First published 2015
Louis Armstrong sits alone in his dressing room at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room in 1971, speaking into a tape recorder after what will be his final public performance. Four months before his death, the jazz legend reflects on his complicated relationship with Joe Glaser, the white manager he once loved like a father but now suspects betrayed him. Through Armstrong's memories, Glaser emerges to defend his methods of building Armstrong's career with help from the Chicago mob, arguing that simplifying the musician's style was necessary for success. Miles Davis also appears in Armstrong's recollections, condemning the older musician for compromising his art to please white audiences. The play unfolds as one actor embodies all three men, revealing the painful tensions between artistic integrity and commercial success, loyalty and exploitation, in the life of jazz's greatest trumpeter.
Genres: drama, american-fiction, 20th-century, african-american, biography-memoir, music
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Chicago, Waldorf-Astoria
Period: 1971
38 pages · Paperback · Dramatist Play Service, INC