Random Music Video: Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash "Blue Yodel #9"

I don't know that any one person invented jazz. I suppose as a musical form it evolved, evolved on the streets on New Orleans, evolved amongst the brass bands that played in parades in the Crescent City and elsewhere in southern Louisiana in the late 1800s and early 1900s, evolved in sweaty honky tonks and steamy bordellos. Now, sometimes evolution in an art form is aided by one person without whom the evolution would not be as successful. In painting, there was Picasso. In jazz, there was Louis Armstrong. To borrow from Dizzy Gillespie, who said, "No Louis Armstrong, no me," I say no Louis Armstrong, no jazz as we know it. Armstrong virtually invented modern jazz in the 1920s.

Fast forward to 1970 and we can feast our eyes and ears upon another cool cat, Johnny Cash, who'd been rocking the world since the '50s. The evolution of Johnny Cash was the evolution of a white man in Arkansas growing up in the '30s and '40s, listening to country and folk and gospel. Later on he put all that together, mushed up with a pinch of rock and roll, and came up with songs like "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues." Cash loved music and he loved people, all people, and you can see that in this video.

Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong might seem like a strange pairing, but really, it isn't. It's just two cool cats layin' it down.