alternate take to also serve as the perfect punctuation mark for this set.
Everything described to this point was all that fit on the LP and all that was performed in Monterey, but more music was recorded at the time. Brubeck returned to the studio in December to have McRae do her own version of SUMMER SONG, as well as another ballad, EASY AS YOU GO, both not included here (but on Sony's 1994 reissue, which is still easy to find). McRae and Armstrong also teamed up at the September 13 session to record YOU SWING BABY (THE DUKE), which was eventually released on a Book-of-the-Month RARE AND UNRELEASED Armstrong boxed set in 1982 and a Columbia compilation, SINGIN' TILL THE GIRLS COME HOME in 1983.
Brubeck wanted Armstrong to familiarize himself with the number beforehand, so he gave him a copy of his own Columbia LP BRUBECK PLAYS BRUBECK, signed it "To Louis, From Dave," and circled "The Duke" on the back cover, drawing an arrow and writing, "THIS ONE" (the record can be found at the Louis Armstrong House Museum). Once more, Armstrong and McRae display terrific chemistry, McRae really sounding quite animated in the last bridge. It's also a treat to hear the Armstrong horn tackle the melody an octave higher, putting his own stamp on a line perhaps best associated with Miles Davis.
The September 19 session with the All Stars also produced NOMAD, another tongue-twister. Jack Bradley said to Armstrong after one take, "You'll get your tongue worn out with those lyrics." Armstrong replied, "More than that, I'll get my brains worn out." The first takes featured Joe Darensbourg playing a klezmer-styled clarinet intro, but he sounded shaky each time. By take 3, Brubeck played it on piano, but the released take has a much more forceful clarinet sound, making one think that someone — potentially Darensbourg, though it doesn't sound like him — must have overdubbed it. With his endless touring schedule, Armstrong doubtlessly related to the NOMAD in the lyrics. He also contributed a full-chorus trumpet solo, though earlier takes found him paying a little too much respect to the written melody, playing it quite staccato. He's much more relaxed and swinging on the master take, which didn't make it onto the album, but was issued by Columbia as a single at the time, the flip side of an edited version of SUMMER SONG.
Perhaps the most disappointing omission from the LP is the song that really got the ball rolling for this project, LONESOME. After hearing Armstrong recite the lyrics in his hotel room in 1958, Dave taped one of his audio letters, remarking, "Now I told my wife about the way you read the song LONESOME in Chicago. You didn't sing it, you just read it and it was such a moving job that I thought maybe you would be able to read this on tape and send that back to us because this wouldn't involve you singing or trying to match your voice with the backgrounds that I've sent you by my combo." He even went through the trouble of playing the melody on electric piano and singing it for Armstrong on tape.
In the studio during the final session, Brubeck first called LONESOME at a slow, steady 4/4 tempo, with Armstrong soberly playing the melody on trumpet backed just by the rhythm section. We have included one of these unissued attempts as it sounds unlike anything else in the Armstrong discography. With one of these versions locked in, Brubeck attempted a more rubato feel with just himself and trumpet. Needing a little extra something, Brubeck called in Gene Wright to supply bowed bass. Again, the result is chilling, inspiring Brubeck to yell, "That's beautiful!" upon the conclusion of one of the takes.
The final step was to have Armstrong record his haunting reading of the lyrics, which we have also included as an isolated spoken word track at the end of a rubato trumpet take. Once completed, Brubeck and Macero matched Armstrong's reading with the in-tempo and tempo-less versions, even putting them together on a separate reel marked "Audition." But in the end, LONESOME, for all of that work put into it, remained unreleased until 1994.
The use of the word "audition" is appropriate as some at Columbia referred to it in-house as "the most expensive demo ever made." Except for the lone, unrecorded performance at Monterey, THE REAL AMBASSADORS never did receive a proper stage production during Armstrong's lifetime, but the album did receive positive notices when it was issued in the summer of 1962. "No jazz album released in the last year has made a more immediate impression of freshness, vitality, and reality than THE REAL AMBASSADORS," wrote Leonard Feather in the October 25, 1962 issue of Down Beat, still chronicling Armstrong's career after so many years. "The chief strength, of course, lies in his delightfully appropriate interpretations of the songs, all of which, of course, were tailor-made for him. It is both pleasure and relief to find him tackling some new and ideally suited material instead of repeating the same tired old jazz-festival standards."
Feather concluded, "There has never before been anything quite like THE REAL AMBASSADORS in the entire history of jazz. It sets a precedent for which the Brubecks, producer Teo Macero, Columbia records, and all others concerned should be heartily congratulated." It was all true, but that didn't help record sales; THE REAL AMBASSADORS became the only one of Brubeck's Columbia recordings to actually lose money, selling roughly 1,000 copies (the 1994 CD reissue has only sold around 5,000 in 25 years). Brubeck's fans weren't pleased with their idol recording with old-fashioned Louis Armstrong; and Armstrong's fans thought Brubeck was too modern for their tastes. On top of that, without any of the play's actual dialogue, the songs sometimes seemed a bit disjointed from one another. And ultimately, songs about politics and race and the State Department weren't fodder for the pop charts in the early 1960s.
THE REAL AMBASSADORS soon disappeared from public consciousness, but both Armstrong and Brubeck remained proud of it until the end of their lives. Armstrong told Feather, "My band was on some numbers in the album, and his quartet was on some, and I did some songs with Carmen McRae — and one that thrilled me, with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. And, on another tune that Brubeck wrote, I'm just reciting while they play. I had to learn all that music, and I'd never done nothing of this kind before. Brubeck is great! Carmen is so sharp!"
For his part, Brubeck was able to stage a live version of THE REAL AMBASSADORS at Monterey in 2002, with Byron Stripling singing Armstrong's features and Roy Hargrove playing trumpet. In the years leading up to their successive passing's in 2012 and 2014, both Dave and Iola Brubeck never hesitated to talk about the importance of this project,
Iola calling it "one of the big events of our lives." "I think that's one of the important things about THE REAL AMBASSADORS is that Louis had been in many ways sort of dismissed at this point in his career as an entertainer, not to be taken too seriously," Iola told Shan Sutton of the University of the Pacific in 2007. "OK, he was great back then when he first began. But, there is a very serious and sensitive side of Louis that the rest of the world just didn't see. And, I think this is why he was attracted to doing the show, because he felt he could make a statement that was important. And then, it's interesting. Many, many years later, Louis is now restored — like he's up there where he should have been all along. But, this was in a period where he was pretty much dismissed by critics."
Nearly 50 years after his death, Louis Armstrong is still dismissed by many critics, especially when it comes to the work of his later years. The music in this set should go a long way to vanquishing any of the myths and assumptions that still cling to this period. Swinging with a big band, getting boppish with the Esquire All Stars, reuniting with New Orleans greats like Kid Ory, teaming up with his musical brother Jack Teagarden, playing the music of Handy, Waller and Brubeck, ending up on the charts with MACK THE KNIFE, putting his own spin on a Broadway show tune like CABARET, or doing his part to sell MUSIC TO SHAVE BY, Armstrong's genius never dimmed for a second in this — or any other — part of his career.
Armstrong got a kick out of telling people he made a record with Dave Brubeck. "Brubeck!?" came the reply. "Yeah!" Armstrong shot back. "I'll play with anybody, man, are you kidding? That's my hustle. Good, too!"
More than good, he remained Satchmo the Great until the very end.”
—Ricky Riccardi September 2020
The following is modified from my original posting on The Real Ambassadors.
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