Michael Heller

In response to Michael Heller.

The tour concludes in Armstrong's den, a personal space that he decorated through composing collages directly on the walls. These collages offer yet another way into understandings of memory, memorialization, and the ongoing curation of our understandings of the past. 16/

02:54 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

But in total, I argue the sonic power of the tour extends far beyond the sounds of the clips themselves. It rests instead in complex interrelationships between sound, physical space, the tour script, and spiritual/historiographic conceptions of Armstrong as a saintly figure. 15/

02:54 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

Proceeding through the house, the Chapter covers many further topics (gendered representations domestic spaces, the impact of the bedroom as death chamber, the critical role of Lucille Armstrong, the relationships between onstage and offstage sonic presentations) 14/

02:53 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

We find Armstrong taking a direct and empowered role in his own historiographic/affective remembrance. He literally narrates his own tour from beyond the grave. I compare this to Armstrong's other major hobby: the composition of collage art 13/

02:53 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

Here, the collaboration is not merely sonic (as in S/P), but also curatorial and historiographic. The museum is a collaboration btwn (at least) three individuals: Armstrong, his spouse Lucille (who established the Armstrong Foundation), and museum dir. Michael Cogswell 12/

02:53 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

I go on to frame the museum as a whole as case study of acoustic/spatial/narrative "deadness" - a term coined by Stanyek/Piekut to refer to ongoing collaborations between the living and the dead 11/

02:53 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

I discuss these clips as being acousmatic but not schizophonic. The source is hidden, but its surreality is not from being separated from its source. To the contrary, this is sound being RETURNED to its source. I therefore frame the experience as one of antischizophonia 10/

02:52 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

It was an incredible demonstration of sonic affect operating through the unexpected sonic arrival of Armstrong himself. It functioned as a form of haunting: the impossible arrival of an entity from the past entering visitors' sensorium within the present 9/

02:52 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

I can't convey strongly enough the kinds of impacts these clips could have on visitors. I saw people break down in tears, fall into uncomfortable/uncontrollable laughter, or one visitor who just screamed out that he had to leave and bolted 8/

02:51 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

The most profound sonic presences in the tour come via audio clips played back from speakers hidden inside the museum's walls. These clips are not from Armstrong performances, but private recordings of Armstrong speaking inside the very same rooms 7/

02:51 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

Our entrance through the front door, for instance, marks a profound shift from exterior community soundscape into a shrine-like silence. This connects to relationships between composer houses and traditions of religious reliquary in other house museums 6/

02:50 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

In each room of the house, I use aspects of the sonic experience to ruminate on the significance of the house and its affective impact on visitors, as well as its broader meanings for jazz historiography 5/

02:50 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

Chap. 6, "Deploying Deadness in Louis Armstrong’s House" considers relationships of sound, space, text, and memory. It is structured as a walking tour through the Armstrong House Museum in Qns, where I was a tour guide in the early 2000s. It begins with a walk from the subway 4/

02:50 PM - May 30, 2023

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In response to Michael Heller.

It's also about those things lying just outside of sound that change our experience of it. About impingements from other senses or affects. These topics are explored in a series of wide-ranging essays 3/

02:49 PM - May 30, 2023

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