TT: Sometimes Macy's does tell Gimbels!

The New York Times recently interviewed me about Satchmo at the Waldorf . Here's part of the story, which will appear in print on Sunday:

Who knew Louis Armstrong had such a mouth on him? And we don't mean embouchure.

With "Satchmo at the Waldorf," which opened Oct. 3 at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven (after an earlier run in Lenox, Mass.), the critic Terry Teachout becomes a playwright. And as such, he seems to have a lot in common with David Mamet. That is, his dialogue flows with four-letter words like Beaujolais at a French cafe. The primary offender and main character is Armstrong himself, jazz trumpeter, singer and postwar America's first nonwhite sweetheart....

Armstrong's duality fascinates Mr. Teachout, a jazz aficionado who was born in Missouri and lived in Kansas City in his 20s. "The public Armstrong and the private Armstrong are very different," he said. But, he emphasized, "they're both true."

"When he went out onstage and smiled that big smile and sang 'Dolly,' he wasn't lying," he continued. "He was a fundamentally largehearted man. But he was also a genius and also a complicated man...."

Read the whole thing here .