Extremely rare 1956 clip of Louis Armstrong in colour found on ShareNow.com

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Extremely rare 1956 clip of Louis Armstrong in colour found on ShareNow.com

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uploaded by filesharejunkie

Probably the only surviving colour footage of Louis Armstrong’s May 1956 concert at Achimota College, Gold Coast (now called Ghana) has been found on the social network site ShareNow.com

An extremely rare clip of Louis Armstrong in concert and in colour (but, unfortunately, with no sound), has been found on ShareNow.com It has been uploaded by the username 'reed'.

http://www.sharenow.com/base/content/43872/

In May, 1956 Louis and his wife, Lucille, were touring the Gold Coast. Their band members included clarinetist Edmond Hall, trombonist Trummy Young, drummer Barrett Deems, and bassist Jack Lesberg,

The concert was to start at 2.30pm and would take place on the Old Polo Ground at Achimota College. On this particular Wednesday, the Armstrongs had a 2½ hour luncheon with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah beforehand, while the remainder of the group attended the press reception.

“At 3:15 p.m., the Prime Minister's car finally delivered the Armstrongs. As the band began to play amidst wild cheering, the crowd tried to spread out to dance. Eventually, the speaker system was disabled and, as people at the far end of the field attempted to move closer, the band stand and camera equipment came into danger. After several numbers it was necessary for the band to depart.”

Then Louis, introduced as “Mr. Armstrong, the great American musician" and his band began to play Indiana, but there was no response from the audience...they had never heard music like this. Next, a number at a slower tempo...still no response.

"Then, away across the far side of the arena, a solitary figure arose. It was an old, old man, with a stave, from some northern tribe. Slowly, gravely, he advanced towards the band, in a kind of shuffle, attuned somewhere deep in his mind to the beat of the music. We waited. Was this the catalyst that would fuse the cultures? It was not enough. So an American took the initiative. Lucille Armstrong stood up and went out into the arena to join the old man. Side by side, under the bell of Armstrong's swinging trumpet they slowly danced, as Lucille watched the old man's feet shuffling in the dust, and matched his steps. She was an odd but significant figure in her crisp New York dress, dancing with the old tribesman in his cotton robe. This was the turning point. As the American woman and the man of Africa danced, more and more people from around the arena got up and joined in."

Africans received the jazz coolly until Royal Garden Blues stirred them up, and soon 30-odd tribesmen were doing jive steps to the riffs.

Louis was described as perhaps the most celebrated - and certainly the most popular - visitor to the Gold Coast, ever.

References: http://www.libertyhall.com/stamp/Ghana.html and http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,866966,00.html?iid 

See also this video clip in YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fcsUkLnULE See 0:38-0:40 and from 3:19 till the end.

There is the same concert with sound but in black and white, so this must be the only colour film of that concert in existence! In the black and white film, you see the same woman with a baby strapped to her back and you see the same guy wave something over Louis' head. In the Reed video you can see, at one point, the camera taking the shots that became the YouTube video today.  You can also see a stills photographer and it looks like some of his shots also found their way into the black and white video (the sort of slide show section of it).