Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
“It’s not older music. It’s our music,” says James Inglehart, who plays Louis Armstrong in a new musical on Broadway.
(Photo: Jeremy Daniel)Louis Armstrong’s career was long, diverse and full of the unexpected — both on stage and off. DownBeat often recognized Armstrong’s noteworthy presence as a musician through cover articles and even columns in his own words. He became a major presence in movies and on television, taking his larger-than-life persona well beyond music. And he was beloved. Armstrong was the very first artist inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in the 1952 Readers Poll.
Some 123 years after his birth, Armstrong’s legacy lives on. And now, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical serves as the next vehicle for bringing his life and times to a new generation.
Just as Armstrong donned more than one hat over his career, Tony-winning actor James Iglehart not only chose to embrace the lead role, but also is making his directorial debut with A Wonderful World, alongside co-director and fellow Broadway actor Christina Sajous.
During the pandemic, Iglehart watched a Ken Burns documentary on Armstrong and subsequently suggested to his agent that a musical should be made about Armstrong’s life. Coincidentally, there were folks already hard at work on this very idea. A few phone calls later and the like minds agreed to connect post-shutdown. Iglehart and Sajous eventually found themselves at the helm of a project that was hardly a typical bio-pic production. This depiction of Louis Armstrong comes from the perspective of his four wives: Daisy Parker, Lil Hardin Armstrong, Alpha Smith and Lucille Wilson.
Much like Armstrong’s life, A Wonderful World has come a long way and evolved since its initial conception in 2019 by theater director Christopher Renshaw, the late novelist/director Andrew Delaplaine and playwright Aurin Squire. Persistence and creativity would eventually take the production from its COVID-labored, but highly praised, beginnings in Miami to the achievement of a Broadway run that was set to open at New York’s Studio 54 in November.
Speaking by phone, Iglehart dicussed his experience getting to know Louis Armstrong, portraying him on stage, and the duality of acting and directing.
Kira Grunenberg: What about this portrayal of Louis Armstrong did you find most compelling?
James Iglehart: It was the guy behind the trumpet that I found so interesting, and that I really saw a kinship with. There was something about the spirit of [Louis Armstrong], going through all these things, having this talent and yet being told, “You’re not Black enough,” or, “You’re only playing for the white folks,” or, “You can’t do this, you can’t do that.” I saw that and went, “Oh, gosh, I know this guy very well. And I think I could do justice to this.”
Grunenberg: How has your knowledge of directing influenced your approach to acting — particularly for this leading role?
Iglehart: When you’re an actor, you try to see the whole picture but you really try to focus on what you’re doing. Like, “Where is my character’s journey, and how do I get from A to B? How does this character react to this?” When you’re the director, you have to see the whole thing — all of the characters. Where are they going? Where are their arcs? Where do their arcs meet and how do they match up? How do they affect the other person to get to the end? And so [being a co-director on this project] helped me. I’m looking at the whole [show] and going, “OK, so to get from here to here, I have to affect these people, and these people affect me here.”
Grunenberg: What are some ways your development of this role and show differed from experiences when you were solely acting?
Iglehart: [Christina Sajous and I] help [Christopher Renshaw] find the vision he wants to do. And so we’re guides in certain places, saying, “I think that’s a good idea.” He says, “OK well, you facilitate that and do that.” And then we throw in our ideas and we discuss, sometimes debate, on what it should be and how it should be.
Grunenberg: Which element of Louis Armstrong’s personality did you find most challenging to capture and portray?
Iglehart: Playing those moments where [Armstrong] would say or do something I knew I wouldn’t do, because I want to only show the best of him. You can’t have a whole story where someone is a saint the entire time. I had to go to some of my dark places and say, “James, you’re not perfect. I know you try to smile and see the shiny side, but there’s a greedy side, too. So take that moment and go with it.”
Grunenberg: How has your view of jazz changed since working on this production?
Iglehart: It’s changed dramatically. I’m a hip-hop kid, so my first real introduction to jazz was like Gang Starr and the Guru rapping over jazz, or A Tribe Called Quest or Q-tip putting jazz beats out, you know? Studying [Armstrong] and realizing where those rhythms come from, where certain chords and progressions come from, or just the idea that these brothers got together and made something different, it was like hip-hop and it made me realize, “Our folks aren’t just reinventing the wheel. Each generation has their own version of this jazz as a metaphor.” And it was all of a sudden really, really cool to see these guys, the King Olivers or the Lil Hardins, or the Louis Armstrongs. They were like different MCs coming up with different styles. And certain jazz musicians would do certain things that would change the trajectory of the music.
Not only is jazz an American-created music, but it’s an African American-created music. We made that — or I should say, the older brothers made that — and that was something to appreciate. When I was younger, I didn’t look at it like that; I was like, “Oh, this is older music.” And now I’m like, “No, it’s not older music. It’s our music.” DB
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
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