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Just For A Thrill Lil Hardin Armstrong, First Lady of Jazz  James
L. DickersonCooper Square Press, 2002 Hardback. 259pp. b&w illustrations £18.99 
Along with Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington, Lillian 'Lil' Hardin (1898-1971) was arguably the third
most crucial figure in the creation of popular jazz, but today her important
contributions are almost entirely unknown.
Born in Memphis, Lil was, by her early twenties, the most sought-after jazz pianist in Chicago, playing first with Freddie Keppard's watershed Creole Jazz Band and later with King Oliver's world-famous Creole Jazz Band. She was already well established in Chicago as a pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader before she met and married Louis Armstrong (1898-1971) in 1924. Beyond her musical contributions to Louis as a songwriter, arranger, and pianist, Lil launched, guided, and promoted his solo career. Her tireless efforts and musical craftsmanship (she was the only one of Louis's band able to read music) made possible his now legendary 'Hot Fives' and 'Hot Sevens' recordings. Later, after Louis divorced her in 1938, she established her own successful solo career. Music writer and investigative journalist James L. Dickerson chronicles Lil's many musical achievements, which are all the more remarkable when one considers the patriarchal resistance that women in all professions - jazz included - confronted in twentieth-century America. In Harlem in 1931 she spearheaded the first all-female jazz band. She earned degrees from the Chicago Musical College and the New York College of Music. Lil appeared in hit Broadway revues like Hot Chocolates and Shuffle Along, played and recorded with jazz greats such as Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, Red Allen, and Doc Cheatham; and composed some of the best of Armstrong's early songs, among them King of the Zulus and Struttin' With Some Barbecue. Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Willie Nelson, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, and others have recorded her songs. But Just For a Thrill, based on original research and interviews, is more than a revealing biography of a jazz pioneer. It is also an unforgettable story of love found and lost, for though Louis divorced her and remarried, she never forgot him. Lil Hardin Armstrong died of a heart attack while performing during a tribute to Louis in 1971. |
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