Cape Symphony turns back the clock playing Louis Armstrong, other jazz greats

Jazz greats Louis Armstrong and the Cape Cod friend who photographed him for more than a decade, Jack Bradley, have been gone for years but their spirits will be on stage this weekend in Cape Symphony’s concert of Jazz-era greats.

Guest conductor/trumpet player Byron Stripling, drummer Rich Thompson and singer Carmen Bradford “light up the stage with hits made famous by New Orleans favorites like Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Al Hirt, Mahalia Jackson, and Jazz Age icons Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday,” according to the program for this weekend’s concerts.

“I was too young to meet Louis Armstrong but as an artist/performer he had, and continues to have, a musical lock on my brain,” Stripling, 61, said in a telephone interview from Columbus, Ohio, where he is artistic director and conductor of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra.

Stripling said playing jazz with a large group like the Cape Symphony is different because, in addition to playing off the scored sheet music that he sent them, musicians are expected to wait for cues as the guest conductor decides how long to let an improvisation run on. And, Stripling said, Pops concerts like this one usually get one rehearsal, not a week as classical concerts do.

“I’m not worried because I’ve played with the Cape Symphony before and they are all great musicians,” Stripling said. “But they will probably be waiting with bated breath to see where they are coming in.”

The program includes old favorites including "Someone to Watch Over Me," "A Tisket, A Tasket" and "I Got Rhythm."

The guests this weekend all have different ties to jazz: Bradford, whose mother was a singer, was a child when she sat on Armstrong’s lap for a photo; Stripling played for Ella Fitzgerald when she was on Barbara Walter’s “The View” in its early days. He also played with Arvell Shaw, a double bassist for Armstrong.

Shaw told the musicians, “Let’s have the spirit of Louis in there, but like any other jazz musician, be yourself. That's what Louie would want.”

Stripling said he hopes many people will come to hear the live music and celebrate how the sound can lift people. “This world we’re in, troubles with Israel and Palestine, is basically on fire right now. It’s time for us to sing together.”

An appreciation for Armstrong’s music starts at Barnstable Performing Arts Center an hour before the concerts as Michael Persico, a Sandwich resident and trombonist who directs https://classicjazzvisions.org, pairs Bradley’s photos of Armstrong and other jazz musicians with music and stories.

Bradley had what was described as the largest collection of Armstrong memorabilia in the world, with 30,000 pieces and images he shot while traveling with the jazz great from 1959 to 1974.

Persico archived Bradley’s work and helped install the memorabilia at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, N.Y., which had purchased the collection in 2006.

Persico, a former music teacher in Mashpee, remembered how Bradley told countless stories about Armstrong. One was about how the famous trumpeter and vocalist was amazed to find eggs and bacon in his hotel fridge. “'I could make a feast,' he told his entourage. He grew up poor and was always grateful for what music brought him,” Persico said.

But Armstrong also stood up for what he believed, especially in race relations. "He was so angry that Eisenhower delayed sending federal help to Black students in Little Rock (during federally ordered school integration) that he (Armstrong) canceled his concert tour of the Soviet Union."

Persico said Bradley's very first photo of Armstrong was taken in 1955 when Bradley was "a high school kid with a camera" who snuck into a performance at the Elks Lodge in Hyannis.

If you go: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Barnstable Performing Arts Center, 744 West Main St., Hyannis, capesymphony.org

Gwenn Friss is the editor of CapeWeek and covers entertainment, restaurants and the arts. Contact her at gfriss@capecodonline.com. Follow her or X, formerly Twitter: @dailyrecipeCCT

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Guest trumpeter plays Louis Armstrong at Cape Symphony Pops concert