At the end of the international jazz festival, correspondent Ernest Borneman spent the night in Louis Armstrong's room at the Negresco hotel in Nice, talking to Louis, Mezz Mezzrow, Barney Bigard, Big Sid Catlett and others about progress and tradition in jazz until the sun came up and it was time to catch the early morning plane for Paris. Others present were Velma Middleton, Louis' featured singer, and Honey Johnson, Rex Stewart's vocalist. Louis asked that some of the things said be considered "among friends." These parts of the conversation have therefore been kept off the record. A transcript of the remaining passages, mainly those of argument between Louis, Bigard and Mezz, is given below because it seems to cover nearly all the points of opinion that have recently divided the old school of jazz from the novelty school. The interview might also be considered as a fitting reply to Stan Kenton's statement that "Louis...plays without any scientific element" and that "all natural forms of inspiration in music have been exhausted." The actual text of Mike Levin's interview with Stan had of course not reached Louis yet at the time of the Nice festival, but some of Louis' statements sound almost telepathic in view of their direct relationship to the questions which Stan raised simultaneously in New York.)Borneman: Well, now that it's all over, what do you think the verdict is going to be in the cold light of the morning after?
Mezzrow: If it proves anything, it shows that jazz is the greatest diplomat of them all. Did you dig those young French cats playing like Joe Oliver? Man, that's old Johnny Dodds on clarinet and Baby on woodblocks. And that's thirty years later and in another country. If that's not the great leveler, I don't know what is.
Bigard: You mean Claude Luter? You must be kidding.
Mezz: What do you mean kidding? Those cats sound real good to me.
Bigard: They're out of tune so bad it hurts your ears.
Louis: What's that you're saying, man? Ain't you never played out of tune?
Bigard Sure, man, but I try to do better. I learned a few things all those years since I was a kid in New Orleans. And if you blow wrong you try to keep it to yourself.
Louis: How about records? How about that thing you made with Duke, the one about the train?
Bigard: "Happy Go Lucky Local?" I didn't make that.
Louis: No, the other one. "Daybreak Express."
Bigard: That was the trumpet, and maybe they just cut him off in the end.
Louis: Yeah, maybe.
Bigard: And how about the one you made with the big band on "Struttin' With Some Barbecue?" How about that clarinet?
Louis: That was half a tone off, but it sold all right.
Bigard: Yeah, but you were satisfied with it?
Louis: It sold all right. Them cats know that a guy got to blow the way he feels and sometimes he hits them wrong. That's better than them young guys who won't blow for fear they'll be off.
Mezz: I'll tell you why he hit it wrong that time, Barney. The guy was playing tenor at the time and then switched to clarinet and his embouchure knocked him out.
Bigard: Embouchure, huh! I was playing tenor too. I had two embouchures. For tenor on this side and for clarinet on that one so what about that?
Louis: That's not what we're talking about. You're always knocking somebody, pops. I say that little French band plays fine. I could take them youngsters up to the Savoy and bring the walls down with them any day.
Bigard: That's because you can take any kind of outfit and blow everyone else out of the room.
Louis: That's a fine band, pops. That little cornet player sounds just like Mutt Carey to me, I can hear all them pretty little things Mutt used to do when that boy gets up and plays. That's the real music, man.
Bigard: Real music! Who wants to play like those folds thirty years ago?
Louis:
