The Real Ambassadors by Ricky Riccardi and Mosaic Records with an Introduction by Stephen A. Crist - Part2

 © 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.

I got caught up in listening to the music on The Real Ambassadors [Columbia CK 57663] when it was first issued but hearing the music again after all these years in this expanded Mosaic Records format just left me spellbound. At times, listening to Pops really tugged at my heartstrings.

The artistry on these recording is resplendent to such a degree that it becomes all-absorbing.

And, the music is in places very reminiscent as nine of the twenty songs that make up The Real Ambassadors were previously recorded by Dave’s quartets under the same, or, different titles. Dave and Iola later added lyrics and incorporated them into the larger framework of their Jazz opera [the libretto is there but the theatrical setting is missing].

So listening to The Real Ambassadors sends you off to the record collection searching for when you first heard these tunes by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. [Just to prove, of course, that either you’ve still got it, or you’re not losing it – depending on your point-of-view.]

For example: I Didn’t Know Until You Told Me, a feature for Carmen McRae with Pops harmonizing the ending, was originally Curtain Time from the quartet’s Jazz Impressions of the U.S.A. about which Dave wrote:

“Curtain Time is like a pencil sketch of Broadway, a mere suggestion of what the full-color painting should be with strings, brass and the full complement of a theatre orchestra. All we have here of the real pit band is the soft tinkle of the triangle in the opening bars. The rest of the or­chestration is for you to paint as the four of us try to conjure some of the excite­ment and glamour of a Broadway musical at curtain time.”

The piece retains its lightness and gentleness when Carmen performs it as I Didn’t Know Until You Told Me and having Pops do the harmony at the end is so unexpectedly perfect – a moment in time.

Carmen also is the primary vocalist on In the Lurch, which adds lyrics to Dave’s Two-Part Contention, previously performed on Brubeck Plays Brubeck [Columbia CK-65722] solo piano album and is also a featured piece by the quartet on their recording from the group’s 1956 appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival [Columbia CL 932; SRCS 9522].

Mercifully for Carmen, the structure of In the Lurch is revised a bit from this description by Dave of the more complicated original:

"Two-Part Contention is divided into three sections, marked by three tempo changes. The first is a medium tempo; the second, slow; and the last, a fast tempo. The written portion of this tune is heard in the opening 32 bars. These two melodic lines are repeated throughout the piece. In the second section (slow tempo) I introduced a pattern of answering the right hand with the left hand, abruptly changing the register of the piano. In the third (fast) section, I tried to improvise within the limitation of two lines in the first chorus.”

Everybody’s Comin’, the tongue-twisting, jaw-cracking opening track is based on Everybody’s Jumpin’ from the Time Out album [Columbia CK-65122] with the 6/4 time signature of the original replaced by a straight 4/4 call and response between Pops and the LHR that serves to summon the faithful to the celebration.

To my ears, one of the great surprises on The Real Ambassadors is Pops’ performance on Nomad. The original version of the tune is contained on Jazz Impressions of Eurasia [Columbia CK 48351] and features a sultry, very Middle Eastern sounding alto saxophone played by the late Paul Desmond over Joe Morello’s use of tympani mallets on tom toms.

As described by Dave, the effect he was trying to achieve in Nomad was “the intricacies of Eastern rhythms … suggested by … superimposing three against the typical Jazz four.”

This Nomad is taken at a slower tempo to give Pops a chance to enunciate its clever lyrics. Clarinet replaces the alto and Joe’s tom toms are subdued while the beat is carried on a tambourine. Pops sings the first and third choruses and then takes an instantly recognizable Satchmo trumpet solo on the middle chorus which switches to straight 4/4 time.

Yet, despite these changes, The Real Ambassadors’ Nomad still evokes Dave’s intent when he originally wrote the piece: “I tried to capture the feeling of the lonely wanderer. The steady rhythm is like the ever-plodding gait of the camel, and the quicker beats are like the nomadic drums or the clapping of hands.”

It’s a credit to Pops’ genius that he could take music that is so recognizably Brubeckian and make it his own without changing the inner spirit of the piece.

Other previously recorded tunes that were converted by Dave and Iola for use in The Real Ambassadors include My One Bad Habit [My One Bad Habit is Falling In Love from The Dave Brubeck Quartet in Europe]; You Swing, Baby [The Duke from Jazz Red Hot & Cool, Brubeck Plays Brubeck and The Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Newport Jazz Festival]; Swing Bells [Brubeck Plays Brubeck], One Moment Worth Years [Brubeck Plays Brubeck]; Summer Song [Time Signatures].

The Real Ambassadors by Ricky Riccardi and Mosaic Records with an Introduction by Stephen A. Crist - Part 1

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

HIGH HOPES FOR BROADWAY

“In 1959, while Brubeck's manager was obsessively planning a tour to Australia and New Zealand, Dave and Iola Brubeck were intently focused on their dream of producing a musical on Broadway. This never came to pass, although music from The Real Ambassadors was recorded in 1961 and subsequently released as an album (Columbia CL 5850), and a concert version (with Iola as narrator) was performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September 1962.

Dave and Iola Brubeck conceived the idea in 1956 of writing a musical together." During the first couple of years, they shared their plans with only a select group of close associates. For instance, toward the end of 1957 Dave sent to George Avakian (the executive who had signed him to Columbia a few years earlier) "the story outline, the first act of the book, lyrics, and a list of the tunes," and asked for his advice "about where we

go from here." At that time, the show's working title was World Take a Holiday. He told Avakian, "It is still in the beginning stages, and will be rewritten and revised probably many times before we get a version we think ready for production."

During most of the next several months, the Quartet was on tour in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Shortly after their return, Dave mentioned to his brother Howard their plan to discuss it with the president of Columbia, Goddard Lieberson, and their hope "that he will show some interest in" their show. He also confessed his weariness from "this constant touring," and said he intended to concentrate on composition as his plan of escape from the itinerant lifestyle. The linchpin was the new musical: "If we can just see this first show in production, I will be encouraged to develop this field of writing."

Central to the Brubecks' vision for their project was a starring role for Louis Armstrong. By their own testimony, they designed the show around him. One week before Thanksgiving in 1958, Dave told his booking agent, Joe Glaser, who represented Armstrong as well, that he and Iola "have been working night and day on [the show] and have rewritten it." He dreamed of "owning a nightclub jointly" with Armstrong, "while the play is running on Broadway, with me performing the early part of the evening at the club and Louis coming in for one set after the show." After the Christmas holidays, Brubeck met with Armstrong in Chicago and evidently reported back to Glaser that Armstrong was interested in the show. One week after New Year's, however, Brubeck requested Glaser's "frank appraisal" and said he wanted "Louis to do the show only if he believes in it." The idea was for it to be produced on Broadway during the 1959-1960 season. Brubecks manager, Mort Lewis, was so optimistic about its prospects that he included an exit clause in the agreement for the November 1959 "Jazz for Moderns'' tour, in the event that Brubeck "cannot possibly make the tour this year because of the Broadway show."

As the year wore on, the Brubecks did their level best to get the show on Broadway. They reached out beyond their inner circle, initiated innumerable new contacts, and followed up every lead. In late March, their spirits were still high. Lewis told his colleague in Australia that the

Brubecks' show was "at present being submitted to a few Broadway producers," and "from the looks of things, it will be produced sometime soon." He confided, moreover, that "this very success may. .. mean the end of the Quartet as we know it." The same day, Iola informed her close friend, "This summer we will go to New York (all of us), and Dave and I will concentrate on trying to snag a producer to do our 'bang up' musical." With a light touch, she added, "We are proud of it, if we did write it ourselves."

Three months later, Dave went so far as to approach Jerome Robbins, the famous choreographer, whose work with Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, and Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story was all the rage around that time. In the draft of this remarkable letter, written in Oakland on June 20, Brubeck makes reference to his own use of "odd rhythm patterns," just days before the first Time Out recording sessions in New York:

To come directly to the point of this letter, I would like very much to talk to you and play for you some of the music I have written for a Broadway production starring Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. I have the assurance of Mr. Joe Glaser, Armstrong's manager, that Louis will be available to me for a Broadway production, as both he

and Louis have heard and approved of the score___I think you will be

interested in the manner I have treated the chorus and the dance. For example, I have superimposed rhythms in the crowd scenes to create a feeling of mass movement, and of tensions, of mass forces pulling against each other. In an "Around the World" ballet sequence I have employed odd rhythmic patterns based on the folk music of various countries of Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.... The time is now ripe for a jazz show on Broadway, and I think mine is ready.... I plan to make some positive moves toward production this summer.

The second recording day for Time Out was July 1, less than two weeks after Brubeck penned this letter. In addition to the artist job sheet for that session (2:30-7:00 p.m.), there are two more pages with the same job number, for a three-hour session on July 2 (1:30-4:30 p.m.), marked "experimental takes." Eleven of the sixteen tunes listed are from The Real Ambassadors.™ This evidence suggests that the show was actually more important to the Brubecks in 1959 than was Time Out, At all events, they were deeply involved with its creation and promotion at exactly the same time as Brubeck's most famous album was taking shape. Paradoxically, although it never really got off the ground, The Real Ambassadors was the endeavor that occupied first place in Brubeck's affections and to which he devoted the greatest amount of time and effort — instead of the project that ultimately became one of the best-selling albums in jazz history.”

- Stephen A. Crist, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out [2019]

In addition to our Italian-American heritage, Ricky Riccardi and I share two other passions in common: [1] our general love of all things Jazz and [2] our respect and unending affection for the music of Louis Armstrong.

As the Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum and the author of What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years and Heart Full of Rhythm: 'The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, Ricky has obviously taken his adoration of Pops a few steps further.

[The Louis Armstrong House Museum is based in Queens, New York which also places him closer to terrific Italian food than those of us who live on the Left Coast can generally access, but I won’t hold that against him.]

Among his recent services to the memory of Pops and his music are Ricky’s comprehensive and readable booklet notes to the recently released Mosaic Records set The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia and RCA Victor Studio Sessions, 1946-1966 [MD7-270]. For order information on the set, please go here.

Included in Ricky’s narrative, are many original observations about the background to the development and recording of the music and lyrics to Dave and Iola Brubeck’s The Real Ambassadors which featured Pops along with Carmen McRae, Lambert Hendricks and Ross and the musicians from Dave Quartet and Louis’ All-Stars.

As frequent visitors to the blog will attest, The Real Ambassadors is a subject that is near-and-dear to the heart of the Editorial Staff at JazzProfiles and therefore any additional information is always welcome [scroll down to “Labels” in the blog sidebar to locate previous postings on the subject].

So we wrote to Ricky and to Michael Cuscuna at Mosaic and asked if we could include Ricky’s narrative on “the opera the Brubecks wrote for Pops” [a play on Louis’ reference] and both kindly gave their permission.

Having listened and re-listened to the music in this boxed set, enjoyed the booklet photographs and learned so much about the music of Louis Armstrong during these recordings from the later years of Pops’ career thanks to Ricky’s annotations, if you are a fan of Louis Armstrong, this set belongs in your collection. [I paid full price for my set.]

© -Ricky Riccardi/Michael Cuscuna/Mosaic Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

THE REAL AMBASSADORS

SEPTEMBER 12, 13, 19 AND 20, 1961

"[George] Avakian's work with Armstrong brought him to new heights of popularity, but with that came an almost pathological scorn from many critics and even some musicians who now publicly stated their disappointment over Armstrong's musical choices, his smile, his showmanship and stage persona, his sense of humor, his trumpet playing, his commercial appeal, his lack of political activism and more. Much of these criticisms emanated in the United States, as Armstrong remained a God-like figure — and "ambassador of goodwill" -— overseas.

Finally, in September 1957, Armstrong could not keep quiet any longer and put his career on the line to speak out against President Dwight Eisenhower and Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus for the way they handled the Little Rock Central High School integration crisis. His comments drew severe criticism from many public figures, both black and white, and an astonishing silence from the jazz community — except for Dave Brubeck and his wife Iola, who were supremely inspired by Armstrong's stand. At a time when many young jazz musicians viewed the elder trumpeter as an out-of-date "Uncle Tom" figure, Brubeck — a Civil Rights advocate who performed with an integrated combo — saw something else: an American genius who broke down barriers for his race and who was America's greatest Ambassador of Goodwill. "I think that's what we really tried to overcome when we wrote THE REAL AMBASSADORS because before we got into this project we didn't really know Louis that well," Iola Brubeck recalled, "but we sensed in him a depth and an unstated feeling we thought we could tap into without being patronizing."

Soon after Little Rock, Dave and lola sat down and wrote a script and the score for what they envisioned to be a full-blown Broadway musical to be titled, World, Take a Holiday, a phrase that crops up in the song KING FOR A DAY.

Unfortunately, both Armstrong and Brubeck were too busy to tackle the project in 1957 or 1958 but both ended up in Chicago in late December 1958. Brubeck saw an opportunity, but found it difficult to get to Armstrong.

"...Louis' road manager wouldn't give me access when I wanted to discuss the project with him in Chicago, so I found out the number of Louis' hotel room, sat in the lobby until room service came and hollered, 'Hi, Louis' when the door opened. Louis invited me in, ordered me a steak and thought the idea was interesting. I gave him copies of the tunes to listen to on the road; and at the session, he was the first one in the studio and last guy to leave." Brubeck even managed to show him the song LONESOME, with Armstrong reciting the lyrics with great emotion.

Less than a week later, on January 2, 1959, the Brubecks watched Armstrong's appearance on the ABC television program You Asked For It. When host Jack Smith referred to him being called an "Ambassador of Goodwill," Armstrong responded with the following monologue:

"Say, Jack, I think you're wrong about ME being the ambassador. I think JAZZ is the ambassador. One might be the courier that takes the message over there, but it's jazz that does the talking. That's the good thing about our kind of music: it speaks in every language and it's understood by everyone that wants to listen. My horn and me have traveled from Sweden to Spain and when I played Berlin, a lot of them cats jumped down first to hear of Satchmo! Which proves that music is stronger than the nation. I don't know much about politics, but I know these people in foreign countries hear all kinds of things about America, some good, some bad. I'm pretty sure what comes out of this horn makes them feel better about us. One thing's sure: they know a trumpet ain't no canon! This horn is my real boss. It's my living and my life. I've got a lot of high notes in me that haven't been blown yet. Yeeaaah."

The Brubecks could not believe what they were hearing since many of those same themes were in World, Take a Holiday. They immediately turned on their tape recorder and began recording a series of "audio letters" to Armstrong, explaining why they wrote the musical with Armstrong in mind and offering demo performances of the original score. (These priceless recordings survive today at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, Queens and as part of the Brubeck Collection at the Wilton Library in Connecticut). Armstrong was thrilled, but they had a problem: "All of the producers I took it, thought it was great, but they'd give me all these excuses," Dave Brubeck recalled. "You weren't supposed to have a message. I forget the word they used, but it meant you weren't entertaining. We couldn't lecture the American public on the subject of race."

The Brubecks figured it might be easier to convince people of the merits of the play if they recorded the score first. Carmen McRae and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross agreed to participate, but Armstrong's punishing schedule didn't have any free time and Joe Glaser proved to be a tough negotiator. Two years went by before Glaser and Armstrong finally signed, Columbia Records agreeing to support the project after Brubeck's incredibly successful TIME OUT album and the popularity of the single TAKE FIVE, which reached number 25 on Billboard's "Top 100" in May 1961.

In the intervening years, Armstrong's real-life adventures once again almost eerily paralleled the Brubeck's late 1950s script, which seemed to predict Armstrong's future. In October 1960, the State Department sent Armstrong on a tour of Africa, the only State Department—sponsored tour of his career. In the Congo, Armstrong's mere appearance inspired a temporary halt to a civil war in Leopoldville as the trumpeter was carried into the stadium on a throne like a king. "Having been around the world numerous times, and as a representative of the State Department, this man with his trumpet is able to overcome barriers between peoples in a way beyond the capacity of polished diplomats," read a syndicated editorial published in November 1960. The Brubecks, who based their plot on Armstrong visiting Africa, being mistaken for an Ambassador and eventually declared "King for a Day," must have been shocked to see their fictional story play out as reality.

Brubeck was finally able to set up a series of sessions in September 1961. Armstrong recorded his numbers with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross on September 12 and his duets with Carmen McRae on September 13, in addition to a first pass at SUMMER SONG. He brought the All Stars with him for two separate sessions on the 19th and concluded with just Brubeck's rhythm section on the 20th, completing quite possibly the most challenging album of his career.

Due to time constraints, the finished album didn't include all the material Dave and Iola Brubeck wrote for the production. A finished copy of the complete World, Take a Holiday script survives, as does a scaled-down version prepared by Iola Brubeck for the only live performance of the work at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Taking a page from her book, the following section will not only discuss the making of the music but will also include plot summaries to provide better context for how the songs were sequenced.

The album's dynamic opener was EVERYBODY'S COMIN', a reworking of EVERYBODY'S JUMPIN' from TIME OUT. With lyrics by Iola, the song now served as an overture featuring Lambert, Hendricks and Ross alerting listeners to what they were about to hear and who they were about to hear from, with Armstrong joyously punctuating the message with various utterances of "Yes, yes!" On the previously unissued take 2, we even get to hear Armstrong respond with his horn, an always welcome sound that was eliminated as the takes went on.

At this point in the stage production, Iola wrote a touching description of Armstrong's character, "Pops": "The music which poured from his horn became his identity — his passport to the world — the key to locked doors. Through his horn he had spoken to millions of the world's people. Through it he had opened doors to presidents and kings. He had lifted up his horn, as our hero would say, and just played to folks on an even soul-to-soul basis. He had no political message, no slogan, no plan to sell or save the world. Yet he, and other traveling musicians like him inadvertently served a national purpose, which officials recognized and eventually sanctioned with a program called cultural exchange."

Indeed, the song CULTURAL EXCHANGE brings us directly into the politically charged environment of the "Jazz Ambassadors." In November 1955, the New York Times picked up on Armstrong's importance overseas, with Felix Belair writing, "America's secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key," adding, "its most effective ambassador is Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong." The State Department paid attention and with prodding from Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., began sending jazz musicians overseas on official state department tours, beginning with Dizzy Gillespie's trip to Southern Europe, the Middle East and South Asia in March 1956 (the track references 1957; Iola apologized for the error in the liner notes). In Greece, students had recently stoned the U. S. Information Service office, but they cheered the arrival of Gillespie. All of that is described in the lightning fast intro to CULTURAL EXCHANGE by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, originally named DIZZY DITTY. The previously unissued take 3 gives us a tantalizing glimpse at these three geniuses in action, discussing how to properly word "restored" and later, the titular "cultural," almost nailing it in this early attempt.

Eventually Armstrong ambles up to the mike (his part was recorded at a different session) to sing the pointed lyrics about how "The State Department has discovered Jazz / It reaches folks like nothing ever has." The Brubecks also got in a few comedic lines, such as "And when our neighbors call us vermin / We send out Woody Herman!" The lyrics also feature verbal responses from Trummy Young, who contributes some excellent moments throughout the album as a foil of sorts to the character of "Pops." Armstrong takes a full chorus of trumpet, playing the melody up an octave in jaw-dropping fashion. To illustrate the difficult nature of the material, we have included the previously unissued take 2, the first full take to be completed. Armstrong humorously messes up the lyrics twice and he sounds like he's still warming up on the trumpet, but he proved to be a fast learner, completing much of what's heard on the master on his very next attempt.

At this point in the script, Pops and his band were booked on an official State Department-sponsored tour, much to his unease. This was an especially autobiographical turn as Armstrong originally didn't want to do anything for the State Department, venting to a friend in 1959 that he was a musician, not a politician and didn't want to be pestered with questions on issues such as race. "I said, 'Well, what do you want me to tell these people when I go over there? It's all right? Bullshit!" Armstrong said. He knew there'd be questions about Russia and politics and that was something he did not want to discuss. "You see, I told them, you want to go through that kind of shit, have [United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles] do the talking, we do the blowing, that's all. I ain't going to make no speech for shit." All of these quotes come from the middle of a six-month tour of Europe from 1959, Armstrong stating, "And then they ask me, 'Did the State Department send you?' And I say, 'You know no state department sent me over here. It's the fans.'"

Iola Brubeck took these private statements and accurately summed them up in her script: "For in addition to his undeniable musical gifts, he possessed a gift equally as rare — the ability to keep opinions to himself and observe in silence. He had taken great pains to create a dazzle-toothed, shimmering public image, which could possibly become tarnished if he were to speak what was on his mind." The only half-truth in the script was the line, "After all, through the years he had gained the admiration of not only the public, but the critics," since critics had been hammering Armstrong for decades.

But the line was mainly intended to cue GOOD REVIEWS, a cute number that serves as our introduction to Carmen McRae, humorously dissecting the role critics play on an artist's psyche. The session tapes reveal that at the September 13 session, Armstrong took the trumpet solo by himself but perhaps finding it to be a bit empty, Brubeck and producer Teo Macero had the entire All Stars band take the instrumental interlude on September 19, splicing it in as best they could to the earlier attempt. We've included take 7 from the first session, as well as an unissued insert with the All Stars doing their best to keep up the momentum of the playback. The session tapes also contain two hilarious, though unused tags that are being issued for the first time.

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE gets us back into the ambassadors realm as it's based on a briefing Brubeck received before his 80-city, 14-country State Department tour of 1958, the government's not-so-subtle reminder to the musicians that they were representing the United States and shouldn't go off spouting any political opinions — even though many of the African American "ambassadors" still received inhumane treatment at home (both Armstrong and Brubeck dealt with resistance as the leaders of integrated combos, as well). The lyrics sung by Trummy Young more than hint at what Armstrong had to go through on a daily basis, giving nearly constant interviews to the press while overseas: "Never face a problem, always circumvent / Stay away from problems, be discreet / When controversy enters, you retreat." This one took 15 takes to complete, most of them breakdowns, but the complete takes did offer different trumpet breaks by Armstrong, including the excellent one heard on the previously unissued take 6. 

With MY ONE BAD HABIT, the shift of the production pivots, something that could be a little jarring when listening to the original LP. In Dave and Iola Brubeck's script, though, this was the formal introduction of McRae as Pops' new singer, "Rhonda." Perhaps realizing that satirical and pointed messages about politics and race weren't commercial enough, the Brubecks threw in a love story subplot, with Iola writing in the script, "From the moment the new vocalist joined the band, her predatory eyes had not wavered from their principal target: our hero." Dave Brubeck actually got the idea for the song from a backstage conversation with Ella Fitzgerald. Asked how she was doing, Fitzgerald responded, "Well, Dave, my one bad habit is falling in love." That's all Brubeck needed to hear, writing the song and giving Fitzgerald co-composer credit. McRae is at her sassiest here, an excellent showcase for her considerable talents, while Brubeck's quartet is suitably funky.

In the envisioned show — and on the album— McRae's sexy showcase would be followed by SUMMER SONG, Armstrong's tender reflection on falling in love in the August, if not quite September, of his years (and also a way of acknowledging that he was 21 years older than McRae). Even without any connection to the plot, the song inspired one of Armstrong's greatest vocals, as he brings the perfect blend of wisdom and warmth and even pathos that would infuse later works like WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR and WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD. Dan Morgenstern was present when Brubeck first went over SUMMER SONG with Armstrong and remembered, "Brubeck was totally overwhelmed. As a matter of fact, tears came to his eyes when he heard Louis do this thing and the record of it is marvelous." Armstrong's friend Jack Bradley, who photographed the sessions, described it as "a lovefest, especially between Dave Brubeck and Louie. Dave would run up and hug and kiss Louie after every take. It was a wonderful session and it went well considering they didn't have time to rehearse."

Rumor always had it that Armstrong accomplished SUMMER SONG in one take, but the session tapes tell another story. With time remaining during the September 13 session devoted to Armstrong's duets with McRae, Brubeck called SUMMER SONG. Armstrong was somewhat unfamiliar with the melody and had to work some phrases out on his first attempt, but by the previously unissued take 2, he was able to turn in a beautiful rendition of the challenging song. Brubeck called an insert to iron out the ending, but still must have thought he could do better. On the final day of recording, Brubeck and Macero called for a SUMMER SONG remake in a higher key, now with the addition of Billy Kyle on second piano. We have included a complete sequence where Armstrong sings the hell out of it, but it breaks down twice, the first time due to a barely suppressed belch! Still, they carried on with insert takes, making it to the finish line, though Brubeck's comping is a little too busy at times. We have combined both of these previously unissued attempts into one track to create a super-sized document befitting this especially epic entry in the Armstrong canon.

One further attempt resulted in much of what became the master, as they made it through it in one shot, Brubeck simmered down a bit and nobody belched. As Chip Stern wrote of the issued take, "On his poignant performance of SUMMER SONG, you can hear the elder Armstrong accepting the inevitability of death and looking ahead towards his final peace, even as he casts a parting glance at all of his remarkable achievements." A prized possession in the Brubeck household was a copy of the score to SUMMER SONG, on which Armstrong wrote, "To Mrs. Brubeck, Am very happy. Satchmo Louis Armstrong." As Iola wrote in the original liner notes, "So are we."

After such a moving performance, the plot of the show dropped the love story and went back to the ambassadorial theme, with "Pops" triumphantly conquering his State Department tour, but, starting to "feel the power that was in his horn," he began spending his time on the plane daydreaming about what he would do if he was KING FOR A DAY. The result was one of Armstrong and Young's finest duets, thanks to the clever lyrics, the swampy New Orleans beat, and the hamming-it-up by the two pals (especially during the section about jazz royalty Duke Ellington, Count Basie, King Oliver and Earl Hines). Once again, Armstrong had to work hard, remarking after one take, "That was a real tongue twister." Brubeck asked, "Pops, what do you want to do next?" A game Armstrong replied, "I don't care, you call 'em." Brubeck said, "I was thinking of your lip." Armstrong answered, "It ain't the lip, it's the lyrics. You don't have to worry 'bout my chops." In the studio, Armstrong played a full chorus of melody up front, which was edited down to just 12 bars on the record. The musicians only made it all the way to the end through take 5, which is heard on the album, but we have included take 4 because of the extra trumpet playing at the start and the hilarious way it breaks down during the royalty section.”

To be continued in Part 2.