I just got word that another book tentatively called Hotter Than That will be published around the time that my Louis Armstrong biography of the same name will be coming out from Harcourt. No, it’s not an Armstrong biography, but it is about jazz trumpet, which suggests that I may need to come up with another title. The prospect doesn’t unnerve me–my Mencken biography was retitled The Skeptic after I turned the manuscript in to HarperCollins–but it’s not too soon for me to be thinking about a new name, so I thought I’d share my problem with the readers of this blog.
“Hotter Than That” is, of course, the title of one of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five recordings of 1928, so I went through the Armstrong discography to see if any other title leaped out at me. These caught my eye:
• King of the Zulus
• Fireworks
• That Rhythm Man
• You Rascal, You
• Laughin’ Louie
• Song of the Vipers (or, alternatively, “King of the Vipers,” which was one of Armstrong’s many nicknames)
• I’m Shootin’ High
• Jubilee
Your thoughts?