The new Broadway bio-musical, “It's A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical,” with the book by Aurin Squire, tells the story of the man through his music and his four wives. The show goes chronologically and seems divided into four segments with each wife getting about 30 minutes. The four women are wonderful singers and performers.

The musical begins in New Orleans in 1910’s with wife Daisy, the prostitute, played by Dionne Figgins. Then Armstrong moves on to Chicago where wife two, Lil, played by Jennie Harney-Fleming, urges him to be confident and take control of his own destiny. But Louis is a road man and loves to tour. Besides, it’s the way to avoid the gangsters who want to control his career. He then travels to Hollywood with wife Alpha Smith (Kim Exum.) But it’s the fourth and final wife, Lucille Wilson (excellent Darlesia Cearcy) who makes him settle down in New York up to the 1970’s.

Armstrong says that his goal is to spread joy through his music and the character seems naive but also disarmingly pleasant. Along the way he is given advice by older men. His role model and mentor, King Joe Oliver, well- portrayed by Gavin Gregory (who plays a great trumpet) advises,“You need a white man to be someone who will say when you get in a jam ‘that’s my nigger. I’ll take it from here.’-And on the women’s side you need to be single because men like us need to travel and tour.” But Armstrong basically ignores his advice until much later in his life when he hires Joe Glaser (Jimmy Smagula) as his agent.In Hollywood, Armstrong meets the film actor Lincoln Perry who became famous as Stephen Fetchit. Perry tells him he must have a gimmick to charm white audience, and Armstrong notes that his gimmick is his signature smile.

There are a few dark moments in the show when Armstrong witnesses racial discrimination, but he avoids conflict until much later in life and then is so vocal that he becomes blackballed for many years. The musical is best when he is fighting against the image of the compliant performer.

At the last minute, the audience at our performance learned that James Monroe Iglehart would not be performing as Armstrong. In his place, James T. Lane, who usually assumes the part for the Wednesday and Thursday matinees, took the role. Lane works hard and does a fine job, especially emulating the gravelly voice. Somehow, though, Armstrong should be a big presence and figuratively should take up the entire theater. Sadly, Lane doesn’t but instead ‘shares’ the stage most of the time.

There is a lot of music and dancing in “A Wonderful World” and besides the songs that Armstrong made famous, many of the tunes were the songs that were popular and performed by Armstrong and others at that time.

The musical, under the direction of Christopher Renshaw and co-directed by Iglehart and Christina Sajous, is like four separate stories and would have been more fascinating focusing on only one. We are introduced to the people in Armstrong’s life, his wives and mentors, but somehow we don't get to know the real man.

But what we do see gives us glimpse into the wonderful world and music of Louis Amstrong.

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