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Armstrong, Louis b. 4 August 1901, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 6 July 1971, New York City, New York, USA. It is impossible to overstate Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong’s importance in jazz, as he was one of the most influential artists in the music’s history. He was also more than just a jazz musician, he was an enormously popular entertainer (a facet upon which some critics frowned) and although other black jazz men and women would eventually be welcomed in the upper echelons of white society, Armstrong was one of the first. He certainly found his way into millions of hearts otherwise closed to his kind. Had Armstrong been born white and privileged, his achievement would have been extraordinary; that he was born black and in desperately deprived circumstances makes his success almost miraculous. Armstrong achieved this astonishing breakthrough largely by the sheer force of his personality.

Louis Armstrong was born and raised in and around the notorious Storyville district of New Orleans. His exact date of birth only became known in the 90s, although for many years he claimed it to be 4 July 1900, a date which was both patriotic and easy to remember and, as some chroniclers have suggested, might have exempted him from army service. Run-down apartment buildings, many of them converted to occasional use as brothels, honky-tonks, dance halls and even churches, were his surroundings as he grew up with his mother and younger sister (his father having abandoned the family at the time of Louis’ birth). His childhood combined being free to run the streets with obligations towards his family, who needed him to earn money. His formal education was severely restricted but he was a bright child and swiftly accumulated the kind of wisdom needed for survival; long before the term existed, Louis Armstrong was ‘streetwise’. From the first he learned how to hustle for money and it was a lesson he never forgot. Even late in life, when he was rich and famous, he would still regard his career as a ‘hustle’. As a child, apart from regular work, among the means he had of earning money was singing at street corners in a semi-formal group.

Armstrong’s life underwent a dramatic change when, still in his early teens, he was sent to the Colored Waifs Home. The popularly supposed reason for this incarceration, encouraged by Armstrong’s assisted autobiography, was that, in a fit of youthful exuberance he had celebrated New Year’s Eve (either 1912 or 1913) by firing off a borrowed pistol in the street. Whatever the reason, the period he spent in the home changed his life. Given the opportunity to play in the home’s band, first as a singer, then as a percussionist, then a bugler and finally as a cornetist, Armstrong found his métier. From the first, he displayed a remarkable affinity for music, and quickly achieved an enviable level of competence not only at playing the cornet but also in understanding harmony. Released from the home after a couple of years, it was some time before Armstrong could afford to buy an instrument of his own, but he continued to advance his playing ability, borrowing a cornet whenever he could and playing with any band that would hire him. He was, of course, some years away from earning his living through music but took playing jobs in order to supplement earnings from manual work, mainly delivering coal with a horse and cart.

Through his late teens, Armstrong played in many of the countless bands that made their home in New Orleans (not all of which could be thought of as jazz groups), gradually working his way upwards until he was in demand for engagements with some of the city’s best bands. The fact that Armstrong’s introduction to music came through the home’s band is significant in that he was inducted into a musical tradition different from that which was currently developing into the newly emergent style known as jazz. The Waif’s Home band played formal brass band music that placed certain demands upon musicians, not least of which were precision and an ornate bravura style. When Armstrong put this concept of music to work with the ideals of jazz, it resulted in a much more flamboyant and personalized musical form than the ensemble playing of the new New Orleans jazz bands. Not surprisingly, this precocious young cornet player attracted the attention of the city’s

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jazz masters, one of whom, King Oliver, was sufficiently impressed to become his musical coach and occasional employer. By the time that Armstrong came under Oliver’s wing, around 1917, the older man was generally regarded as the best cornetist in New Orleans and few challenged his position as ‘the King’.

Already displaying signs of great ambition, Armstrong knew that he needed the kind of advancement and kudos King Oliver could offer, even though Oliver’s style of playing was rather simplistic and close to that of other early New Orleans cornetists, such as near-contemporaries Freddie Keppard and Buddy Petit. Much more important to Armstrong’s career than musical tuition was the fact that his association with Oliver opened many doors that might otherwise have remained closed. Of special importance was the fact that through Oliver, the younger man was given the chance to take his talent out of the constrictions of one city and into the wide world beyond the bayous of Louisiana. In 1919 Oliver had been invited to take a band to Chicago (and before leaving, recommended his young protégé as his replacement with Kid Ory), and by 1922 his was the most popular ensemble in the Windy City. Back in New Orleans, Armstrong’s star continued to rise even though he declined to stay with Ory when the latter was invited to take his band to Los Angeles. Armstrong, chronically shy, preferred to stay in the place that he knew; but when Oliver sent word for him to come to Chicago, he went. The reason he overcame his earlier reluctance to travel was in part his ambition and also the fact that he trusted Oliver implicitly. From the moment of Armstrong’s arrival in Chicago the local musical scene was tipped onto its ear; musicians raved about the duets of the King and the young pretender and if the lay members of the audience did not know exactly what it was that they were hearing, they certainly knew that it was something special.

For two years Oliver and Armstrong made musical history and, had it not been for the piano player in the band, they might well have continued doing so for many more years. The piano player was Lillian Hardin, who took a special interest in the young cornetist and became the second major influence in his life. By 1924 Armstrong and Hardin were married and her influence had prompted him to quit Oliver’s band and soon afterwards to head for New York. In New York, Armstrong joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, bringing to that band a quality of solo playing far exceeding anything the city had heard thus far in jazz. His musical ideas, some of which were harmonies he and Oliver had developed, were also a spur to the writing of Henderson’s staff arranger, Don Redman. Armstrong stayed with Henderson for a little over a year, returning to Chicago in 1925 at his wife’s behest to star as the ‘World’s Greatest Trumpeter’ with her band. Over the next two or three years he recorded extensively, including the first of the famous Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions and as accompanist to the best of the blues singers, among them Bessie Smith, Clara Smith and Trixie Smith. He worked ceaselessly, in 1926 doubling with the orchestras of Carroll Dickerson and Erskine Tate, and becoming, briefly, a club owner with two of his closest musical companions, Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines and Zutty Singleton. By the end of the decade Armstrong was in demand across the country, playing important engagements in Chicago, New York, Washington, Los Angeles (but not New Orleans, a city to which he hardly ever returned).

By the 30s, Armstrong had forsaken the cornet for the trumpet. He frequently worked with name bands yet equally often travelled alone, fronting whichever house band was available at his destination. He worked and recorded in Los Angeles with Les Hite’s band (in which the drummer was Lionel Hampton), and in New York with Chick Webb. In 1932 and 1933 he made his first visits to Europe, playing to largely ecstatic audiences, although some, accustomed only to hearing him on record, found his stage mannerisms - the mugging and clowning, to say nothing of the sweating - rather difficult to accommodate. From 1935 onwards Armstrong fronted the Luis Russell orchestra, eclipsing the remarkable talents of the band’s leading trumpeter, Henry ‘Red’ Allen. In 1938 Louis and Lillian were divorced and he married Alpha Smith. However, by 1942 he had married again, to Lucille Wilson, who survived him. In some respects, the swing era passed Louis Armstrong by, leading some observers to suggest that his career was on a downward slide from that point on. Certainly, the big band Armstrong fronted in the 30s was generally inferior to many of its

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competitors, but his playing was always at least as strong as that of any of the other virtuoso instrumentalist leaders of the era. His musical style, however, was a little out of step with public demand, and by the early 40s he was out of vogue.

Since 1935 Armstrong’s career had been in the hands of Joe Glaser, a tough-talking, hard-nosed extrovert whom people either loved or hated. Ruthless in his determination to make his clients rich and famous, Glaser promoted Armstrong intensively. When the big band showed signs of flagging, Glaser fired everyone and then hired younger, more aggressive (if not always musically appropriate) people to back his star client. When this failed to work out, Glaser took a cue from an engagement at New York’s Town Hall at which Armstrong fronted a small band to great acclaim. Glaser set out to form a new band that would be made up of stars and which he planned to market under the name Louis Armstrong And His All Stars. It proved to be a perfect format for Armstrong and it remained the setting for his music for the rest of his life - even though changes in personnel gradually made a nonsense of the band’s hyperbolic title.

With the All Stars, Armstrong began a relentless succession of world tours with barely a night off, occasionally playing clubs and festivals but most often filling concert halls with adoring crowds. The first All Stars included Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines and ‘Big’ Sid Catlett; replacements in the early years included Trummy Young, Edmond Hall, Billy Kyle and William ‘Cozy’ Cole. Later substitutes, when standards slipped, included ‘Big Chief’ Russell Moore, Joe Darensbourg, and Barrett Deems. Regulars for many years were bass player Arvell Shaw and singer Velma Middleton. The format and content of the All Stars shows (copied to dire and detrimental effect by numerous bands in the traditional jazz boom of the 50s and 60s) were predictable, with solos being repeated night after night, often note for note. This helped to fuel the contention that Armstrong was past his best. In fact, some of the All Stars’ recordings, even those made with the lesser bands, show that this was not the case. The earliest All Stars are excitingly presented on Satchmo At Symphony Hall and New Orleans Nights, while the later bands produced some classic performances on Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy and Satch Plays Fats. On all these recordings Armstrong’s own playing is outstanding.

Time inevitably took its toll and eventually even Armstrong’s powerful lip weakened. It was then that another facet of his great talent came into its own. Apparent to any who cared to hear it since the 20s, Armstrong was a remarkable singer. By almost any standards but those of the jazz world, his voice was beyond redemption, but through jazz it became recognized for what it was: a perfect instrument for jazz singing. Armstrong’s throaty voice, his lazy-sounding delivery, his perfect timing and effortlessly immaculate rhythmic presentation, brought to songs of all kinds a remarkable sense of rightness. Perfect examples of this form were the riotous ‘(I Want) A Butter And Egg Man’ through such soulfully moving lyrics as ‘(What Did I Do To Be So) Black And Blue’, ‘Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans’, and countless superb renditions of the blues. He added comic absurdities to ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ and over-sentimentality to ‘What A Wonderful World’, which in 1968 gave him a UK number 1 hit. He added texture and warmth and a rare measure of understanding often far exceeding anything that had been put there by the songs’ writers. Additionally, he was one of the first performers to sing scat (the improvisation of wordless vocal sounds in place of the formal lyrics), and certainly the first to do so with skill and intelligence and not through mere chance (although he always claimed that he began scatting when the sheet music for ‘Heebie Jeebies’ fell on the floor during a 1926 recording session and he had to improvise the words). It was in his late years, as a singer and entertainer rather than as a trumpet star, that Armstrong became a world figure, known by name, sight and sound to tens of millions of people of all nationalities and creeds, who also loved him in a way that the urchin kid from the wrong side of the tracks in turn-of-the-century New Orleans could never have imagined.

Armstrong’s world status caused him some problems with other black Americans, many of whom believed he should have done more for his fellow blacks. He was openly criticized for the manner in

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which he behaved, whether on stage or off, some accusing him of being an Uncle Tom and thus pandering to stereotypical expectations of behaviour. Certainly, he was no militant, although he did explode briefly in a fit of anger when interviewed at the time of the Civil Rights protests over events in Little Rock in 1958. What his critics overlooked was that, by the time of Little Rock, Armstrong was almost 60 years old, and when the Civil Rights movement hit its full stride he was past the age at which most of his contemporaries were slipping contentedly into retirement. To expect a man of this age to wholeheartedly embrace the Civil Rights movement, having been born and raised in conditions even fellow blacks of one or two generations later could scarcely comprehend, was simply asking too much. For almost 50 years he had been an entertainer - he would probably have preferred and used the term ‘hustler’ - and he was not about to change.

Louis Armstrong toured on until almost the very end, recovering from at least one heart attack (news reports tended to be very cagey about his illnesses - doubtless Joe Glaser saw to that). He died in his sleep at his New York home on 6 July 1971. With only a handful of exceptions, most trumpet players who came after Armstrong owe some debt to his pioneering stylistic developments. By the early 40s, the date chosen by many as marking the first decline in Armstrong’s importance and ability, jazz style was undergoing major changes. Brought about largely by the work of Charlie Parker and his musical collaborators, chief among whom was trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, jazz trumpet style changed and the Armstrong style no longer had immediate currency. However, his influence was only sidetracked; it never completely disappeared, and in the post-bop era the qualities of technical proficiency and dazzling technique that he brought to jazz were once again appreciated for the remarkable achievements they were. In the early 20s Louis Armstrong had become a major influence on jazz musicians and jazz music; he altered the way musicians thought about their instruments and the way that they played them. There have been many virtuoso performers in jazz since Armstrong first came onto the scene, but nobody has matched his virtuosity or displayed a comparable level of commitment to jazz, a feeling for the blues, or such simple and highly communicable joie de vivre. Louis Armstrong was unique. The music world is fortunate to have received his outstanding contribution.

Armstrong, Louis [Dippermouth, Pops, Satchelmouth, Satchmo] (b New Orleans, 4 Aug 1901; d New York, 6 July 1971 ). American jazz trumpeter, singer and bandleader.

1. Life.

Armstrong’s father abandoned his mother around the time of his birth, and the family lived in poverty in New Orleans, near the saloons and dance halls whose music, along with what he heard and sang in church, was his first musical influence. As a child he worked at odd jobs and began performing on the streets with a vocal quartet. In 1912 he was arrested for delinquency and sent to the Colored Waifs’ Home in New Orleans, where he started to play the cornet and received his first formal musical tuition from Peter Davis, a member of the staff. After his release at the age of about 14, he again held various jobs and lived with his mother. He was befriended, taught and given his own cornet by his lifelong idol, the jazz cornettist Joe ‘King’ Oliver. Soon he began to play professionally, working with many New Orleans jazz musicians who later moved to the north, and in 1918 he joined Kid Ory’s band, replacing Oliver himself, who had left for Chicago. At this time he also began working in Fate Marable’s riverboat bands on excursions from New Orleans and St Louis.

In 1922 Oliver sent for Armstrong to join his successful Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens, Chicago. This offer was crucial for Armstrong, who maintained that he would have left New

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Orleans for no-one else; he now played with the finest and most influential New Orleans group in the north. He was recorded for the first time in Oliver’s noteworthy 1923 series. The discipline and sensitivity of his improvised second cornet parts to Oliver’s lead are specially apparent in the third chorus, first statement, of Mabel’s Dream. While with Oliver’s group Armstrong married the band’s pianist, Lillian Hardin (they were divorced in 1938). Her influence and his own growing discontent with the band’s restricting style led him reluctantly in 1924 to accept Fletcher Henderson’s invitation to join his big band in New York. As a section player in a larger group, Armstrong made his ensemble playing conform to the stiff rhythms then favoured by Henderson (for example, Copenhagen, 1924, Voc.). His sophisticated, flowing solos, however, introduced a novel style into the city’s jazz and dance music and exerted a wide influence on New York musicians, among them the band’s arranger, Don Redman, who soon found orchestral counterparts for many of Armstrong’s devices. While in New York, Armstrong made several recordings with other groups, including the striking I ain’t gonna play no second fiddle (1925, Voc.) with Perry Bradford’s Jazz Phools, a noteworthy series with Clarence Williams’s groups (for example, Texas Moaner Blues, 1924, OK) and as an accompanist to such blues singers as Bessie Smith (St Louis Blues, 1925, Col.).

Louis ArmstrongIn 1925 Armstrong returned to Chicago, where he played with groups led by his wife, Carroll Dickerson and Erskine Tate and, for most of 1927, with his own ensemble. In 1925 he also began a series of recordings under his own name. His originality and range as an improviser and the power and beauty of his ideas, as revealed in these remarkable early recordings, established his international reputation as the greatest and most creative jazz musician. The series also traces the search for an accompaniment appropriate to his increasingly virtuoso solo manner. The earliest of these – the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings with his wife, the Dodds brothers, Kid Ory and Johnny St Cyr – were modelled on New Orleans ensembles, leading to such masterpieces of the later New Orleans style as Big Butter and Egg Man (1926, OK), Potato Head Blues (1927, OK) and Struttin’ with some Barbecue (1927, OK). Then in 1928 he turned to a more modern small band, which included the pianist Earl Hines, and made greater use of arranged material, as in the remarkable Weather Bird, a duet with Hines, West End Blues and Beau Koo Jack (all OK). Finally, in mid-1929 Armstrong adopted the format he was to use until 1947: a big band as a neutral accompaniment to his playing and singing, which by now was dominated by large-scale, virtuoso conceptions. At the same time he began to concentrate on a popular repertory. There is controversy about Armstrong’s big-band period. Although his technical innovations had ceased, his performing still had artistic merit, and he made recordings of great power, beauty and maturity, such as Body and Soul (1930, OK), Star Dust (1931, OK), Sweethearts on Parade (1930, Col.) and I gotta right to sing the blues (1933, Vic.). He toured and recorded with large groups, particularly that of Luis Russell (1935–44), in the USA and in Europe (1932–5). He made film appearances, the first in Pennies from Heaven with Bing Crosby (1936), and hundreds of recordings with his own and other groups, becoming increasingly influential as a singer of popular music and reaching a wider audience. The serious jazz content of his playing diminished, and he was criticized for the low quality of his bands, his repertory and his failure to live up to the promise of his earlier achievements.

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After successful appearances with small groups in 1947, including one in the film New Orleans, Armstrong formed his All Stars, a sextet on the New Orleans model with which he worked until his death. Its personnel, but not its instrumentation, varied, and at times included the clarinettists Barney Bigard and Edmond Hall, the trombonists Jack Teagarden and Trummy Young, Armstrong’s earlier associate Hines and the drummers Sid Catlett and Cozy Cole. With this group Armstrong again showed his superlative quality as a jazz musician, playing less elaborately than he had for some time. Among the best recordings from this period is a collection of new versions of his classic performances, Satchmo: a Musical Autobiography (1956–7, Decca). At the same time he continued to make popular recordings, such as Mack the Knife (1955, Col.), Hello Dolly (1963, Kapp) and What a Wonderful World (on the album Louis Armstrong with his Friends, 1970, Amsterdam). The All Stars toured with great success in the USA, Australia, the Far East, Europe and South America. In 1960 they toured Africa twice, and their international travelling in the 1960s earned Armstrong the nickname ‘Ambassador Satch’. Illness incapacitated him several times in the late 1960s and took its toll on his playing. In public appearances from mid-1969 to September 1970 he was able only to sing; he then resumed playing, but he suffered a heart attack in March 1971.

2. Work.

Armstrong’s importance in the history of jazz is inestimable. The testimony of contemporary jazz musicians shows that his playing greatly impressed all who heard him. Much of his power lay in the grace, sensitivity and poise of his work, features not susceptible to imitation; but his concepts of tone and range, or rhythm and phrasing (both to some extent initially influenced by Oliver), and his sophisticated pitch choice were imitated. Almost all aspects of jazz technique and style, whether played or sung, were influenced directly by Armstrong’s innovations of the 1920s.

Armstrong acquired a basic beauty and strength of sound early in his career, and it is apparent even in his work with Oliver and Henderson. His studies with Oliver and his New Orleans background had made him familiar with the expressive possibilities of timbre; but he developed still more expressive ways of attacking and sustaining notes, often, for example, increasing ambitus of vibrato after an attack to give an accumulating energy and a kind of interior rhythm to individual notes and an additional propulsion to entire phrases. Even in the relatively early Potato Head Blues (1927, OK) he showed a repertory of devices for varying timbre, including alternative fingerings for the same note (ex.1, bars 9–10). This was coupled with a dramatic expansion of his instrument’s range: he had cultivated a solid low register as auxiliary cornettist with Oliver and Henderson, and he now gradually extended his range upwards to encompass an unprecedented three octaves, throughout which he could play with equal fluency and fullness of tone. His rhythms drew on the flowing New Orleans style and again on Oliver’s example, but he was able to free his playing still further from the rhythmic predictability of early jazz by using short spans and later whole phrases that seemed at first to contradict the underlying pulse, only to merge with it again. This was a basic element in his lyricism that for a long time set him apart. Further, Armstrong was able to link phrases without the characteristic problem in early jazz of vacant or formulaic cadences. He had acquired from Oliver a dynamic ability to imply harmony through line and pitch, yet to this basic technique he added a harmonic awareness far in advance of his contemporaries, for example, the augmented passing harmonies in bars 6 and 22 of ex.1 and the implicit II7–V7 in bar 20. Further, although Armstrong did not introduce 9ths, 13ths and chromaticisms into jazz harmony, he used them so systematically and with such effective placing that his choice of pitch sounded completely fresh. The cogency of his technical innovations, each solving a particular problem faced by the jazz soloist, and his untiring wealth of lyric improvisation, enabled him to extend his solos for several choruses and to structure entire performances, another aspect of his originality.

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–––––

Ex.1 Chorus from Armstrong’s solo on Potato Head Blues (1927, OK) (rhythm section plays only on first beat of odd-numbered bars)

Armstrong was equally noteworthy for his singing, particularly for his scat performances (see Scat singing, ex.1), some of which are among the earliest recorded examples (Heebie Jeebies, 1926, OK; Gully Low Blues, 1927, OK; Hotter than that, 1927, OK). His unique ‘gravelly’ voice, a mid-tenor but with an enlarged range, was a natural extension of his instrument: he elaborated a given melody or improvised new lines on the principles found in his trumpet playing. When applied to his singing his rhythmic subtleties were all the more striking, and he introduced a freedom and jazz sensibility that continue to be an important influence in popular singing.

Armstrong’s publications for trumpet include Fifty Hot Choruses and 125 Hot Breaks (both 1927), Louis Satchmo Armstrong’s Dixieland Trumpet Solos (1947) and Trumpet Method (1961).

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Louis Armstrong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Satchmo" redirects here. For the online store system, see Satchmo (online store).

Louis[1] Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901[2] – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo[3] or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing, or wordless vocalizing.

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and deep, instantly recognizable voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extended well beyond jazz, and by the end of his career in the '60s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general: critic Steve Leggett describes Armstrong as "perhaps the most important American musician of the 20th century."[4] Flea once proclaimed that "Louis Armstrong was probably the greatest musician that ever lived...one note implies that if he wanted to he could play ten billion notes, but just one simple note is a beautiful thing." [5]

Biography

Early life

Armstrong often stated in public interviews that he was born on July 4, 1900,[6] a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it wasn't until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered through the examination of baptismal records.[7] He was recorded as an out-of-wedlock[clarification needed] black child.

Armstrong was born into a very poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty in a rough neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, known as “Back of Town”, as his father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. His mother, Mary "Mayann" Albert (1886–1942), then left Louis and his younger sister Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987) in the care of his grandmother, Josephine Armstrong and at times, his Uncle Isaac. At five, he moved back to live with his mother and her relatives, and saw his father only in parades. He attended the Fisk School for Boys where he likely had his first exposure to Creole music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants but it wasn’t enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls, particularly the “Funky Butt,” which was the closest to his home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. He hauled coal to Storyville, the famed red-light district, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala’s where Joe "King" Oliver performed and other famous musicians would drop in to jam.

Armstrong grew up at the bottom of the social ladder in a highly segregated city but one which lived in a constant fervor of music, which was generally called “ragtime” - not yet “jazz”. Despite the hard early days, Armstrong seldom looked back at his youth as the worst of times but instead

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drew inspiration from it, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans...It has given me something to live for.”[8]

After dropping out of the Fisk School at eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys in similar straits as he and they sang in the streets for money. He also started to get into trouble. Cornet player Bunk Johnson said he taught Armstrong (then 11) to play by ear at Dago Tony's Tonk in New Orleans,[9] although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. His first cornet was bought with money loaned to him by the Karnofskys, a Russian-Jewish immigrant family who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. To express gratitude towards the Karnofskys, who took him in as almost a family member and fed and nurtured him, Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life.[10]

Armstrong with his first trumpet instructor, Peter Davis in 1965.

Armstrong developed his cornet playing seriously in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term after firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the Home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones)[11] instilled discipline in and provided musical training to the otherwise self-taught Armstrong. Eventually, Davis made Armstrong the band leader. The Home band played around New Orleans and the thirteen year old Louis began to draw attention by his cornet playing, starting him on a musical career.[12] At fourteen he was released from the Home, living again with his father and new stepmother and then back with his mother and also back to the streets and their temptations. Armstrong got his first dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became his protector and guide. He hauled coal by day and played his cornet at night.

He also played in the city's frequent brass band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got, learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Kid Ory, and above all, Joe "King" Oliver, who acted as a mentor and father figure to the young musician. Later, he played in the brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans and first started traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. He described his time with Marable as "going to the University," since it gave him a much wider experience working with written arrangements.

In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and he resigned his position in Kid Ory's band, then regarded as the best hot jazz group in New Orleans. Armstrong replaced his mentor and played

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second cornet. Soon he was promoted to first cornet and he also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society band.[13]

Early career

Muggles

Skokiaan

Mack The Knife

“Heebie Jeebies” by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five

On March 19, 1918, Louis married Daisy Parker from Gretna, Louisiana. They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis's cousin Flora, died soon after giving birth. Clarence Armstrong was mentally disabled (the result of a head injury at an early age) and Louis would spend the rest of his life taking care of him.[14] Louis's marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated. She died shortly after the divorce.

Through his riverboat experience Armstrong’s musicianship began to mature. At twenty, he could now read music and he started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazzmen to do this, injecting his own personality and style into his solo turns. He had learned how to create a unique sound and also started using singing and patter in his performances.[15] In 1922, Armstrong joined the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to join his Creole Jazz Band and where he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to supplement his music with day labor jobs. It was a boom time in Chicago and though race relations were poor, the “Windy City” was teeming with jobs for blacks, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.

Oliver's band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived like a king in Chicago, in his own apartment with his own private bath (his first). Excited as he was to be in Chicago, he began his career-long pastime of writing nostalgic letters to friends in New Orleans. As

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Armstrong’s reputation grew, he was challenged to “cutting contests” by hornmen trying to displace the new phenom, who could blow two hundred high C’s in a row.[16] Armstrong made his first recordings on the Gennett and Okeh labels (jazz records were starting to boom across the country), including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in Oliver's band in 1923. At this time, he met Hoagy Carmichael (with whom he would collaborate later) who was introduced by pal Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.

Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis's second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing and develop his newer style away from the influence of Oliver. Armstrong took the advice of his wife and left Oliver's band. For a year Armstrong played in Fletcher Henderson's band in New York on many recordings. After playing in New York, Armstrong returned to Chicago, playing in large orchestras; there he created his most important early recordings.[17] Lil had her husband play classical music in church concerts to broaden his skill and improve his solo play and she prodded him into wearing more stylish attire to make him look sharp and to better offset his growing girth. Lil’s influence eventually undermined Armstrong’s relationship with his mentor, especially concerning his salary and additional moneys that Oliver held back from Armstrong and other band members. Armstrong and Oliver parted amicably in 1924. Shortly afterward, Armstrong received an invitation to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African–American band of the day. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the records made by the band during this period.

Armstrong quickly adapted to the more tightly controlled style of Henderson, playing trumpet and even experimenting with the trombone and the other members quickly took up Armstrong’s emotional, expressive pulse. Soon his act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers.[18] The Henderson Orchestra was playing in the best venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the classy arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington’s orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong’s performances and young hornmen around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.

During this time, Armstrong also made many recordings on the side, arranged by an old friend from New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band sides with the Williams Blue Five (some of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of accompaniments with Blues singers, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Alberta Hunter.

Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 due mostly to the urging of his wife, who wanted to pump up Armstrong’s career and income. He was content in New York but later would concede that she was right and that the Henderson Orchestra was limiting his artistic growth. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as “the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. At first he was actually a member of the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band and working for his wife.[19] He began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles" (a reference to marijuana, for which Armstrong had a lifelong fondness), and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.

The group included Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (banjo), wife Lil on piano, and usually no drummer. Armstrong’s bandleading style was easygoing, as St. Cyr noted, "One felt so relaxed working with him and he was very broad-minded ... always did his best to feature each individual".[20] His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 Weatherbird duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now

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free to develop his personal style as he wished, which included a heavy dose of effervescent jive, such as "whip that thing, Miss Lil" and "Mr. Johnny Dodds, Aw, do that clarinet, boy!"[21]

Armstrong also played with Erskine Tate’s Little Symphony, actually a quintet, which played mostly at the Vendome Theatre. They furnished music for silent movies and live shows, including jazz versions of classical music, such as “Madame Butterfly”, which gave Armstrong experience with longer forms of music and with hosting before a large audience. He began to scat sing (improvised vocal jazz using non-sensical words) and was among the first to record it, on "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. So popular was the recording the group became the most famous jazz band in America even though they as yet had not performed live to any great degree. Young musicians across the country, black and white, were turned on by Armstrong’s new type of jazz.[22]

After separating from Lil, Armstrong started to play at the Sunset Café for Al Capone's associate Joe Glaser in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, with Earl Hines on piano, which was soon renamed Louis Armstrong and his Stompers, though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends as well as successful collaborators.

Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra of the successful musical Hot Chocolate, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist/composer Fats Waller. He also made a cameo appearance as a vocalist, regularly stealing the show with his rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'", his version of the song becoming his biggest selling record to date.[23]

Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, the second nightspot in fame to the Cotton Club and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz. Armstrong also had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of famous songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael. His 1930s recordings took full advantage of the new RCA ribbon microphone, introduced in 1931, which imparted a characteristic warmth to vocals and immediately became an intrinsic part of the 'crooning' sound of artists like Bing Crosby. Armstrong's famous interpretation of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" became one of the most successful versions of this song ever recorded, showcasing Armstrong's unique vocal sound and style and his innovative approach to singing songs that had already become standards.

Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River" (recorded in 1931) encapsulated many features of his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing. The song begins with a brief trumpet solo, then the main melody is stated by sobbing horns which are memorably punctuated by Armstrong's growling interjections at the end of each bar: "Yeah! ..."Uh-huh" ..."Sure" ... "Way down, way down". In the first verse, he ignores the notated melody entirely and sings as if playing a trumpet solo, pitching most of the first line on a single note and using strongly syncopated phrasing. In the second stanza he breaks into an almost fully improvised melody, which then evolves into a classic passage of Armstrong "scat singing."

As with his trumpet playing, Armstrong's vocal innovations served as a foundation stone for the art of jazz vocal interpretation. The uniquely gritty coloration of his voice became a musical archetype that was much imitated and endlessly impersonated. His scat singing style was enriched by his matchless experience as a trumpet soloist. His resonant, velvety lower-register tone and bubbling cadences on sides such as "Lazy River" exerted a huge influence on younger white singers such as Bing Crosby.

The Depression of the early Thirties was especially hard on the Jazz scene. The Cotton Club closed in 1936 after a long downward spiral and many musicians stopped playing altogether as club dates evaporated. Bix Beiderbecke died and Fletcher Henderson’s band broke up. King Oliver made a few records but otherwise struggled. Sidney Bechet became a tailor and Kid Ory returned to New

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Orleans and raised chickens.[24] Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 seeking new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in LA with Lionel Hampton on drums and the band drew the Hollywood crowd which could still afford a lavish night life and radio broadcasts from the club connected with younger audiences at home. Bing Crosby and many other celebrities were regulars at the club. In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first movie, Ex-Flame. Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein and he recorded more standards. When the mob insisted that he get out of town, Armstrong visited New Orleans, got a hero’s welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as “Armstrong’s Secret Nine” and got a cigar named after himself.[25] But soon he was on the road again and after a tour across the country shadowed by the mob, Armstrong decided to go to Europe to escape.

After returning to the States, he undertook several exhausting tours. His agent Johnny Collins’ erratic behavior and his own spending ways left Armstrong short of cash. Breach of contract violations plagued him. Finally, he hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer, who began to straighten out his legal mess, his mob troubles, and his debts. Armstrong also began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, which were aggravated by his unorthodox playing style. As a result he branched out, developing his vocal style and making his first theatrical appearances. He appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven. In 1937, Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first black to host a sponsored, national broadcast.[26] He finally divorced Lil in 1938 and married longtime girlfriend Alpha.

After spending many years on the road, Armstrong settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943 in contentment with his fourth wife, Lucille. Although subject to the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music business, as well as anti-black prejudice, he continued to develop his playing. He recorded Hoagy Carmichael's Rockin' Chair for Okeh Records.

During the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the 1940s due to changes in public tastes: ballrooms closed, and there was competition from television and from other types of music becoming more popular than big band music. It became impossible under such circumstances to support and finance a 16-piece touring band.

The All Stars

Following a highly successful small-group jazz concert at New York Town Hall on May 17, 1947, featuring Armstrong with trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, Armstrong's manager Joe Glaser dissolved the Armstrong big band on August 13, 1947 and established a six-piece small group featuring Armstrong with (initially) Teagarden, Earl Hines and other top swing and dixieland musicians, most of them ex-big band leaders. The new group was announced at the opening of Billy Berg's Supper Club.

This group was called All Stars' and included at various times Earl "Fatha" Hines, Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw, Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Barrett Deems and the Filipino-American percussionist, Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on February 21, 1949.

In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!". The song went to #1 on the pop chart, making Armstrong (age 63) the oldest person to ever accomplish that feat. In the process, Armstrong dislodged The Beatles from the #1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.[27]

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Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. In his later years he would sometimes play some of his numerous gigs by rote, but other times would enliven the most mundane gig with his vigorous playing, often to the astonishment of his band. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch." While failing health restricted his schedule in his last years, within those limitations he continued playing until the day he died.

Autograph of Armstrong on the muretto of Alassio

Personality

The nickname Satchmo or Satch is short for Satchelmouth (describing his embouchure). In 1932, then Melody Maker magazine editor Percy Brooks greeted Armstrong in London with "Hello, Satchmo!", and it stuck.

Early on he was also known as Dippermouth. This is a reference to the propensity he had for refreshing himself with the "dipper" or ladle from a bucket of sugar water which was always present on stage with Joe Oliver's band in Chicago in the early nineteen-twenties.

The damage to his embouchure from his high pressure approach to playing is acutely visible in many pictures of Louis from the mid-twenties. It also led to his emphasizing his singing career because at certain periods he was unable to play. However, after having set his trumpet aside for a while, he amended his playing style and continued his trumpet career. Friends and fellow musicians usually called him Pops, which is also how Armstrong usually addressed his friends and fellow musicians (except for Pops Foster, whom Armstrong always called "George").

Satchmo's autograph from the 1960s

He was also criticized for accepting the title of "King of The Zulus" -- in the New Orleans African-American community, an honored role as head of leading black Carnival Krewe, but bewildering or offensive to outsiders with their traditional costume of grass-skirts and blackface makeup satirizing southern white attitudes—for Mardi Gras 1949.

Whatever the case, where some saw a gregarious and outgoing personality, others saw someone trying too hard to appeal to white audiences and essentially becoming a minstrel caricature. Some musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a

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strong enough stand in the civil rights movement suggesting that he was an Uncle Tom. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."

Armstrong, in fact, was a major financial supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists, but mostly preferred to work quietly behind the scenes, not mixing his politics with his work as an entertainer. The few exceptions made it more effective when he did speak out. Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower, calling him "two-faced" and "gutless" because of his inaction during the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 made national news. As a protest, Armstrong canceled a planned tour of the Soviet Union on behalf of the State Department saying "The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell" and that he could not represent his government abroad when it was in conflict with its own people.[28] The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.[29]

When asked about his religion, Armstrong would answer that he was raised a Baptist, always wore a Star of David, and was friends with the Pope.[30] Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnofsky family, who took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first cornet. Louis Armstrong was, in fact, baptized as a Catholic at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans,[30] and he met popes Pius XII and Paul VI, though there is no evidence that he considered himself Catholic. Armstrong seems to have been tolerant towards various religions, but also found humor in them.

He was an extremely generous man, who was said to have given away as much money as he kept for himself. Armstrong was also greatly concerned with his health and bodily functions. He made frequent use of laxatives as a means of controlling his weight, a practice he advocated both to personal acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way. Armstrong's laxative of preference in his younger days was Pluto Water, but he then became an enthusiastic convert when he discovered the herbal remedy Swiss Kriss. He would extol its virtues to anyone who would listen and pass out packets to everyone he encountered, including members of the British Royal Family. (Armstrong also appeared in humorous, albeit risqué, advertisements for Swiss Kriss; the ads bore a picture of him sitting on a toilet — as viewed through a keyhole — with the slogan "Satch says, 'Leave it all behind ya!'")[31]

The concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of food, reflected in such songs as "Cheesecake", "Cornet Chop Suey",[32] though "Struttin’ with Some Barbecue" was written about a fine-looking companion, not about food.[33] He kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New Orleans, always signing his letters, "Red beans and ricely yours,".[34]

Although Armstrong is not known to have fathered any children, he loved children and would go out of his way to entertain the neighborhood kids in Corona and to encourage young musicians.

Armstrong’s gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly. Many of the favorite themes of his life he shared with correspondents around the world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand, instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his heavy “medicinal” marijuana use and even his bowel movements which were gleefully described.[35] He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well.

Armstrong was an avid audiophile. He had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career. He enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically. In the den of his home, he had the latest audio equipment and would sometimes rehearse and record along with his older recordings or the radio.[36]

Louis Armstrong was also a Freemason, Montgomery Lodge No. 18 (Prince Hall), New York.[37]

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Death

Armstrong died just after a heart attack on July 6, 1971, at age 69,[38] 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room. Shortly before his death he stated, "I think I had a beautiful life. I didn't wish for anything that I couldn't get and I got pretty near everything I wanted because I worked for it."[39] He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.

His honorary pallbearers included Governor Rockefeller, Mayor Lindsay, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Guy Lombardo, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson, David Frost, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and Bobby Hackett.

Peggy Lee sang The Lord's Prayer at the services while Al Hibbler sang Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen and Fred Robbins, a long time friend, gave the eulogy.[40]

MusicArmstrong gained fame as a horn player, then later became better known as a bandleader, vocalist, musical ambassador and founding figure in much modern American music.

Horn playing and early jazz

In his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years can be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records. The improvisations which he made on these records of New Orleans jazz standards and popular songs of the day continue to stack up brilliantly alongside those of any other later jazz performer. The older generation of New Orleans jazz musicians often referred to their improvisations as "variating the melody"; Armstrong's improvisations were daring and sophisticated for the time while often subtle and melodic.

He often essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more interesting. Armstrong's playing is filled with joyous, inspired original melodies, creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving rhythms. The genius of these creative passages is matched by Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, which extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In these records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.

Armstrong's work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of his abilities. The Hot Five records, especially, often have minor flubs and missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment since the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the mid 1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what he could do and carrying out

Vocal popularity

As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became very important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he was masterful at it and helped popularize it. He had a hit with his playing and scat singing on "Heebie Jeebies" when, according to some legends, the sheet music fell on the floor and he simply started singing nonsense syllables. Armstrong stated in his memoirs that this actually occurred. He also sang out "I done forgot the words" in the middle of recording "I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas".

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Such records were hits and scat singing became a major part of his performances. Long before this, however, Armstrong was playing around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.

Colleagues and followers

During his long career he played and sang with the most important instrumentalists and vocalists; among the many, singing brakeman Jimmie Rodgers, Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith and notably with Ella Fitzgerald.

His influence upon Bing Crosby is particularly important with regard to the subsequent development of popular music: Crosby admired and copied Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably "Just One More Chance" (1931). The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong in precise detail, although it does not acknowledge Armstrong by name: "Crosby...was important in introducing into the mainstream of popular singing an Afro-American concept of song as a lyrical extension of speech...His techniques - easing the weight of the breath on the vocal cords, passing into a head voice at a low register, using forward production to aid distinct enunciation, singing on consonants (a practice of black singers), and making discreet use of appoggiaturas, mordents, and slurs to emphasize the text - were emulated by nearly all later popular singers".

Armstrong recorded three albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummer Buddy Rich. His recordings Satch Plays Fats, all Fats Waller tunes, and Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy in the 1950s were perhaps among the last of his great creative recordings, but even oddities like Disney Songs the Satchmo Way are seen to have their musical moments. And, his participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors was critically acclaimed. For the most part, however, his later output was criticized as being overly simplistic or repetitive.

Hits and later career

Armstrong had many hit records including "Stardust", "What a Wonderful World", "When The Saints Go Marching In", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Ain't Misbehavin'", and "Stompin' at the Savoy". "We Have All the Time in the World" featured on the soundtrack of the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and enjoyed renewed popularity in the UK in 1994 when it featured on a Guinness advert. It reached number 3 in the charts on being re-released.

In 1964, Armstrong knocked the Beatles off the top of the Billboard Top 100 chart with "Hello, Dolly!", which gave the 63-year-old performer a U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a #1 song.

His 1964 song, "Bout Time" later featured in the film "Bewitched" (2005).

Armstrong performed in Italy at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival where he sang "Mi Va di Cantare"[41] alongside his friend, the Eritrean-born Italian singer Lara Saint Paul.[42] In February 1968, he also appeared with Lara Saint Paul on the Italian Rai television channel where he performed "Grassa e Bella", a track he sang in Italian for the Italian market and C.D.I. label.[43]

In 1968, Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with the highly sentimental pop song "What a Wonderful World", which topped the British charts for a month; however, the single did not chart at all in America. The song gained greater currency in the popular consciousness when it was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, its subsequent rerelease topping many charts around the world. Armstrong even appeared on the October 28, 1970

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Johnny Cash Show, where he sang Nat "King" Cole's hit "Rambling Rose" and joined Cash to re-create his performance backing Jimmie Rodgers on "Blue Yodel #9".

Stylistic range

Armstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera. Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted Armstrong to stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Some of his solos from the 1950s, such as the hard rocking version of "St. Louis Blues" from the WC Handy album, show that the influence went in both directions.

Literature, radio, films and TVArmstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a band leader or musician. His most familiar role was as the bandleader cum narrator in the 1956 musical, High Society, in which he sang the title song and performed a duet with Bing Crosby on "Now You Has Jazz". In 1947, he played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago[2]. He was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show in the 1930s. In 1969, Armstrong had a cameo role in the film version of Hello, Dolly! as the bandleader, Louis, to which he sang the title song with actress Barbra Streisand. His solo recording of "Hello, Dolly!" is one of his most recognizable performances.

He was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing (1937) and This Is Jazz (1947), and he also made countless television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Louis Armstrong has a record star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 7601 Hollywood Boulevard.

Many of Armstrong's recordings remain popular. Almost four decades since his passing, a larger number of his recordings from all periods of his career are more widely available than at any time during his lifetime. His songs are broadcast and listened to every day throughout the world, and are honored in various movies, TV series, commercials, and even anime and computer games. "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" was included in the computer game Fallout 2, accompanying the intro cinematic. It was also used in the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle. His 1923 recordings, with Joe Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band, continue to be listened to as documents of ensemble style New Orleans jazz, but more particularly as ripper jazz records in their own right. All too often, however, Armstrong recorded with stiff, standard orchestras leaving only his sublime trumpet playing as of interest. "Melancholy Blues," performed by Armstrong and his Hot Seven was included on the Voyager Golden Record sent into outer space to represent one of the greatest achievements of humanity. Most familiar to modern listeners is his ubiquitous rendition of "What a Wonderful World." In 2008, Armstrong's recording of Edith Piaf's famous "La Vie En Rose" was used in a scene of the popular Disney/Pixar film WALL-E.

Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, a self-described Armstrong admirer, asserted that a 1952 Louis Armstrong concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris played a significant role in inspiring him to create the fictional creatures called Cronopios that are the subject of a number of Cortázar's short stories. Cortázar once called Louis Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (Most Enormous Cronopio).

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Armstrong also appears as a minor character in Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North.

There is a pivotal scene in 1980's Stardust Memories in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's Stardust and experiences a nostalgic epiphany[3]. The combination of the music and the perfect moment is the catalyst for much of the film's action, prompting the protagonist to fall in love with an ill-advised woman [4].

Louis Armstrong is also referred to in The Trumpet of the Swan along with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Three siblings in the film are named Louis, Billie, and Ella. The main character, Louis, plays a trumpet, an obvious nod to Armstrong.

In the original EB White book, he is referred to by name by a child who hears Louis playing and comments "He sounds just like Louis Armstrong, the famous trumpet player".

Awards and honors

Grammy Awards

Armstrong was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972 by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.[44]

Grammy Award

Year Category Title Genre Label Result

1964 Male Vocal Performance "Hello, Dolly!" Pop Kapp Winner

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Armstrong were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."[45][46]

Grammy Hall of Fame

Year Recorded

Title Genre LabelYear

InductedNotes

1929 St. Louis Blues Jazz (Single) OKeh 2008

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1928 Weather Bird Jazz (Single) OKeh 2008 with Earl Hines

1930Blue Yodel #9

(Standing on the Corner)

Country (Single)

Victor 2007Jimmie Rodgers (Featuring Louis

Armstrong)

1932 All of Me Jazz (Single) Columbia 2005

1958 Porgy and Bess Jazz (Album) Verve 2001 with Ella Fitzgerald

1964 Hello Dolly! Pop (Single) Kapp 2001

1926 Heebie Jeebies Jazz (Single) OKeh 1999

1968What a Wonderful

WorldJazz (Single) ABC 1999

1955 Mack the Knife Jazz (Single) Columbia 1997

1925 St. Louis Blues Jazz (Single) Columbia 1993Bessie Smith with Louis

Armstrong, cornet

1928 West End Blues Jazz (Single) OKeh 1974

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed a song by Armstrong on the list of 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll.[47]

Year Recorded Title Label Group

1928 West End Blues Okeh Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five

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