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Lil coupled a more classically oriented musicianship and a stronger entrepreneurial streak than her husband.

Among them are that he was homesick for Chicago, where he had a cadre of fellow musicians from New Orleans that he missed his wife, the pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong (“He used to write to his wife every day,” recalled Kaiser Marshall) and that she was pressing her husband to ratchet up his career and become a bandleader with star billing and a salary to match. Other, nonmusical, reasons also account for Armstrong’s departure. Armstrong also indicates that discipline started to break down and the “cats” got “careless with the music.” Yet all together, Armstrong’s published memories of the band leave an at least ambivalent legacy, and they are actually more glowing than bitter.

He had a million dollar talent in his band and he never thought to let me sing.” It’s almost true: the only Armstrong vocal among his records with Henderson consists of a brief tag ending in “Everybody Loves My Baby.” Yet the singing issue appears to be a red herring, since Armstrong noted elsewhere that Oliver didn’t let him sing either, but he does not suggest that as a reason he left Oliver’s band to go to Henderson. Much later, he reflected that “Fletcher didn’t dig me like Joe Oliver.

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And Gary Giddins states, “The stopper was still on.The full radiance of Louis’s music and personality was simmering, waiting for release.”Īrmstrong, admittedly, provided some fuel for that perspective. James Lincoln Collier finds much “in the situation.that made Armstrong feel uncomfortable.” Laurence Bergreen cites Armstrong’s “all too brief solos” and “mounting dissatisfaction” with Henderson’s band.

Armstrong’s biographers tend to emphasize reasons for dissatisfaction. Why, then, in November 1925, some thirteen months after arriving in New York, did Armstrong leave Henderson and return to Chicago? Several reasons have been offered. He later referred to the band members as “those fine boys who treated me just swell.” “I had ‘Wedged’ in there just that much,” Armstrong wrote later, capturing rather well the new way that Redman had learned to integrate Armstrong inside the strain. By his own account, Armstrong enjoyed himself and fit in musically and socially. And there were also continuous bookings in the summer between seasons at the Roseland, large crowds in venues up and down the East Coast, and consistently hyperbolic press coverage. Henderson continued to hold court for dancers at the Roseland, reaching thousands of other listeners through its radio wire, and recording for a variety of record labels both with his full orchestra and with selected members of the band as accompanists for blues singers. The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazzīy the fall of 1925, then, the musical synergy in Henderson’s band had reached unprecedented intensity. Why did Louis Armstrong leave Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra in 1925 and return to Chicago? Jeffrey Magee, author of The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz, writes about this landmark decision in the history of music, and reminds us of Armstrong’s not-so-hip farewell gift to Henderson. Book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons