The Real Ambassadors — A Jazz Opera for Louis Armstrong by Dave & Iola Brubeck

radio to you. Welcome to the kitchen sisters present P.R.X. We are the kitchen sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva. On a chilly evening in September 1962, the real ambassadors, a musical written by Dave and Iola Brubeck, was performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival. It was unusual, unprecedented, a mixed cast of well-known artists in the heat of the civil rights movement, challenging racial prejudice, and social injustice through jazz. The kitchen sisters and Brandy Howell present the real ambassadors. Once again it's time for the Dave Brubeck show. Mike Lawless here and sitting across from me is a friend of Dave Brubeck's pretty good friend too. Iola Brubeck. First only, when did the original idea or a Broadway show, Calaba? About five years ago when we were still living in California, Dave was playing in the east. I came out one summer and I went to I guess every musical that was running at that time. I went over to Central Park one night to a jazz concert. I listened to Joe Williams. Joe Williams was the guy who, you know, the goose pimple test was the one who really reached emotionally. He reached me much greater than any of the Broadway shows with all the great lavish sets, storylines, and I thought to myself, well the time has come to do a real jazz musical. We started writing the show based on a jazz band headed by Louis Armstrong on a State Department tour of the world in 1958. Dave himself actually went on a State Department tour. President Eisenhower sent us on a tour at a time when there was great conflict between the United States and Russia to help bring our cultures together. This was such a wonderful move to make to show the great discipline of jazz and the great freedom. The jazz ambassadors to Gallington, Dave Brubeck, this is the last beat we're chosen to go overseas on behalf of Uncle Sam. My name is Keith Hatcheck, author of The Real Ambassadors. Dave and Iola Brubeck and Louis Armstrong challenge segregation. These jazz ambassadors who were largely African-American were really treated like royalty overseas. When they got home, they were immediately subjected to the same kind of Jim Crow. Oh, Mr. Armstrong, you'll have to come in through the loading dock at the Waldorf Astoria. You can't actually come in through the front door, even though you're playing here. That was an injustice that really started knowing at my dad. I'm Chris Brubeck, the third child of Dave and Iola Brubeck. My mom's reaction was to write The Real Ambassadors. Before they left in 1958 on the tour, they had to go to a briefing. A very sort of officious man says, "When controversy comes up, you had in the opposite direction. You should just be smiling and playing your music. Remember who you are." Remember who you are and what you represent. Never face a problem, always circumvent. Stay away from issues, be discreet. And controversy enters, you'll be treated. Remember who you are and what you represent. Always be a credit to your government. Nobody would say of what you do. The eyes of the world are watching you. It begins by talking about Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln, and the founding principals. But by the end, they're swinging and singing about Count Basie and Jelly Roll, what it means to live a full and good life. Jelly Roll and Basie helped us to invent a weapon that no organization has. Especially the Russians can't clean jazz. Remember who you are. The truth is Lewis Armstrong was the one who influenced the State Department. jazz ambassador tours. My name's Ricky Riccardi, director of research collections for the Lewis Armstrong House Museum. In 1955, Lewis embarked on a three-month tour of Europe. There was literally riots in Germany, crowds screaming form in Paris, and there was such a buzz that Columbia Records records records this album called Ambassador Sach. The New York Times, at the end of 1955, wrote America's greatest weapon is a blue note and a minor key. And right now it's most effective ambassador is Lewis Armstrong. That really got the State Department involved. Adam Clayton Powell really drove the show to make it happen. We're going to shift the emphasis to jazz and send these artists over where they can reach the masses of the people of Asian Africa. Passport, shock, identification, visa, pen. 1957, the State Department was getting ready to send him to Russia, but that's when Armstrong put his career in the line to speak out against racial injustice in Little Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock, Arkansas and the first phase of the trouble. The white population are determined to prevent colored students from going to the school their own children. Armstrong had not spoken out before and he had been getting some criticism from younger African-American commentators throughout the 1950s. When he turned on the TV in his hotel room and he saw the tragedy that was unfolding in Little Rock with the effort to integrate central high school, he immediately called the hotel front desk and said I need to dictate a telegram to the White House. National newspapers published the story. Sachmo calls Ike a coward and he belittled the governor of Arkansas or Valfaubis. If these people are allowed to spit on a little black girl who can't even go to school, a person like me doesn't even have a country. What are you going to tell the Russians what they ask you about the Little Rock? All the friends, what time they sent me over there, I don't think they should send them. Let's just make that mess down south. The Brubex had a news clipping of that in their little paper file. That was one more piece of inspiration that they used in creating the character of Pops for the real ambassadors. Armstrong's band, the All Stars. It was an integrated band. He often had white musicians. When they were touring the south, he could not play with that band in New Orleans. His home stayed at Louisiana. In 1949, being crowned the King of the Mardi Gras, would not be able to give a free concert. This was Terry and Hermite. Thank you very much, folks. Here's one of our recordings, beautiful number called, "Black and Blue." After Armstrong spoke out against Little Rock, he kind of made it his policy to stop speaking out until March of 1965. During the March on Selma, Alabama, bloody Sunday, Armstrong was on his way to go behind the Iron Curtain for the very first time. Reporters in Denmark kind of got up the nerve to ask, "Well, we don't see you out there marching. What are you doing for the cause?" And he said, "Listen, the best thing I can do is play my music and if I was going to go out there and march, first thing they would do is punch me in the mouth. Without my lips, I can't do what I do best for the cause." The reporter said, "Oh, you really think they would beat Lewis Armstrong?" And he said, "They would beat Jesus if he was black and marched." In my skin, every night during that tour, he does "What could I do to be so black and blue?" Which he had originally recorded in 1929. It's known as the first protest song. In the case of my father, he had Eugene Reich, who was a great bass player. He's African-American. There was a whole big southern tour and then the head of the school, "Oh man, you know, we can't have black people playing with white people." He canceled 23 out of 25 concerts. And that was a blow because I needed that work at that time. One of our last concerts, students were stamping on the floor and we were in the locker room underneath and it was such a roar of feet because we were in our late. The president of the school was talking to the governor. He came back and said to me, "We don't want another little rock. You go on but keep your bass player in the back." So the second tune I told you, Eugene, your microphone is broken. You'll have to move out front of the band and use my speaking mic and I'd like you to do a solo. And boy, that auditorium went crazy. It was integrated with such joy. I'd get to a concert and if it was a segregate, I wouldn't play. Louis Armstrong wouldn't play. The jazz musicians helped the schools back on track. By the end of 1958, the Brubex had a script they had a score but they had not gotten to Armstrong yet. Joe Glazer, their mutual manager, was doing everything his power to kind of keep the Brubex away and from Armstrong. Glazer's main thing was how much money could he make out of Louis Armstrong. Dave lets Joe Glazer know, "We're working on a musical. We think it might be something that Louis Armstrong could play a part in." Glazer was a very astute businessman. He said, "Dave, you're going to be in Chicago right after Christmas, 1958, and Louis is playing the Empire Room. So why don't you just go buy and talk with him?" Dave goes to Chicago, goes to the front desk and he asks, "Please call up to Mr. Armstrong's room." And who answers the phone? Frenchie Talierre, the road manager. Frenchie says, "Dave, no. I've got orders from the top. Louis can't see anybody. He's supposed to rest. It's not going to happen." So Dave plants himself on the hallway floor outside Louis's room. About 20 minutes later, here comes room service with Louis's dinner. The door swings open and Louis goes, "Dave, what are you doing sitting there?" "Oh, I wanted to talk to you, but Frenchie said I could come in, Dave." Brewbeck got a few minutes to make the elevator pitch and so he pulls out the lyrics and the sheet music to a song called Lonesome. Louis kind of recited it like a poem and it had a very, very deep emotional effect on Dave Brewbeck. Armstrong was like, "I'm on board. You tell me when to show up and I'm there." Really says it would really help me out a lot. If you could make some real-to-real tapes and send them to me with some of the songs, so I can start practicing to them. "Hi, Louis. This is Dave Brewbeck. I've just talked to Joe Glazer. He's told me how difficult it will be for you to record any of these things before going to Europe. But I'm hoping that you can figure out the backgrounds with me singing the songs like you asked me to do. I'm ashamed of the horrible way in which I sing, but at least you'll be able to hear the words. Now, Louis, I'd like to introduce you to my wife. She's really the one responsible for the show. It was her idea over two years ago to write a Broadway show with you as the lead. She's always considered you the greatest ambassador. So, this is my wife, Ayola, we call her Oli. "Hello, Louis. I saw you denied on the show. You asked for it. It impressed me, terrifically, and saw the sincerity." "Will you touch more one strong, but king of jazz?" "I, everybody, say it, Jack. I think you're wrong about keeping you in the ambassador. I've been jazzed in the ambassador. It speaks in every language, and it's understood by everyone that must have listened. 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. They know it from an inn of cannons." "Right now, we're in the middle and scramble up, preparing an audition tape for producers to listen to. Dave told me about your reading the song "Loansom" in Chicago and how moved he was, if we could even get just this much of you on the audition tape. "Well, Oli would you like to read "Loansom?" so popskin here. "All of my life I've been lonely." "All of my life I've been lonely." "I'll go way back in my youth." "I'll go way back in my past." "I'll tell you all about how the winters last and last." "Well, Oli, that's proof enough that you'll never be able to make a net pull out of me like you said you could. But what I'll do is send you these tape. "All of my life I've been lonely. I'll go way back in my past. I'll tell you all about "Loansom" how the winters last and last." They were so thrilled because it involved Louis and I think my father saw it as a way of getting off the road and creating income which would free more time for him to write these big orchestral works than he wanted to do. I think also because it represented something that he wanted to achieve with our mom, Ayola. They were singing lyrics that my mom had written. As I looked back in it, he was thrilled for this to be a musical event that's shown the spotlight on her abilities as well. His whole career was really defined about how smart she was. "The 1950s when you really started to work with your husband. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like being that active as a woman?" "Truly a juggling act." "I bet." "I did a lot of the apron strings and getting dinner on the table. That was a given. I was the bookkeeper. I wrote the salaries. Took care of the taxes and all of that program notes. Did the bookings for travel? They called me central intelligence." "We used to go on the road that was like a jazz circus family. Dave would make pitiful money like a hundred dollars for a week at a club in Pittsburgh. Go into one of these old hotels." "Very old hotels had very large closets." "My parents would get the bed. They had a trunk that took in the room, camping gear where you'd unfold these you know little bed frame." "Air mattresses, cooking utensils, books and toys. We had everything in that one foot locker." "And me as the baby they just pull out the drawer and throw in some blankets and that was our crib." "We just made do. I mean it was like pioneering until they were school age." When Dave was home from the road, they would spend a good part of every day showfaring their kids around to music lessons, dance lessons for Kathy. They'd have two yellow legal pads for the lyrics and story ideas. They'd park outside and they'd have 45 minutes. Dave would come up with dog roll or just sort of gibberish but it would fit the beats of the music. And then I all of it said about starting to make sense of it and turn it into a song lyric. This was their passion project over a five year period. From the moment the Brubex presented the script and the song "Lonesome to Armstrong" in Chicago and they saw how he responded favorably, they knew that the next stop had to be Broadway. They spent much of 1959 and 1960 speaking with major producers. They were open to any and all suggestions but every time it seemed like they were ready to lock it in and get this producer on board and book the theater, something would come in the way and that something was usually Joe Glazer. Joe Glazer was my father's agent slash manager. Before he had anything to do with my father he was much more intertwined with Louis Armstrong's career. Louis Armstrong first got involved with Joe Glazer because there were two different Mafia controlled jazz clubs who wanted Louis on the same day and both of them threatened to break his arms and bust his mouth if he didn't play it one or the other. There's only one guy that knows how to stay in after these guys and straighten this out. He's the guy named Joe Glazer. Joe Glazer is in Chicago in the 1920s running brothels, night clubs, boxing matches, he's hanging out with Al Capone's crew, a real kind of shadowy figure. He meets Armstrong in 1926. Flash forward to about 1935, Armstrong is at rock bottom. He was threatened at gunpoint. One of his managers called him the n-word and left Armstrong stranded in Europe without his passport. Armstrong's second wife Lil was suing him and Armstrong's chops, his lips were all busted up to the point where he couldn't play the trumpet. When he comes back to Chicago, he had no band, he had no gigs, so he calls Glazer, "worked out and deal with you pay me a weekly salary, you pay my personal expenses, you keep the rest." By the end of 1935, Armstrong is being featured in Esquire magazine, Vanity Fair magazine. He's got a recording contract with Deca. Glazer made sure that all Armstrong had to do for the rest of his life was play the trumpet. "I say this is my man, I say you turn the business, that is Glazer and I blow it on and that's where it has been over 20-some years and we ain't even signed a contract." When my parents came up with the idea of the real ambassadors, we never quite knew like when things were almost happening. If Joe Glazer was doing secret little things to make sure that it couldn't, thankfully the thing that did happen was this recording that they did and the famous one performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. You were tuned to 999WJZFM and you're listening to the day Brubeck show. Let's go back and find out about this show that is called the Broadway show without having reached Broadway. Dolly? Yes, we're now going to record it as someone at Columbia Records said the most expensive demo that has ever made. Here we go the real ambassador take one. We're rolling. Keep rolling. It was a little slower than that too last night. That's that, yeah we had the note gone. Then we double it. Yeah. Okay, one, two, three. Here's the real ambassador. It is evident we represent American society, noted for its etiquette, its manners and sobriety. We have followed protocol with absolute propriety. There are some other people involved too I understand. Common McRae has the feminine role and Lambert Hendrix and Ross. Lambert and Hendrix and Ross. I'm one of the first famous jazz scat vocal group they would like to greet chorus. The real ambassadors the Columbia album was recorded over about a week's time in September 1961. Armstrong, he knew that this was a challenge. He's 60 years old at this point and he's learning all these complex Dave Brubeck originals with some of these tongue twisting. I owe the Brubeck lyrics. He had absorbed the Brubeck's audio letters. So he is ready. After one take, Brubeck said, "How are your chops doing, Pops?" And Armstrong said, "Don't worry about the chops. It's my brain. It's my brain's going to get worn out with all these lyrics." Man, if they just let me run things my way. This world would be a swing in place. Yeah, Pops, what would you do? Questioning I do is called a basement session. Pops, you mean summit conference. Man, I don't mean a UN kind of session. I mean a jam session. Louis and the band are visiting in a small kingdom in Africa. The populist choose Louis to be king of the Mardi Gras. He is picked up on the shoulders of the people and marched to the streets. He is proclaimed king for the day. A fictional thing. 1960, Armstrong goes on his first state department concertor. He goes to the Congo. The Congo is in the middle of a civil war in Leopoldville at this point, but they call it 24-hour truce because Armstrong is coming. Carrying him in on a throne, basically declared a holiday. And it was like the wildest thing that everything the Brubex wrote in their script had come true. When the album comes out, the real ambassadors, the back cover photo, is Louis in the Congo in 1960 being carried on a throne. If you're king for only a day, how do you go about having your way? Well, if my every wish is your command, I don't enthrower my swinging band with all the leaders from every land. I neither smoke nor drink nor swear. My habits are sublime. Dave is having dinner with Ella Fitzgerald. He said to her, "You know, Ella, how you doing?" She said, "Well, you know, I'm doing okay, but you know, Dave, my one bad habit is falling in love." And so he come back to my mom, you know, Ella said this, and my mom wrote the lyrics, "You know, my one bad habit is falling in love." On the recordings that came out of that song, Ella Fitzgerald is listening as a co-composer, even though it was just an accidental thing that fell out of her mouth at dinner. And make it last, the dreams that mattered have all been shattered. Dave and I only didn't view the soundtrack recording as another record by Dave Brubeck. They viewed it as getting Columbia to pay to make a demonstration recording. Broadway is the dream. Coming up is a blues that states the real purpose of the show. You begin to sing, they say, "I look like God," while the priests continue their chant. God created man in his image and likeness. In the image of God created him. They say, "I look like God." The Brubeck's wrote thinking that Armstrong, with his usual jocularity, was going to just take one look at the lyrics and deliver with a little wink. It opens up if man is made in the image of God, you know, because now per chance a zebra be, you know, we're black people, white people, you always remember, it's God a zebra, ha-ha. And he thought Lewis would kind of just, you know, deliver with a little chuckle. And Lewis shows up in the studio and he turned that studio into a church. They needed to call a break after the take because everybody was just emotionally done. When the record finally came out in 62, I think it kind of sank without a trace at the time. There wasn't too much of a description in the liner notes. You know, one song is about the state department. Here they are singing about cultural exchange. The next song is Lewis Armstrong and Carmen McRae singing a beautiful love song. What was the common thread holding these songs together? When the record came out, it received almost no radio air play, but Brubeck's attorney leaked to Jazz Fridic, Ralph Gleason. For real to real with a few of the songs from the recording session, Gleason was bold over. The Brubeck's Ralph J. Gleason and Jimmy Lions from the Monterey Jazz Festival, they kind of came up with this way of staging of the real ambassadors without quite running it by Joe Glazer. Of course, when Glazer found out about it, he was not happy, but by that point, Lewis had already agreed to do it. Oh my gosh Monterey. This was the original score. I haven't looked at this in ages. I had written notes saying turn left and jump to the third note my own things to love the music. It says Lambert Hendrix, Annie Ross, and I've cut out and said and Bavond. For the Monterey performance, Lambert Hendrix and Ross transformed into Lambert Hendrix and Bavond. My name is Yolande Bavond. I'm originally from Sri Lanka. I had the great good fortune of singing in the Jazz Musical written by Dave and I love Brubeck at the Monterey Jazz Festival 1962. They have one day to rehearse here in San Francisco. Dave is playing piano and Mr. Armstrong was sitting there with a white anchor to his hand and his trumpet and his wife Lucille was sitting next to him. And Lewis Armstrong looked at Lucille and said, "Hey Mama, I know that girl." I said, "In Australia." When I was 15, I'd met Louis Armstrong. Yeah, Mama, I told you. The intensity of this rehearsal session, they've performed it in the recording studio, but this was going to be live in front of 6,000 people. When we arrived in Monterey, well it's so beautiful. The ocean, that big cell kind of water. It was a little bit chilly in the evening. All the musicians and the staff and the crew and all would hang out beyond the stage. And in the center was a fire pit. I know I was ugly. I was wearing a sari, laughing and cracking jokes. And dizzy was there. And I remember him saying that he was going to run for president. And it would be called a black house It was really good times. Masking a lot of pain. Well, we did the show. It was amazing. It was live and open air. It was just a glorious night. It brought so many things into focus. The stories behind the music and the lives of the people that played that music. Ayola was the narrator. Let me read this. This might give a little bit of the real ambassadors is not a musical drama in the usual sense. Sets and costumes are far more fantastic than any of us could ever see on stage because they exist only in our imaginations. We must paint the view of the world from an airplane window. Build an African village with a church and a palace. Ayola Bruebeck stood there. The audience left. The stage would go black and she would be illuminated. And with a single pin spot, she looked almost like the Delphic oracle. In a dark blue sheath dress. A beautiful gold and white shawl. And her hair was up on top of her head. She stood almost six feet tall. Ladies and gentlemen, our cost of place. For them to see a real complete piece like a playlet. This was a storyline when Louis stands and sings about being ignored by people. You can't move. You're almost paralyzed with emotion. That's why Dave wrote this. That the real ambassadors was the music of this country. Music is what overcomes everything. Racial barriers, sociopolitical music is energy. Those present said it was one of the most memorable nights in the career of Armstrong, the career Bruebeck, the history of the Monterey Jazz Festival. Joyful madness. The applause, the missiles, the shouting. There's cameras right there that was recording equipment. And Joe Glazer did not give the green light to have it recorded. But you know, if you're going to criticize Joe Glazer, start there. Initially there was thought, wow, this thing could become a touring show. Glazer was like, well, Louis is actually already booked all the way through 1964. So within a month of this sensational performance and response, all the different musicians were back on their tour schedules. Within a year, it started to become a distant memory. And I all end up later in the '60s, they wrote a number of large-scale musical works, including Oratorios and a mass for Pope John Paul II. So their creative force and energy continued on abated. And one of the great songs in that show is Summer Song. Louis always said, "The Bruebeck's have written an opera for me." Love to me is like a summer day, silent cause. There's just too much to say. Still and one in peaceful. The real ambassador is trying to get a message through art about what truth is, cultural truth. My parents, Grave Marker, or the lyrics of Summer Song are engraved on the back. My parents, you know, right off into an eternity as part of this. Come right there and sing it. Try again. Is that why you dig me? I can say my summer song. Great. Beautiful. The real ambassadors was produced by the kitchen sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, and Brandy Howell, in collaboration with Jackson Spinner, mixed by Jim McKee. Thanks to Keith Hatchek, Chris and Dan Bruebeck, Ricky Riccardi, Yolanda Bavan, Lisa Cohen, and Witten Marcellus. For use of the rich archival audio in this story, we thank the Lewis Armstrong Educational Foundation. You can find out more about this amazing collection at LewisArmstrongFoundation.org. You also heard selections from the complete Lewis Armstrong Columbia and RCA Victors Studio sessions. And we thank Michael Bellacosa and the Bruebeck Collection and Tish and Chris Bruebeck. The Millkin Family Foundation Archive Oral History Project interview by Eugenia Zuckerman and the Library of Congress. Support for the kitchen sisters comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Robert Sillens Family Foundation, Khalida A. Dullin Foundation, Suzy Tompkins Buell Fund, and listener contributions to the kitchen sisters productions. The kitchen sisters present as a proud member of PRX's Radio Topia, a network of independent producers creating some of the most memorable and cutting-edge podcasts out there. Listen to more stories at kitchencisters.org. Radio Topia. From PRX.