‘A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical’ review: A lifeless Satchmo show on Broadway

nypost.com:

wife story that fails to capture Armstrong, the artist. The “Hello, Dolly!” singer, who died in 1971, indeed married four times and was a cheating jerk to that quartet of women.His turbulent relationships with them as his fame skyrockets — from second trumpet in King Joe Oliver’s (Gavin Gregory) jazz band to Hollywood icon — punctuate “A Wonderful World.” That’s personally messy, yes, but it’s a theatrically tricky choice by book writer Aurin Squire to center a musical filled with many, many (did I say many?) upbeat tunes around spousal quarrels and infidelity.The show’s best numbers actually belong to the actresses who play the wives, each one fabulous.Think of it like “Nine” or “Six” — but “Four.”Armstrong’s ladies are Daisy Parker (Dionne Figgins), a “switchblade hooker”; practical piano player and manager Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming); fan Alpha Smith (Kim Exum); and Cotton Club singer Lucille Wilson (Darlesia Cearcy), who finally holds him accountable for his zipper.Their personalities are as distinctive as their knockout voices.

The first act ends stunningly when spurned exes Daisy and Lil duet on “Some of These Days”/ “After You’ve Gone” — the show’s most blood-pumping auditory moment.Cearcy has another standout in the second half with the moving “That’s My Home.”The trouble is that Satchmo is not only second trumpet, but he’s reduced to being second fiddle.

In his own show!We’re left with the impression that the creators did not find Armstrong, emptily impersonated by James Monroe Iglehart, to be a particularly interesting guy.