Weight-Loss Regimes as Improvisation in Louis Armstrong’s and Duke Ellington’s Life Writing
Weight-Loss Regimes as Improvisation in Louis Armstrong’s and Duke Ellington’s Life Writing
This chapter analyzes Louis Armstrong’s and Duke Ellington’s published life writing texts to argue that both musicians applied the same skillset they had relied upon for their musical success—creativity and improvisation—to tackle the most serious threat to their health and public image: obesity. I read Armstrong’s 1936 autobiography largely co-produced with a ghostwriter, Swing That Music, alongside his later Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1956), and his self-published diet regime and contrast it to the single chapter Ellington dedicated to discussing his culinary adventures in his 1973 autobiography, Music is My Mistress. Their respective self-designed alimentary regimes, shared with the reading public through passages or chapters dedicated to food in their autobiographies, reflected their unique and idiosyncratic styles and captured the popular imagination.
Keywords: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, diet, improvisation, life writing, Alice B. Toklas
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