Original-Cin Q&A: Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues Director Sacha Jenkins on the 'World's Most Famous' Jazzman

By Bonnie Laufer

One of the greatest musicians of his generation, Louis Armstrong is the subject of a new, acclaimed documentary. Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues honors the musician's legacy as a founding father of jazz.

The film shows how Armstrong's life spans the shift from post-Civil War Reconstruction to the Civil Rights movement, and how he became a lightning rod figure in that turbulent era.

Our Bonnie Laufer caught up with director Sacha Jenkins to discuss the film.

Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues begins streaming on Apple TV + on October 28th. Read our review of the documentary here.

“Satchmo” at home, in Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues.

ORIGINAL-CIN: Sacha, I cannot imagine how much footage you had to sift through to get to the core of this documentary. How daunting was it or were you just really excited to dig in?

SACHA JENKINS:  In all honesty, it was both. Louis Armstrong was once one of the most famous people in the world at a time when there weren't that many famous people on his level. So, thankfully, there were a lot of archives over the years. But we had a small army of producers, scouring, looking under rocks, finding really amazing archives, so we're lucky that he was famous.

Director Sacha Jenkins

O-C:   What surprised you most about Louis after you started sifting through all of this material? Was there something that kind of stood out for you most about him?

JENKINS:  We knew him for his hits and his public persona, but he was a different persona off camera.  His off-camera persona showed us a real human being. He was an everyday person who had normal everyday feelings that you would expect for him to express himself in the ways that he did. But if he was your neighbour, you wouldn't be surprised. It's just that he's Louis Armstrong so it's kind of shocking and surprising.

O-C:  Was lining the interviews with some of today’s music greats a challenge or was everyone excited to participate?

JENKINS: The folks that we interviewed for the film like Wynton Marsalis and Dan Morgenstern were happy to talk about Louis Armstrong at any given moment. So it wasn't really much of a challenge.

We've had so much support from the people who have dedicated their lives to maintaining his legacy. Even the pitch of the tunes in his work was heavily scrutinized.

You're not thinking about, ‘What if it's off by a millisecond?’ But to these real jazz weirdo nerds, if the pitch is off just a little bit, the film has no credibility.

So from all the folks who are really in Armstrong's life, even though he's not alive, the people in his life today were very, very helpful.

O-C: I learned so much about him by watching this doc. One thing I didn't know was that some famous people who are now fans were detractors in the beginning because they felt that he was playing for the white man - giving in so to speak. How do you feel about that?

JENKINS:  Well, I might have felt the same way. As a kid, listening to hip-hop and coming from a particular time that I was living through, you’ve got to remember that he's from a different time. He was born in the early 1900s and so by the time he's in his fifties and sixties, and with Civil Rights happening, younger folks are more militant in the streets, more in your face.

So of course, it's easy for them to say, “Well, this guy is not really for the cause.” But you’ve got to understand, he was basically living through (the echoes of) slavery. Living in the South, 40 years after slavery.

I can't imagine things were that radically different. He says in the film, “The things that I saw made my skin crawl.” The things that he had to live through were horrendous.

So you've got to look at where everyone is, where they come from. 

I think that because there was a level of freedom during the Civil Rights era in terms of black people taking control of their freedom and being more vocal about what they wanted to see change. The fact that he wasn't necessarily vocal, they felt it felt like a betrayal. But he was contributing in his own ways.