Professor David Peimer
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
Summary
From tough beginnings to jazz greats of the century, how did Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong achieve such heights? What lies behind these two remarkable global and iconic artists? How do we see them today?
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a Professor of Literature, Film and Theatre in the UK. He has worked for the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, New York University (Global Division) and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing in New York, UK, Berlin, EU Parliament (Brussels), Athens, Budapest, Zululand and more. He has most recently directed Dame Janet Suzman in his own play, Joanna’s Story, at London Jewish Book Week. He has published widely with books including: Armed Response: Plays from South Africa, the digital book, Theatre in the Camps. He is on the board of the Pinter Centre (London), and has been involved with the Mandela Foundation, Vaclav Havel Foundation and directed a range of plays at Mr Havel’s Prague theatre.
Well, he originated it to reach such a wide audience. So he’s credited often as inventing scat singing, but it was also in the air at the times as well. But he’s the one who in a way crystallised it and made it into, I suppose, the genre it is, and he’s the one who made it so influential in jazz and other kinds of singing and music, for sure.
Yeah, he was, of pandering to the white man’s image. He was, Joe, and good point. As some of them said, he’s half-vaudevillian, he’s half-entertainer, he’s half-musician, you know, and criticised him for not speaking out more and, you know, about racism. You know, in the end, we can speculate, but there’s no hard and fast evidence of what they actually said or thought about other than wanting the music to speak to all races, all nationalities, religions, which I think is often a lost quality these days.
No, not that I know of. I don’t think this came from any damage. Just, you know, his gift of a voice.