STRIDE

Lil Hardin Armstrong

What if behind every great trumpet player
there’s a fabulous woman who is a bandleader, arranger,
composer, and singer, who also plays Stride piano?
This is the songwriter of “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue”,
covered by numerous artists over the years;
and “Just For a Thrill”, covered by Ray Charles in 1959.

This artist was Memphis born Lil Hardin Armstrong
who was an important collaborator with Louis Armstrong’s
Hot Five jazz band. She had the spotlight as jazz pianist
in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band when Satchmo arrived
to join the band in 1922.

The classically trained “ Hot Miss Lil” naturally fell right
into the jazz zeitgeist of the Roaring Twenties. Her
creative juices flowed and she made her mark on the
Jazz world.

She held court on the South Side of Chicago,
where notable players like Bix Beiderbecke and
Hoagy Carmichael sat in rapt attention at the feet
of genius laid before them, sizzling in smoky rooms
as they witnessed the birth of Jazz, an American
art form, shaped from the heart of African rhythms.
Music would never be the same again!

Lil Hardin Armstrong was a powerful progenitor of the music
surrounding us today that was woven from the threads of
this Jazz fabric that surrounds us with its sacred grace and beauty.

In 1978 Ringo Starr recorded Lil’s “Bad Boy” and it was all over the radio airwaves. Ringo Starr knows where to find the good stuff, doesn’t he,
Ray Wylie Hubbard?

Below is The Jive Bombers’ 1957 version of “Bad Boy”.

“Stride” - Acrylic with rhinestones - on cut out wood. 25” H - Linda Christy 2004

“Lil” - Watercolor on Paper - about 12” H - Linda Christy - 2004?