A WONDERFUL WORLD - THE MUSIC'S THE THING

Even with an uninspired book, “A Wonderful World The Louis Armstrong Musical” is an entertaining musical, based on the enduring appeal of the larger-than-life American jazz musician and a marvelous period-based songbook. Armstrong (1901 - 1971) had a complicated personal life (women) and a career that spanned most of the 20thC. He remains one of the most influential progenitors of jazz and its move into mainstream American popular culture.

Writer Aurin Squire melds both these private and public aspects of Armstrong’s life into four “chapters”, neatly coinciding with the woman in his life for that period. The approach makes for a tidy narrative, but it also makes for a plot that is relentlessly chronological. Worse, the plotline is Wikipedia-like, such that the grueling racism Armstrong - aka Sachmo - navigated throughout his career doesn’t have much dramatic heft as staged here.

Conceived by Christopher Renshaw and Andrew Delaplaine and co-directed by James Monroe Iglehart and Christina Sajous, the creative principals combine backgrounds from opera to acting to journalism. “Wonderful World” reflects a team - more like committee - effort; no unified theme about Armstrong’s life emerges, even with Iglehart, who plays Armstrong, as co-director. Iglehart, with lots of major roles in major Broadway productions and a featured actor Tony Award for playing the Genie in Disney’s “Aladdin”, has wondrously mastered Armstrong's gravelly voice (even making it more gravelly as Armstrong ages). He flashes Armstrong's wide smile and perfects his mannerisms in the handling of the trumpet and th Sachmo’s signature white handkerchief. Igelhart’s performance of Sacmo is both appealing and charming.

We follow Armstrong chronologically from his early days in New Orleans in the 1910s with his first wife, a switchblade-wielding sex worker, Daisy Parker (a fierce Dionne Figgins). In pursuit of career, in Chicago in the 1920s, Armstrong marries Lil Hardin (KIm Exum) who helps him navigate the perditious practices of the Mafia in the burgeoning jazz club scene. In 1930s Hollywood, Sachmo faces abject discrimination and finds wife #3, Alpha Smith. From the 1940’s on Armstrong settles down with Lucille Wilson. In his later years, he enjoys a #1 hit in the US pop charts - his cover of “Hello Dolly”, title song from the beloved American musical.

The 30 songs - an impressive selection - are by composers ranging from Irving Berlin to Hoagy Carmichael and include two written by Sachmo himself - “Back O’ Town Blues” and the naughty “I Want a Big Butter and Egg Man” and classics like “After You’ve Gone” and a rousing ensemble of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” All are given hot new orchestrations and arrangements by Grammy winner and world-class trumpeter Branford Marselis. The nine-member band includes the amazing Alphonso Horne, who has toured with Wynton Marselis, on lead trumpet. The choreography by Ricky Tripp is period-appropriate and appropriately jazzy.

When “A Wonderful World” sticks to Armstrong’s music it rings true, regardless of its book, And, in the spirit of Sachmo’s affability, Inglehart pulls off an audience sing-along version of “Hello Dolly” in the second act.