Louis Armstrong's "Karnofsky Document": The Reaffirmation of Social Death and the Afterlife of Emotional Labor

This essay examines a controversial memoir Louis Armstrong wrote on his deathbed in New York's Beth Israel Hospital. I argue that critics have made the mistake of treating each of the narrative's elements as discreet units. In doing so they have protected the musician's legacy by detouring around many of the challenges the document poses to some deeply cherished ideas about Armstrong's life and the significance of his art. Cherry picking aspects of the narrative that reinforce his legacy as a social healer and purveyor of joy, they have reaffirmed his place as an exemplar of American exceptionalism. In order to make this claim they have left out, minimized or created apologetics for his many troubling mediations on the social conditions ordering turn of the century New Orleans. Instead of enriching our understanding of Armstrong, this has reproduced a sentimental analysis of his work. Using the prism of emotional labor I argue that the memoir primarily reflects the ideologies and mores of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era into which he was born. Critics have reinforced this by emphasizing the narrative's uplift mythos in place of a more complex, and problematic analysis of American racism, capitalist exploitation and political disfranchisement. Above all, the deathbed memoir attests to the lasting negative impact of structural changes in American society initiated at the turn of the century. In particular, I suggest that the narrative forces us to consider the re-imposition of black political and economic subordination in the wake of Plessy v Ferguson. The document demands that we take seriously the consequences of the emotional and structural estrangement of black social life. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]