SOUND PROJECTIONS

AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU

WINTER, 2016

VOLUME TWO NUMBER TWO

NINA SIMONE

Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:

NAT KING COLE
January 2-8

ETTA JAMES
January 9-15

JACKIE MCLEAN
January 16-22

TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON
January 23-29

NANCY WILSON
January 30-February 5

BOB MARLEY
February 6-12

LOUIS ARMSTRONG
February 13-19

HORACE SILVER
February 20-26

SHIRLEY HORN
February 27-March 4

T-BONE WALKER
March 5-11

HOWLIN’ WOLF
March 12-18

DIANNE REEVES
March 19-25

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/louis-armstrong-mn0000234518/biography

LOUIS ARMSTRONG (1901-1971)

Artist Biography by William Ruhlmann

Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music's history. As a trumpet virtuoso, his playing, beginning with the 1920s studio recordings made with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, charted a future for jazz in highly imaginative, emotionally charged improvisation. For this, he is revered by jazz fans. But Armstrong also became an enduring figure in popular music, due to his distinctively phrased bass singing and engaging personality, which were on display in a series of vocal recordings and film roles.

Armstrong had a difficult childhood. William Armstrong, his father, was a factory worker who abandoned the family soon after the boy's birth. Armstrong was brought up by his mother, Mary (Albert) Armstrong, and his maternal grandmother. He showed an early interest in music, and a junk dealer for whom he worked as a grade-school student helped him buy a cornet, which he taught himself to play. He dropped out of school at 11 to join an informal group, but on December 31, 1912, he fired a gun during a New Year's Eve celebration, for which he was sent to reform school. He studied music there and played cornet and bugle in the school band, eventually becoming its leader. He was released on June 16, 1914, and did manual labor while trying to establish himself as a musician. He was taken under the wing of cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, and when Oliver moved to Chicago in June 1918, he replaced him in the Kid Ory Band. He moved to the Fate Marable band in the spring of 1919, staying with Marable until the fall of 1921.

Armstrong moved to Chicago to join Oliver's band in August 1922 and made his first recordings as a member of the group in the spring of 1923. He married Lillian Harden, the pianist in the Oliver band, on February 5, 1924. (She was the second of his four wives.) On her encouragement, he left Oliver and joined Fletcher Henderson's band in New York, staying for a year and then going back to Chicago in November 1925 to join the Dreamland Syncopators, his wife's group. During this period, he switched from cornet to trumpet.

Armstrong had gained sufficient individual notice to make his recording debut as a leader on November 12, 1925. Contracted to OKeh Records, he began to make a series of recordings with studio-only groups called the Hot Fives or the Hot Sevens. For live dates, he appeared with the orchestras led by Erskine Tate and Carroll Dickerson. The Hot Fives' recording of "Muskrat Ramble" gave Armstrong a Top Ten hit in July 1926, the band for the track featuring Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lillian Harden Armstrong on piano, and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo.

By February 1927, Armstrong was well-enough known to front his own group, Louis Armstrong & His Stompers, at the Sunset Café in Chicago. (Armstrong did not function as a bandleader in the usual sense, but instead typically lent his name to established groups.) In April, he reached the charts with his first vocal recording, "Big Butter and Egg Man," a duet with May Alix. He took a position as star soloist in Carroll Dickerson's band at the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago in March 1928, later taking over as the band's frontman. "Hotter than That" was in the Top Ten in May 1928, followed in September by "West End Blues," which later became one of the first recordings named to the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Armstrong returned to New York with his band for an engagement at Connie's Inn in Harlem in May 1929. He also began appearing in the orchestra of Hot Chocolates, a Broadway revue, given a featured spot singing "Ain't Misbehavin'." In September, his recording of the song entered the charts, becoming a Top Ten hit.

Armstrong fronted the Luis Russell Orchestra for a tour of the South in February 1930, then in May went to Los Angeles, where he led a band at Sebastian's Cotton Club for the next ten months. He made his film debut in Ex-Flame, released at the end of 1931. By the start of 1932, he had switched from the "race"-oriented OKeh label to its pop-oriented big sister Columbia Records, for which he recorded two Top Five hits, "Chinatown, My Chinatown" and "You Can Depend on Me" before scoring a number one hit with "All of Me" in March 1932; another Top Five hit, "Love, You Funny Thing," hit the charts the same month. He returned to Chicago in the spring of 1932 to front a band led by Zilner Randolph; the group toured around the country. In July, Armstrong sailed to England for a tour. He spent the next several years in Europe, his American career maintained by a series of archival recordings, including the Top Ten hits "Sweethearts on Parade" (August 1932; recorded December 1930) and "Body and Soul" (October 1932; recorded October 1930). His Top Ten version of "Hobo, You Can't Ride This Train," in the charts in early 1933, was on Victor Records; when he returned to the U.S. in 1935, he signed to recently formed Decca Records and quickly scored a double-sided Top Ten hit, "I'm in the Mood for Love"/"You Are My Lucky Star."

Armstrong's new manager, Joe Glaser, organized a big band for him that had its premiere in Indianapolis on July 1, 1935; for the next several years, he toured regularly. He also took a series of small parts in motion pictures, beginning with Pennies From Heaven in December 1936, and he continued to record for Decca, resulting in the Top Ten hits "Public Melody Number One" (August 1937), "When the Saints Go Marching in" (April 1939), and "You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)" (April 1946), the last a duet with Ella Fitzgerald. He returned to Broadway in the short-lived musical Swingin' the Dream in November 1939.

With the decline of swing music in the post-World War II years, Armstrong broke up his big band and put together a small group dubbed the All Stars, which made its debut in Los Angeles on August 13, 1947. He embarked on his first European tour since 1935 in February 1948, and thereafter toured regularly around the world. In June 1951 he reached the Top Ten of the LP charts with Satchmo at Symphony Hall ("Satchmo" being his nickname), and he scored his first Top Ten single in five years with "(When We Are Dancing) I Get Ideas" later in the year. The single's B-side, and also a chart entry, was "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," sung by Armstrong in the film The Strip. In 1993, it gained renewed popularity when it was used in the film Sleepless in Seattle.

Armstrong completed his contract with Decca in 1954, after which his manager made the unusual decision not to sign him to another exclusive contract but instead to have him freelance for different labels. Satch Plays Fats, a tribute to Fats Waller, became a Top Ten LP for Columbia in October 1955, and Verve Records contracted Armstrong for a series of recordings with Ella Fitzgerald, beginning with the chart LP Ella and Louis in 1956.

Armstrong continued to tour extensively, despite a heart attack in June 1959. In 1964, he scored a surprise hit with his recording of the title song from the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!, which reached number one in May, followed by a gold-selling album of the same name. It won him a Grammy for best vocal performance. This pop success was repeated internationally four years later with "What a Wonderful World," which hit number one in the U.K. in April 1968. It did not gain as much notice in the U.S. until 1987 when it was used in the film Good Morning, Vietnam, after which it became a Top 40 hit. Armstrong was featured in the 1969 film of Hello, Dolly!, performing the title song as a duet with Barbra Streisand. He performed less frequently in the late '60s and early '70s, and died of a heart ailment in 1971 at the age of 69.

As an artist, Armstrong was embraced by two distinctly different audiences: jazz fans who revered him for his early innovations as an instrumentalist, but were occasionally embarrassed by his lack of interest in later developments in jazz and, especially, by his willingness to serve as a light entertainer; and pop fans, who delighted in his joyous performances, particularly as a vocalist, but were largely unaware of his significance as a jazz musician. Given his popularity, his long career, and the extensive label-jumping he did in his later years, as well as the differing jazz and pop sides of his work, his recordings are extensive and diverse, with parts of his catalog owned by many different companies. But many of his recorded performances are masterpieces, and none are less than entertaining.

http://www.jazz.com/encyclopedia/armstrong-louisEncyclopedia of Jazz Musicians

Armstrong, Louis

The work of trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong both summed up the achievements of New Orleans style jazz and pointed the way to the later evolution of the music as a solo-oriented art form. His historical importance was matched by his popular appeal a rare combination in the jazz art form, which is often suspicious of commercial success and his career is bookmarked by the great "West End Blues" of 1928, at one end, which changed the course of jazz with its flamboyance and virtuosity, and (at the other end), by his hit records Hello Dolly and What a Wonderful World, which charmed a mass audience with their charisma and emotional directness. Critic Leslie Gourse entitled her book on jazz singers Louis Children, but the term could just as easily be applied to all later jazz musicians, who bask in legacy and often work in the shadow of this towering figure from the art form’s earliest days.

Louis Armstrong, photo by Herb Snitzer

Armstrong usually claimed that his birthday was the Fourth of July, 1900 a grand symbolic date to celebrate the arrival of this important figure at the dawn of the American Century. However, he used 1901 on his Social Security application and other formal documents. Research by Tad Jones and Gary Giddins led to the discovery of Armstrong’s baptismal records which established the more prosaic birthday of August 4, 1901.

Armstrong suffered the stigma of being the illegitimate child of a prostitute, raised in the abject poverty of turn-of-the-century New Orleans. His father William Armstrong left the family when Louis was still an infant, and his mother Mary Armstrong was often absent as well, with the child falling into the care of his grandmother or uncle. He briefly attended the Fisk School for Boys, but left when he was eleven. He earned money singing in the streets with a quartet of youngsters and working odd jobs. Arrested for firing a pistol as part of a New Year’s Eve celebration, Armstrong was placed in the New Orleans Home for Waifs. Armstrong benefited from the disciplined and structured environment in this setting, but perhaps even more by the musical training he received at the hands of Professor Peter Davis. Armstrong was soon gaining attention for his cornet playing, and soaking up the sounds of New Orleans jazz.

Armstrong was excited by the playing of cornetist Buddy Bolden, a quasi-legendary figure who never recorded but is often credited as the first musician to perform New Orleans style jazz. The youngster also admired and learned from Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, Buddy Petit and especially the great Joe King Oliver. When Oliver left New Orleans in 1919 to try his luck up north, Armstrong took his place in Kid Ory’s ensemble. Armstrong also played on the riverboats, and served as second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band. Around this time Armstrong married Daisy Parker, and the couple adopted Clarence Armstrong, the son of Louis’s cousin Flora who had died shortly after the boy�s birth. But the marriage did not last long, and Parker herself died soon after the divorce.

In 1922, Armstrong was invited to travel to Chicago and join King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. This ensemble was the most celebrated jazz band in Chicago at the time, and the association gave Armstrong a platform for his later fame and success. Armstrong and Oliver gained attention for the counterpoint of their two cornets, but in time the younger players more assertive approach tended to outshine the work of his employer. On King Oliver’s classic recording of Dippermouth Blues", we see the stark contrast between the two stylists. The older Oliver stays true to the New Orleans tradition of blending in with the other instruments, and focusing on timbre and texture rather than varity of notes; but the younger Armstrong is chomping at the bit, anxious to demonstrate his virtuosity on the horn. His second wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was also pianist with Oliver band, encouraged him to step out as a leader and develop his own style and sound as a jazz musician.

Louis Armstrong, photo by Herb Snitzer

Armstrong's later recordings as a leader, known as the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, gave him an opportunity to do just that. Armstrong shifted from cornet to trumpet in this period, and in a series monumental performances such as Potato Head Blues, Struttin With Some Barbecue, and the aforemention West End Blues -- he changed the shape of the jazz art form. Solos became more prominent, the rhythmic and melodic vocabulary of the music became more complex and varied, and the ethos of jazz shifted from an emphasis on the ensemble to a focus on the individual. When Armstrong encountered pianist Earl Hines, he had found another soloist who was interested in re-shaping the traditions of the music, and their duet on Weatherbird stands out as another milestone recording from the late 1920s.

But Armstrong also made an equally powerful impact on jazz singing. His recording of Heebie Jeebies is often cited as the birth of scat-singing. This is far from true -- vaudevillian Gene Greene recorded a scat-type vocal back in 1909 but no one exerted more influence on early jazz vocal styles than Armstrong. His phrasing as a singer captured the exciting syncopations of early jazz, but also stood out for the balance it offered between gritty roughness and sentimental tenderness.

These works both instrumental and vocal -- from the late 1920s represent Armstrong’s key contributions to the evolution of the jazz art form. But his work from the early 1930s deserves to be much better known. Outstanding but seldom heard recordings form this period include I’m a Ding Dong Daddy from 1930, as well as Shine, Lazy River, I Surrender Dear, Star Dust and Sweethearts on Parade from 1931. Armstrong continued to build his fame and reputation, and even the Great Depression, and a conviction for marijuana possession (in 1931), failed to hurt his commercial prospects and popular appeal. Armstrong moved to Los Angeles at the start of the decade, where he lived briefly, and dazzled Hollywood just as he had earlier charmed New Orleans and Chicago.

As the decade progressed, however, Armstrong became increasingly focused on adapting to the standard big band sound of the Swing Era. His recordings from this period are not without their merits, but this was a low point artistically for Armstrong. Yet Armstrong did not slacken his pace or stifle his ambitions. He often played as many as three hundred engagements during the course of a year. But this led to problems with his lip and fingers. His personal life was also turbulent in these years. For all his successes, Armstrong spent heavily and was often short of cash. His marriage to Lil ended in 1938 and he married his girlfriend Alpha, which also soon ended in divorce, before he settled down with his fourth and final wife Lucille.

Armstrong’s decision to return to the traditional New Orleans sound in the late 1940s was, in some degree, an ironic shift for the person who had done more than anyone to move jazz beyond the confines of this style. But his successful traditional jazz concert at Town Hall on May 17, 1947 showed that the public was receptive to this revivalist approach. Armstrong formed his All Stars, drawing on a changeable cast of older musicians, including Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Edmond Hall, Barney Bigard and others who could authentically recreate the sounds and styles of the Jazz Age.

Armstrong had made the switch from fiery young artist to sedate elder statesman a role which he would continue to occupy with aplomb for the rest of his life. But Armstrong was never too sedate, and his performances continued to attract new fans with his extroverted personality and consummate skills as an entertainer. Yet even Louis must have been surprised with the success of his recording of Hello Dolly, which reached number one on the pop charts, and even dislodged the Beatles a remarkable achievement for a 63 year old performer in an era which was increasingly obsessed with the latest and newest young rock bands.

Armstrong died on July 6, 1971 at age 69, the victim of a heart attack. His funeral was an all-star event in its own right, and those in attendance included Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Johnny Carson, Ed Sullivan and Harry James. Armstrong’s last house is now a museum and historic landmark. Armstrong’s music and larger-than-life presence will no doubt still be remembered and honored at that late date.

Selected Bibliography

Armstrong, Louis. Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans. New York: New American Library. Books, 1954.

Armstrong, Louis. Swing That Music. New York: Da Capo Press. Originally published in 1936 (London and New York: Longmans, Green), 1933.

Bergreen, Laurence. Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Berrett, J., ed. 1999. The Louis Armstrong Companion: Eight Decades of Commentary. New York: Schirmer Books.

Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Collier, James L. 1983. Louis Armstrong: An American Genius. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Giddins, Gary Satchmo. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988.

Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Goffin, Robert. Horn of Plenty; The Story of Louis Armstrong. James F. Bezou, trans. New York: Allen, Towne & Heath, 1947.

Hadlock, Richard. Jazz Masters of the Twenties. New York: Da Capo Press, 1988.

Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Travis, Dempsey J. The Louis Armstrong Odyssey: From Jane Alley to America's Jazz Ambassador. Chicago: Urban Research Press, 1997.

Williams, Martin. Jazz Masters of New Orleans. New York: Da Capo Press, 1979.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Armstrong

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Louis Armstrong

American musician

Also known as

Satchmo
Louis Daniel Armstrong

born

August 4, 1901
New Orleans , Louisiana

died

July 6, 1971
New York City , New York

Louis Armstrong,nickname Satchmo (truncation of “Satchel Mouth”) born August 4, 1901, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.—died July 6, 1971, New York, New York), the leading trumpeter and one of the most influential artists in jazz history.

Although Armstrong claimed to be born in 1900, various documents, notably a baptismal record, indicate that 1901 was his birth year. He grew up in dire poverty in New Orleans, Louisiana, when jazz was very young. As a child he worked at odd jobs and sang in a boys’ quartet. In 1913 he was sent to the Colored Waifs Home as a juvenile delinquent. There he learned to play cornet in the home’s band, and playing music quickly became a passion; in his teens he learned music by listening to the pioneer jazz artists of the day, including the leading New Orleans cornetist, King Oliver. Armstrong developed rapidly: he played in marching and jazz bands, becoming skillful enough to replace Oliver in the important Kid Ory band about 1918, and in the early 1920s he played in Mississippi riverboat dance bands.

Oliver, King: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band [Credit: Frank Driggs Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]

Fame beckoned in 1922 when Oliver, then leading a band in Chicago, sent for Armstrong to play second cornet. Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band was the apex of the early, contrapuntal New Orleans ensemble style, and it included outstanding musicians such as the brothers Johnny and Baby Dodds and pianist Lil Hardin, who married Armstrong in 1924. The young Armstrong became popular through his ingenious ensemble lead and second cornet lines, his cornet duet passages (called “breaks”) with Oliver, and his solos. He recorded his first solos as a member of the Oliver band in such pieces as “Chimes Blues” and “Tears,” which Lil and Louis Armstrong composed.

Encouraged by his wife, Armstrong quit Oliver’s band to seek further fame. He played for a year in New York City in Fletcher Henderson’s band and on many recordings with others before returning to Chicago and playing in large orchestras. There he created his most important early works, the Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings of 1925–28, on which he emerged as the first great jazz soloist. By then the New Orleans ensemble style, which allowed few solo opportunities, could no longer contain his explosive creativity. He retained vestiges of the style in such masterpieces as “Hotter than That,” “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” “Wild Man Blues,” and “Potato Head Blues” but largely abandoned it while accompanied by pianist Earl Hines (“West End Blues” and “Weather Bird”). By that time Armstrong was playing trumpet, and his technique was superior to that of all competitors. Altogether, his immensely compelling swing; his brilliant technique; his sophisticated, daring sense of harmony; his ever-mobile, expressive attack, timbre, and inflections; his gift for creating vital melodies; his dramatic, often complex sense of solo design; and his outsized musical energy and genius made these recordings major innovations in jazz.

Armstrong was a famous musician by 1929, when he moved from Chicago to New York City and performed in the theatre review Hot Chocolates. He toured America and Europe as a trumpet soloist accompanied by big bands; for several years beginning in 1935, Luis Russell’s big band served as the Louis Armstrong band. During this time he abandoned the often blues-based original material of his earlier years for a remarkably fine choice of popular songs by such noted composers as Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, and Duke Ellington. With his new repertoire came a new, simplified style: he created melodic paraphrases and variations as well as chord-change-based improvisations on these songs. His trumpet range continued to expand, as demonstrated in the high-note showpieces in his repertoire. His beautiful tone and gift for structuring bravura solos with brilliant high-note climaxes led to such masterworks as “That’s My Home,” “Body and Soul,” and “Star Dust.” One of the inventors of scat singing, he began to sing lyrics on most of his recordings, varying melodies or decorating with scat phrases in a gravel voice that was immediately identifiable. Although he sang such humorous songs as “Hobo, You Can’t Ride This Train,” he also sang many standard songs, often with an intensity and creativity that equaled those of his trumpet playing.

Louis and Lil Armstrong separated in 1931. From 1935 to the end of his life, Armstrong’s career was managed by Joe Glaser, who hired Armstrong’s bands and guided his film career (beginning with Pennies from Heaven, 1936) and radio appearances. Though his own bands usually played in a more conservative style, Armstrong was the dominant influence on the swing era, when most trumpeters attempted to emulate his inclination to dramatic structure, melody, or technical virtuosity. Trombonists, too, appropriated Armstrong’s phrasing, and saxophonists as different as Coleman Hawkins and Bud Freeman modeled their styles on different aspects of Armstrong’s. Above all else, his swing-style trumpet playing influenced virtually all jazz horn players who followed him, and the swing and rhythmic suppleness of his vocal style were important influences on singers from Billie Holiday to Bing Crosby.

Armstrong, Louis: 1956 [Credit: Ted Streshinsky/Corbis]

In most of Armstrong’s movie, radio, and television appearances, he was featured as a good-humoured entertainer. He played a rare dramatic role in the film New Orleans (1947), in which he also performed in a Dixieland band. This prompted the formation of Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars, a Dixieland band that at first included such other jazz greats as Hines and trombonist Jack Teagarden. For most of the rest of Armstrong’s life, he toured the world with changing All-Stars sextets; indeed, “Ambassador Satch” in his later years was noted for his almost nonstop touring schedule. It was the period of his greatest popularity; he produced hit recordings such as “Mack the Knife” and “Hello, Dolly!” and outstanding albums such as his tributes to W.C. Handy and Fats Waller. In his last years ill health curtailed his trumpet playing, but he continued as a singer. His last film appearance was in Hello, Dolly! (1969).

Voice of America: Willis Conover interviewing Louis Armstrong for a VOA radio broadcast, 1955 [Credit: Courtesy of Voice of America]

More than a great trumpeter, Armstrong was a bandleader, singer, soloist, film star, and comedian. One of his most remarkable feats was his frequent conquest of the popular market with recordings that thinly disguised authentic jazz with Armstrong’s contagious humour. He nonetheless made his greatest impact on the evolution of jazz itself, which at the start of his career was popularly considered to be little more than a novelty. With his great sensitivity, technique, and capacity to express emotion, Armstrong not only ensured the survival of jazz but led in its development into a fine art.

Armstrong’s autobiographies include Swing That Music (1936, reprinted with a new foreword, 1993) and Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954).

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/2014/03/louis-armstrong-and-miles-davis.html

Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis

Terry Teachout's play Satchmo at the Waldorf recently opened in New York. While obviously well-acted by John Douglas Thompson and successful with the audience, for me there wasn't enough unconditional love and respect for Mr. Louis Armstrong. This is also the theme of my essay about Terry's book on Duke, "Reverential Gesture."

I did appreciate Terry's biography of Armstrong, Pops. He's a true polymath (see our interview), and always considers jazz as part of American popular music. Those dedicated to jazz are often over-informed by insider knowledge, and it is refreshing to remember there's a whole wide world out there.

Even when I disagree with Terry it is grist for the mill. I was pulled up short by one aspect of Satchmo at the Waldorf: the portrayal of Miles Davis. After spending an afternoon with Google and my library, what I found was interesting enough to write up briefly for DTM.

---

I can't cite exact quotes from Satchmo at the Waldorf, but essentially Miles Davis appears as the "young angry black man" who thought Louis Armstrong was an Uncle Tom.

The fullest explication of the discordance between the civil rights era and Armstrong that I've seen is in Gerald Early's Tuxedo Junction:

The pain that one feels when Armstrong's television performances of the middle and late sixties are recalled is so overwhelming as to constitute an enormously bitter grief, a grief made all the keener because it balances so perfectly one's sense of shame, rage, and despair. The little, gnomish, balding, grinning black man who looked so touchingly like everyone's black grandfather who had put in thirty years as the janitor of the local schoolhouse or like the old black poolshark who sits in the barbershop talking about how those old boys like Bill Robinson and Jelly Roll Morton could really play the game; this old man whose trumpet playing was just, no, not even a shadowy, ghostly remnant of his days of glory and whose singing had become just a kind of raspy-throated guile, gave the appearance, at last, of being nothing more than terribly old and terribly sick. One shudders to think that perhaps two generations of black Americans remember Louis Armstrong, perhaps one of the most remarkable musical geniuses America ever produced, not only as a silly Uncle Tom but as a pathetically vulnerable, weak old man. During the sixties, a time when black people most vehemently did not wish to appear weak, Armstrong seemed positively dwarfed by the patronizing white talk-show hosts on whose programs he performed, and he seemed to revel in that chilling, embarrassing spotlight.

Early is writing in the late '80s, just before Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch would gain traction with an alternative narrative. Wynton has said, "[Louis Armstrong] left an undying testimony to the human condition in the America of his time." For Stanley, Armstrong is, "One of the few who can be easily be mentioned with Stravinsky, Picasso and Joyce."

This narrative isn't always popular with contemporary jazzmen, who want more unreserved praise given to Miles Davis and John Coltrane when Wynton or Stanley appear on TV for a sound bite about jazz. For myself, I fervently hope that their narrative is closer to what young black kids learn today than the "silly Uncle Tom" narrative that worries Early.

---

People like beefs. Satchmo at the Waldorf includes Armstrong jousting with both Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Terry is very canny, and I'm certain that all the quotes are true, although it isn't explained that some of them are from years after Louis was dead.

Miles's appearances in Waldorf culminate in that remarkable bit of gallows humor from 1985 in Jet:

If somebody told me that I had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.

Who am I to analyse Miles Davis? But I think he playing to the audience here. He wouldn't say that to DownBeat, he's saying it to Jet. (It reminds me of Armstrong being photographed with Amiri Baraka's Blues People in the pages of Ebony twenty years earlier.) If Miles makes you upset, you've fallen into his trap. Later on in the Jet piece, Davis says, "Those the shoe don't fit, well, those don't wear it."

Miles had a lot of facets. His support of Gil Evans and Bill Evans did the most of anybody to validate a kind of romantic or white sound in modern jazz. By 1985 all the editions of his band had had white players for years.

Anyway, back to beefs. According to Waldorf, Miles really gave Louis Armstrong a hard time. A casual search of the internet indicates this is common wisdom. (Rifftides; CBC; Daily Kos; Newsday; many more.)

Beefs are fun, but it is more helpful to see Afro-American jazz as a continuum. I was just listening to Miles Davis's E.S.P. and think that part of the trumpeter's solution to this hard new Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock music was to play Louis Armstrong quotes.

As far as I can discover from my library and the internet at this moment, the following is what Miles said about Louis Armstrong when he was alive:

1949: In DownBeat to Pat Harris, Miles says that Louis is one of his favorite musicians.

1955: In a DownBeat blindfold test with Leonard Feather, he listened to "Ain't Misbehavin'" with Bobby Hackett and Jack Teagarden. I believe the "statements" Miles refers to are Louis's putdowns of modern jazz.

I like Louis! Anything he does is all right. I don't know about his statements, though, I could do without them...I'd give it five stars.

1958: In the Jazz Review with Nat Hentoff, he listened to "Potato Head Blues":

Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way. You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played - I mean even modern. I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat - with feeling. That's another phrase for swing. I also love the way he sings.

1962: In Playboy to Alex Haley:

I love Pops, I love the way he sings, the way he plays - everything he does, except when he says something against modern-jazz music. He ought to realize that he was a pioneer, too. No, he wasn't an influence of mine, and I've had very little direct contact with Pops. A long time ago, I was at Bop City, and he came in and told me he liked my playing. I don't know if he would even remember it, but I remember how good I felt to have him say it. People really dig Pops like I do myself. He does a good job overseas with his personality. But they ought to send him down South for goodwill. They need goodwill worse in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi than they do in Europe.

Hyland Harris also sent me two candids, and you can see the respect Miles has on his face when greeting Pops.

The most condemning things Miles said about Armstrong seem to be from his 1989 autobiography co-written with Quincy Troupe. Armstrong is repeatedly name-checked as one of the greats, but in the photo album he gives us Pops, Beulah, Buckwheat, and Rochester: "Some of the images of black people I would fight against throughout my career. I loved Satchmo but couldn't stand all the grinning he did."

Also from the book:

As much as I love Dizzy and loved Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, I always hated the way they used to laugh and grin for the audiences. I know why they did it - to make money and because they were entertainers as well as trumpet players. They had families to feed. Plus they both liked acting the clown; it's just the way Dizzy and Satch were. I don't have nothing against them doing it if they want to. But I didn't like it and didn't have to like it...Also I was younger than them and didn't have to go through the same shit to get accepted by the music industry. They had already opened up a lot of doors for people like me to go through...

...

I loved the way Louis played trumpet, man, but I hated the way he had to grin in order to get over with some tired white folks. Man, I just hated when I saw him doing that, because Louis was hip, had a consciousness about black people, and was a real nice man. But the only image people have of him is that grinning image off TV.

This last quote is close to what Early worries about in Tuxedo Junction.

After leaving Satchmo at the Waldorf I asked myself: is this progress? I decided that it was. At the least, having a black man best known as a cheerful entertainer repeatedly curse at a mostly white audience is still mildly subversive. (Many reviewers of Waldorf are somehow surprised that Mr. Armstrong swore and smoked weed.)

In drama, clear antagonists are required. Terry has to make a story go. That should be fine, except that in Waldorf, fast-talking manager Joe Glaser is almost more interesting than doddering old Armstrong, and Miles Davis becomes a cartoon version of black nationalism.

To his credit, the portrayal of the Armstrong/Davis divide is much more nuanced in Terry's book Pops than in the play.

It's just good to remember how much Miles Davis must have loved Louis Armstrong. When Miles told Haley that Louis wasn't an influence, that just wasn't true. Trumpet playing aside, the whole concept of playing white show tunes in an improvisatory and black music context - i.e., the bulk of Miles Davis's recordings from the studio in the 50's and live in the 60's - comes straight from Louis Armstrong.

03/11/2014

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-louis-armstrong-really-thinks

February 25, 2014

What Louis Armstrong Really Thinks
by Ben Schwartz
The New Yorker

On October 31, 1965, Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong gave his first performance in New Orleans, his home town, in nine years. As a boy, he had busked on street corners. At twelve, he marched in parades for the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys, where he was given his first cornet. But he had publicly boycotted the city since its banning of integrated bands, in 1956. It took the Civil Rights Act, of 1964, to undo the law. Returning should have been a victory lap. At sixty-four, his popular appeal had never been broader. His recording of “Hello, Dolly!,” from the musical then in its initial run on Broadway, bumped the Beatles’ ”Can’t Buy Me Love” from its No. 1 slot on the Billboard Top 100 chart, and the song carried him to the Grammys; it won the 1964 Best Vocal Performance award. By the time the movie version came out, in 1969, he was brought in to duet with Barbra Streisand.

Armstrong was then widely known as America’s gravel-voiced, lovable grandpa of jazz. Yet it was a low point for his critical estimation. “The square’s jazzman,” the journalist Andrew Kopkind called him, while covering Armstrong’s return to New Orleans for The New Republic. Kopkind added that “Among Negroes across the country he occupies a special position as success symbol, cultural hero, and racial cop-out.” Kopkind was not entirely wrong in this, and hardly alone in saying so. Armstrong was regularly called an Uncle Tom.

Detractors wanted Armstrong on the front lines, marching, but he refused. He had already been the target of a bombing, during an integrated performance at Knoxville’s Chilhowee Park auditorium, in February, 1957. In 1965, the year Armstrong returned to New Orleans, Malcolm X was killed on February 21st, and on March 7th, known as Bloody Sunday, Alabama state troopers armed with billy clubs, tear gas, and bull whips attacked nearly six hundred marchers protesting a police shooting of a voter-registration activist near Selma. Armstrong flatly stated in interviews that he refused to march, feeling that he would be a target. “My life is my music. They would beat me on the mouth if I marched, and without my mouth I wouldn’t be able to blow my horn … they would beat Jesus if he was black and marched.”

When local kids asked Armstrong to join them in a homecoming parade, as he had done with the Colored Waif’s Home in his youth, he said no. He knew the 1964 Civil Rights Act was federal law, not local fiat. Armstrong had happily joined in the home’s parades in the past, but his refusal here can be read as a sign of the times. The Birmingham church bombings in 1963 had shown that even children were not off limits.

And yet little of what Armstrong said about the civil-rights struggle registered. The public image of him, that wide performance smile, the rumbling lilt of his “Hello, Dolly!,” obviated everything else. “As for Satchmo himself,” Kopkind wrote, “he seems untouched by all the doubts around him. He is a New Orleans trumpet player who loves to entertain. He is not very serious about art or politics, or even life.”

* * *

To be fair to Kopkind, and many others who wrote about Armstrong, they did not know much of what Armstrong thought, because, at the time, Armstrong’s more political views were rarely heard publicly. To the country at large, he insisted on remaining a breezy entertainer with all the gravitas of a Jimmy Durante or Dean Martin. Fortunately, that image is now being deeply reëxamined. This month, the publication of Thomas Brothers’s “Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism” and the Off Broadway opening of Terry Teachout’s “Satchmo at the Waldorf” (which follows his 2009 biography, “Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong,” which was reviewed in the magazine by John McWhorter) provide a rich, nuanced picture of what was behind Armstrong’s public face.

Armstrong’s thoughts were scattered about in uncollected letters, unpublished autobiographical manuscripts, and tape recordings. He brought a typewriter with him on the road, and an inquisitive fan who sent a letter stood a good chance of getting a reply from Satchmo himself. When reel-to-reel tape decks were introduced, he bought one so that he could listen to music, study his own performances, and record conversations with friends and family to get down his own version of events. Scholars and researchers have been studying his writing and recordings for a number of years. Teachout’s play, a one-man show starring John Douglas Thompson, is based on more than six hundred and fifty reels of tape stored at Queens College, all of which reveal an Armstrong who did indeed take art, politics, and life seriously.

His talk came from the streets, as did his understanding of race, celebrity, and politics. In 1951, when Josephine Baker returned to the United States from France, she complained publicly of racist treatment at New York’s Stork Club, and persuaded the Copa City night club, in Miami, to desegregate for her shows. Armstrong was not impressed. In 1952, according to a transcript in Ricky Riccardi’s “What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years” (2012), he said:

But she’s going to come over here and stir up the nation, get all them ofays—people that think a lot of us—against us, because you take a lot of narrow minded spades following up that jive she’s pulling—you understand?—then she go back with all that loot and everything and we’re over here dangling. I don’t dig her.

The key word is “we’re.” Armstrong grew up poor and powerless, and he never forgot it. Despite his fame, he understood the repercussions for a community after the celebrity savior jets home. “I don’t socialize with the top dogs of society after a dance or concert,” he said in a 1964 profile in Ebony. “These same society people may go around the corner and lynch a Negro.”

Armstrong chose his battles carefully. In September, 1957, seven months after the bombing attempt in Knoxville, he grew strident when President Eisenhower did not compel Arkansas to allow nine students to attend Little Rock Central High School. As Teachout recounts in “Pops,” here Armstrong had leverage, and spoke out. Armstrong was then an unofficial goodwill ambassador for the State Department. Armstrong stated publicly that Eisenhower was “two-faced” and had “no guts.” He told one reporter, “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country.” His comments made network newscasts and front pages, and the A.P. reported that State Department officials had conceded that “Soviet propagandists would undoubtedly seize on Mr. Armstrong’s words.”

Doing things Armstrong’s way, no one had to accept responsibility for his actions but Louis Armstrong. When Eisenhower did force the schools to integrate, Armstrong’s tone was friendlier. “Daddy,” he telegrammed the President, “You have a good heart.”

* * *

The work of Thomas Brothers, a professor of music at Duke University, radically undercuts the breezy image that Armstrong worked so hard to maintain. Brothers began editing Armstrong’s letters and writings in the early nineteen-nineties, now collected in “Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words.” He followed that with his own “Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans” (2006), and, this month, with “Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism,” which charts Armstrong’s peak creative period, from 1925 until 1932. It’s not so much biography that Brothers is after as a history of “black vernacular” music as seen through Armstrong’s life. In the book on New Orleans, he traces that music from plantation culture through Armstrong’s youth, and on to his move north, in 1922. “Master of Modernism” picks up as Armstrong’s mentor, Joe (King) Oliver, summons Armstrong to join his band in Chicago. Brothers discounts comforting histories of the early jazz world as an oasis where race was irrelevant, a multi-cultural melting pot that created a uniquely American sound. Armstrong’s music came from the black tradition, from his own neighborhood, which he modernized for Chicago’s upscale cafés, theatres, and fast-paced, flashy, urban clubs.

By 1925, after a three-year apprenticeship in Oliver’s band and, later, a stint in Fletcher Henderson’s group, Armstrong formed his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens combos. Here he perfected his mature horn style, a New Orleans sound broken down into what Brothers calls a “microscopic level of blues phrasing” sped up into a “dazzling melodic flow” of “weird, crazy, and eccentric figures.” Armstrong was part of the Great Migration, the movement of Southern African-Americans to Northern cities to escape Jim Crow terrorism. His local audiences were made up of many people in transition, just like him. “The connection to the Deep South could still be heard, but there was also a step up and forward into a more professional world,” Brothers writes. “He was a modern, sophisticated, northern, well-paid musician. Whether he knew it or not, the task that lay before him was to help his audience understand themselves more deeply by providing them with a musical identity that was black and modern. This is the context of his mature style.”

Brothers also convincingly dismisses the idea that Armstrong was a purely instinctive, improvisational artist, a lucky savant whom fortune favored with a cornet. In recently discovered copyrighted music for “Cornet Chop Suey,” which contains an early gem of a solo registered in 1924, but not recorded until 1926, Brothers shows that Armstrong was, in fact, an intellectual musician who composed his breakthrough solos. Of another solo, Brothers writes, “The chiseled perfection of ‘Big Butter and Egg Man’ came from working on it night after night, like a sculptor fussing over a chunk of marble. Armstrong changed the history of jazz solos by composing rather than improvising.”

The solos, with their incredibly fast breaks, their “freakish” (as traditionalists called them) squawks and “wah-wahs,” were considered pure noise, just novelty music, by many. Complaints from critics about Armstrong’s clowning dogged him all his life. But he made brilliant, satirical use of humor, which you can hear in his biggest hits of the twenties: “Heebie Jeebies,” “Big Butter and Egg Man,” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” In the first of that trio, Armstrong offers an early example of scat singing. He did not invent scat (as was mistakenly thought for decades), but here he popularized it by cheerfully mocking the song’s inane lyrics with his own nonsensical sound, one that flows along with the melody better than the original words.

His humor revealed an irreverent man with a distinctly black point of view. On “You’re Drivin’ Me Crazy,” from 1930, Armstrong stops the band momentarily to chide their sloppy performance. One musician answers, in a typical stuttering minstrel style, “Aw, Pops, w-we j-just m-muggin’ lightly.” Armstrong starts to answer in that stuttering style, too, then catches himself. “Aw, man, now you got me talkin’ all that chop suey.” Here Armstrong’s wisecrack undercuts a century of the minstrel humor expected of him by many white listeners, a simple joke making clear who Louis Armstrong really is.

By 1929, Armstrong was a cultural hero in Chicago. Yet his next innovation, his vocal style, raised questions about whether he was assimilating in order to attract white audiences (his “white turn,” as Brothers calls it) by recording pop hits that left his jazz fan base behind. In “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” a widely recorded song of the day, which Armstrong sang in the Broadway musical “Connie’s Hot Chocolates,” he takes a modernist’s approach of distancing himself from the source material, not assimilating. As he put it, “On the first chorus I plays the melody, on the second chorus I plays the melody around the melody, and on the third chorus I routines.” Like “Heebie Jeebies,” Armstrong irreverently comments on the song as much as plays it. His voice remains unassimilated, as well. As Brothers puts it, he sang with “a voice as different from the normative style of Broadway show singing as black and white … mixing scat, blues, double-time, and witty paraphrase, keeping things humorous and accessible.” A voice that made Armstrong’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” a distinctly black mainstream hit, and one heard all the way through “Hello, Dolly!”

“That he was not interested in cultural assimilation is an indication of psychological security and confidence,” Brothers writes in “Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans.” “It may also be taken as a political stance. To insist on the value of vernacular culture and to reject assimilation was not an idle position to take. There were considerable ideological pressures working in the other direction.”

Yes, unfortunately, there were. One example, of too many, came when Armstrong was arrested by the Memphis Police Department in 1931. His crime? He sat next to his manager’s wife, a white woman, on a bus. Armstrong and his band were thrown in jail as policemen shouted that they needed cotton pickers in the area. Armstrong’s manager got him out in time to play his show the next evening. When he did play, Armstrong dedicated a song to the local constabulary, several of whom were in the room, then cued the band to play “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Old Rascal You.” The band stiffened, expecting another night in jail, or worse. Instead, he scatted so artfully that, afterward, the cops on duty actually thanked him. Armstrong most likely never quit smiling that night. His subversive joke was not understood by anyone except the African-Americans in his band.

Race pervaded every aspect of Armstrong’s career. After he began making movies, he was given an embarrassing jungle outfit to wear in “A Rhapsody in Black and Blue” (1932), a betrayal of everything in his music. Brothers likens the ideology of nineteen-thirties racism that Armstrong lived under to what other musical geniuses suffered overseas at the time:

In Russia, Dmitri Shostakovich came under attack for composing music that did not fit official Soviet expectations; his efforts to make up for such “errors” in artistic judgment lay at the root of a tortured life. Richard Strauss’s German-themed compositions were easily appropriated by the Nazis, boxing him into an image that he wanted nothing do with.

Armstrong, in his own way, made that same point. During the Little Rock schools standoff, he cancelled a planned tour of the Soviet Union for the State Department. As Teachout quotes him in “Pops,” “The people over there ask me what’s wrong with my country? What am I supposed to say?” Yes, Armstrong compromised. “If he was going to advance further on the ladder of his career—and he definitely was—he had to assure white audiences on a deep level that he had no designs on social progress,” Brothers writes.

But, in fact, he did, which we see now in his art and in his racial politics, from his interactions with the Memphis police in 1931 and Eisenhower in 1957 to his return in 1965 to New Orleans, without grandstanding or incident. As the pieces come together, a consistency of thought in Armstrong once obscured to us has finally become clear: “You name the country and we’ve just about been there,” he said of his travels with his wife Lucille. “We’ve been wined and dined by all kinds of royalty. We’ve had an audience with the Pope. We’ve even slept in Hitler’s bed. But regardless of all that kind of stuff, I’ve got sense enough to know that I’m still Louis Armstrong—colored.”

Ben Schwartz is an Emmy-nominated comedy writer and the editor of the anthology “The Best American Comics Criticism.” He is currently working on a history of American humor set between the world wars.

Photograph: Eddie Adams/AP

ne of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, Louis Armstrong was responsible for innovations that filtered down through popular music to rock and roll. Armstrong himself put it like this: “If it hadn’t been for jazz, there wouldn’t be no rock and roll.” If it hadn’t been for Armstrong, popular music of all kinds – from jazz and blues to rock and roll – would be considerably poorer. As a trumpet player, Armstrong was a pioneering soloist and one of the first true virtuosos in jazz. As a singer, he was one of the originators of scat singing, and his warm, ebullient vocal style had a big impact on the way all pop music was sung. As an entertainer, his charismatic presence allowed him to break through race barriers to become one of the first black superstars – a figure who would eventually become known as America’s Jazz Ambassador.
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901. While still a teenager, he and three friends formed a vocal quartet. “I used to sing tenor,” he recalled. “Had a real light voice, and played a little slide whistle, like a trombone.” On New Year’s Eve 1912, he was arrested after he fired some shots from his stepfather’s gun. He was sent to the Colored Waifs’ Home. There, he began playing cornet in a brass band. Five years later, he was playing honky-tonks. Another cornetist, Joe “King” Oliver, took a liking to him, and in 1922, he brought Armstrong to Chicago.
Armstrong joined Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, which enabled him to make a sufficient salary, so he would no longer need to supplement his music income with day labor jobs. Oliver’s band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago at the time. Armstrong lived like a king, in his own apartment with its own private bath. 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 friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.
Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but his 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, where he played in large orchestras.
He then began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing such hits 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.
Armstrong was truly a superb musician, but he was also an entertainer of great wit and immense charisma – something that became evident in the late Twenties and early Thirties, when he emerged as a vocalist. Widely imitated, he defined the art of jazz singing, and he had a profound effect on the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. “He put real fun into singing,” said blues singer and songwriter Alberta Hunter. “He really showed us all how to take a song and go with it – you know, improvise on it. And don’t forget scat singing, which Louis invented.”
Armstrong continued to play jazz brilliantly into the Fifties. He also made a successful crossover to pop with such songs as “Blueberry Hill” and “C’est Si Bon.” In the late Fifties and early Sixties, he had even more pop success with “Mack the Knife” and “Hello, Dolly!” The latter song managed to unseat the Beatles from the top of the charts in 1964. That feat made him the oldest musician in Billboard history to have a Number One song.
Louis Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday. The honorary pallbearers at his funeral include Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson and David Frost. Louis Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
- See more at: https://rockhall.com/inductees/louis-armstrong/bio/#sthash.iPcXR9uf.dpuf

https://rockhall.com/inductees/louis-armstrong/bio/

LOUIS ARMSTRONG BIOGRAPHY

One of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, Louis Armstrong was responsible for innovations that filtered down through popular music to rock and roll. Armstrong himself put it like this: “If it hadn’t been for jazz, there wouldn’t be no rock and roll.” If it hadn’t been for Armstrong, popular music of all kinds – from jazz and blues to rock and roll – would be considerably poorer. As a trumpet player, Armstrong was a pioneering soloist and one of the first true virtuosos in jazz. As a singer, he was one of the originators of scat singing, and his warm, ebullient vocal style had a big impact on the way all pop music was sung. As an entertainer, his charismatic presence allowed him to break through race barriers to become one of the first black superstars – a figure who would eventually become known as America’s Jazz Ambassador.

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901. While still a teenager, he and three friends formed a vocal quartet. “I used to sing tenor,” he recalled. “Had a real light voice, and played a little slide whistle, like a trombone.” On New Year’s Eve 1912, he was arrested after he fired some shots from his stepfather’s gun. He was sent to the Colored Waifs’ Home. There, he began playing cornet in a brass band. Five years later, he was playing honky-tonks. Another cornetist, Joe “King” Oliver, took a liking to him, and in 1922, he brought Armstrong to Chicago.

Armstrong joined Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, which enabled him to make a sufficient salary, so he would no longer need to supplement his music income with day labor jobs. Oliver’s band was the best and most influential hot jazz band in Chicago at the time. Armstrong lived like a king, in his own apartment with its own private bath. 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 friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.

Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but his 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, where he played in large orchestras.

He then began recording under his own name for Okeh with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing such hits 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.

Armstrong was truly a superb musician, but he was also an entertainer of great wit and immense charisma – something that became evident in the late Twenties and early Thirties, when he emerged as a vocalist. Widely imitated, he defined the art of jazz singing, and he had a profound effect on the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. “He put real fun into singing,” said blues singer and songwriter Alberta Hunter. “He really showed us all how to take a song and go with it – you know, improvise on it. And don’t forget scat singing, which Louis invented.”

Armstrong continued to play jazz brilliantly into the Fifties. He also made a successful crossover to pop with such songs as “Blueberry Hill” and “C’est Si Bon.” In the late Fifties and early Sixties, he had even more pop success with “Mack the Knife” and “Hello, Dolly!” The latter song managed to unseat the Beatles from the top of the charts in 1964. That feat made him the oldest musician in Billboard history to have a Number One song.

Louis Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday. The honorary pallbearers at his funeral include Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson and David Frost. Louis Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

- See more at: https://rockhall.com/inductees/louis-armstrong/bio/#sthash.iPcXR9uf.dpuf

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/166813-the-permanance-of-pops-louis-armstrong-and-american-music/

Louis Armstrong

The Complete Columbia/Okeh & Victor Recordings, 1925-33

(Sony Legacy)
US: 6 Nov 2012
UK: 6 Nov 2012

Amazon

iTunes

It has become gospel in the jazz world that Everything Comes from Louis. And like so many truisms, the brilliance of Louis Armstrong is so plain that it is easy to miss.

Louis “Pops” Armstrong was the first great jazz player and singer, and his first batch of recordings from the 1925 to 1933—collected here in a definitive ten-disc set—is one of the essential artistic fountains of the 20th century. This music, recorded in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Camden, NJ, did much more than define and lay the blueprint for jazz. It is, almost completely, the source material for all popular music in the follow century, worldwide. Listening to hip-hop or pop or creative improvised art music in 2013 is to be inside Armstrong’s world still: a place where an insistent rhythmic complexity and a defiant expression of the individuality of a singer or soloist combine to make the heart and the body each move without limit.

The Reason to Call Him “Pops” Rather Than “Satchmo”

Of course, placing all this on one man goes a bit far. Armstrong did not come out of a vacuum. Born in New Orleans near the start of his century, Louis inherited a set of traditions that would push him to make great art. He was a brass player coming from a city where compelling street music already existed for brass bands. Great players like Buddy Bolden and Joe “King” Oliver were already improvising solos (on trumpet or cornet, no less) in the context of a band. Jelly Roll Morton was devising ways for band arrangements to reflect a new sensibility of rhythmic pliancy and to set up ingeniously orchestrated call-and-response patterns.

But no one had put the music together like Louis Armstrong would, starting with these recordings in the 1920s. Armstrong was, quite simply, the best brass player anyone had ever heard. He not only played high and fast, but he could create spontaneous melodies that were unsurpassed in imagination, spirit, and cohesive intelligence. Above all else, Pops played with innovative rhythmic feeling—the slippery push-pull syncopation that would come to define the idea of “swing” but that really deserves to be described with a word that is less time-locked. Louis Armstrong didn’t just invent or perfect “jazz” or “swing”—he established the gold standard for groove in modern music. His feeling for the individual expression of time didn’t just set up Basie and Bird, Miles and Marsalis. Without Armstrong there’s no James Brown or Johnny Cash, there’s no Sinatra and no Kanye. The feeling at the root of all that music is in the groove, the way the great American artists address rhythm. And that feeling starts with these records, with the incomparable Louis Armstrong.

Armstrong’s most famous nickname, “Satchmo”, is simply a mishearing and transformation of the phrase “satchel mouth”, which you can hear Louis say on the first take of one of the tunes in this collection. Louis used this phrase in his banter to mean “big mouth”, and it was sometimes used to describe him, becoming “Satchmo” in the hands of an English journalist who was trying to seem familiar with the music star. The nickname “Pops”, however, came from none other than Billie Holiday, a young singer who heard Armstrong’s art and transformed it through her own lens—part of the explicit link between Louis and every other musician to follow him.

Pops, then, is the pops of all of the US music that has since conquered the world.

A Case Study In How a Trumpet Can Change the World

These ten discs, a total of 181 tracks (including some alternate takes, but not too many), contain an absurd amount of great music. Though there are some strong contributions, in the early tracks, from names like Kid Ory, Earl Hines, and Jack Teagarden, the overwhelming genius here is in Armstrong himself. This is titanic trumpet, en masse.

Most jazz fans will already know the canonized early solos, and they’re here mostly in the first four discs of material: the “Hot Five”, “Hot Seven”, and Earl Hines sides that produced “Cornet Chop Suey”, “Big Butter and Egg Man”, “Potato Head Blues”, “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue”, and “Weather Bird”. These recordings remain brilliant and deeply influential, formative work that simply will not be ignored. But hearing this entire box set over the course of a few sittings—plus a lifetime of listening to Armstrong’s 38 subsequent years of work—makes you realize that his greatness was not a momentary thing or a blaze of youth.

More interesting than writing again about “West End Blues” is listening to a relatively unheralded track like “Blue Again” from April of 1931. This is Armstrong “and his Orchestra”, a ten-piece band (three brass, three reeds, banjo, piano, bass, and drums) playing one of the lesser hits of Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields (“I Can’t Give You Anything But Love”, “Don’t Blame Me”). It’s a standard arrangement of the period, with the backing horns playing mostly whole-note chords on the intro and vocal, then pulsing down beat chords to push Louis on his instrumental solo chorus.

“Blue Again” is not a great song, but oh what Louis does with it. On the introduction, he plays four logically connected atempo phrases over four descending chords, each of which is linked together with a rhythmic and harmonic motif involving repeated notes played one step above the chord tone then a minor third below. Armstrong jabs and bobs with these notes, then runs up to a high note before starting a cadenza that rips and runs with much more complexity across blue notes and several chromatic phrases before returning to the opening motif, but this time such that is sounds mournful and gentle.

Pops takes eight bars of horn on the straight melody before singing the whole song from the top—a classic vocal (more on this later) with everything the man is known for as a singer, reshaping the melodic form, using soulful and unconventional tone, and creating a sense of swing by a complete remaking of the rhythm of the melody. The tune ends, however with 32 bars of ravishing improvised trumpet. With some room to actually develop a statement, Louis gets to play cat and mouse with the song and with the band’s static arrangement. In the first eight bars, he stays around a single note (the tonic of song’s key), repeating it over and over again but in a myriad of rhythmic combinations that swirl around the groove like a tap-dancer. It’s almost as much a drum solo as it is a trumpet solo. The next eight find him latching onto a single descending figure of three notes, which he repeats with small variations and growing momentum, always starting with that first tonic note, then finally repeating the lick again before he rises up to play a lyrical figure in contrast. The bridge starts with longer tones, played legato, then leads to a rushed/swing figure that doubles back to become a lick played coolly behind the beat. The final eight bars find Louis running across all of these strategies as he sees fit, varying his approach but touching back on the written melody slightly before ending with a heraldic high note.

This song is not considered one of the Armstrong masterpieces, but a bit of reflection suggests that, in fact, it is. But there are many solos this good in the collection. An almost random choice is as likely to land you on genius as a targeted search.

What Louis was doing with his trumpet, one three-minute symphony after another, was teaching other “jazz” musicians what could actually be done with the form, with the art of improvising against American blues and song forms. In this young master’s capable hands, a great solo did not merely mean playing some hot notes but rather creating an intelligent work of art—an act of thoughtful composition—in the moment. Armstrong did this with feeling and startling cleverness nearly every time out. And quite often these feats of spontaneous order carried with them a sense of thrill that could only have come from improvisation. That is, Armstrong taught not just great music but the value there was in trusting the spontaneous moment for its own sake.

After the trumpet solos on these sides, American music changed forever. The groundwork was laid not just for Benny Goodman and John Coltrane but also for Jimi Hendrix and Public Enemy. The feeling of time in our music was as thoroughly altered as if Einstein had been in on the creation.

And: Changing the American Voice for Good Too

But to say that Louis Armstrong’s trumpet changed popular music in the 20th century is to sell the man, and these recordings, short. I’ve made it sound too technical. Armstrong was more than the man who taught America how to swing. He also taught us how to sing

In the eighth disc here are the two famed versions of “Stardust”, for example, each one a masterpiece (though I prefer the slightly more urgent second take). Armstrong’s vocal takes the prevailing style of “sweet” singing in American pop music and dashes it against a brick wall, delicately wrings its neck, and replaces it with a new model that is so audacious that it would take most of the art form at least two decades to catch up.

It’s not that Louis sang “dirty” rather than clean, though bad imitations of him just focus on his sometimes gravelly tone. At the time of Armstrong’s vocal innovations, there were plenty of southern blues singers who were singing in an urgent, unschooled manner—the eventual model for many rock singers down the line. Pops’ singing was more like his trumpet work: ingenious and sophisticated, borrowing tonal variation and soul from the African-American folk tradition that had created the blues singers, sure, but also applying the rhythmic syncopations and complex harmonic tricks of a jazz musician to the existing craft of material he was interpreting. In the case of “Stardust”, a superb Hoagy Carmichael song, Louis didn’t need to redeem a novelty song with his invention, but what he does is dazzle you with the sense of freedom and ease he applies to a tune. He knows it so intimately that he can slow it down and speed it up, invent new lyric phrases in the gaps, create hip harmonic embellishing phrases wherever he pleases, and generate incredible excitement and feeling by phrasing certain notes explosively and others gently, all by a design that feels utterly spontaneous and natural.

Compared to any other singer in American pop music at the time, Louis was a revelation. They were addressing songs with sweet sincerity and a fidelity to the written melody that was “square” and devoid of individual feeling. Louis not only sounded like no one else—injected personality and tonal individuality on nearly every word—but also let his voice become a jazz instrument that could not resist swinging the material. Almost overnight, every other singer seemed like he or she had a broom up his or her bottom.

Another example to be adored is Louis’s “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” from March of 1929. It’s a mid-tempo ballad, and the arrangement is super-square, with the reeds playing the melody in straight legato form. When the vocal enters on the second chorus (which was standard at the time), Armstrong completely abstracts the melody, abandoning convention and sliding across a whole new set of notes that are his own. Along the way he reinvents the words too and restructures the rhythm entirely as well, shouting some words with punctuations by the band, then easing back into slides and moans. It’s a brilliantly original performance.

Most importantly, these were performances that made other singers change the American tradition of singing. Bessie Smith was playing with and listening to Armstrong. Billie Holiday had a single role model: Pops. Eventually Frank Sinatra would say that it was Billie and Louis who taught him to swing and phrase the way he did. And the contemporary singers of the ‘30s and ‘40s like Bing Crosby were, in many ways, little more than excellent white versions of Armstrong, with “crooning” becoming a watered-down version of what Louis was doing full-on ten years earlier.

Repertoire and the Music That Was to Follow

In these 181 tracks are scores of well known songs, from “Ain’t Misbehavin’” to “I’ve Got the World on a String” to “Black and Blue”. Not only was Armstrong setting up the “how” for a few generations of jazz and pop musicians, but he was also explaining the “what”. There are original themes here, but mostly Pops was establishing the territory that jazz musicians would cover and, ultimately, overrun in the decades to follow: show tunes and pop songs mixed with folks melodies and blues, all spun from simplicity into complex gold by the art form and its daring.

There is some goofy stuff here, novelty numbers or material that hasn’t held up over the decades, but mostly you will be struck by the extent to which other musicians copied Louis’ repertoire and methods. Many of these songs are still staples in jazz clubs and cabarets, hotel lounges or schools where this music is taught. And many of the approaches that Armstrong chose in these eight years would become a new tradition the music still honors.

Not that Louis was trailblazing continually until his 1971 death of a heart attack, just short of his 70th birthday. Though he had more hit songs in the 1960s (“Hello, Dolly” and even a kind of posthumous hit in “What a Wonderful World”), his repertoire and basic sound didn’t change much from 1940 onward. He led many similar bands, appeared in movies, shows, and later on television, and he toured the world many times over. He transformed himself from a dangerous young innovator to a somewhat comforting smile who even came to be seen, in the activist ‘60s, as a possible “Uncle Tom”.

But his art—as is made clear in these ten discs—was so far ahead of the curve in his early years that there was no shame in Pops sticking with this art to the end. He continued to sings and play brilliantly, even if the later records didn’t carry the same revelation of innovation. Even as the New Orleans style gave way to swing and swing gave way to bebop and so on, Louis Armstrong’s playing never lost its power to move and to thrill and to stop a person in his or her tracks.

In these timeless recordings as well as in his influence on our world, Louis Armstrong is forever: New Orleans’ great gift to this land and to all of us. Thank you, Pops.

THE MUSIC OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. ARMSTRONG:

Louis Armstrong - The Hot Fives-- Volume I:

Album of Louis Armstrong, The Hot Fives 1925.

Louis Armstrong - The Hot Fives vol.II [HD 1080P]:

Album of Louis Armstrong, the hot fives vol.II 1926.

The Hot Fives & Hot Sevens vol III [HD 1080P]:

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Ella & Louis (Full Album)--Verve , 1956:

Tracklist:

1. Can't We Be Friends?
2. Isn't This a Lovely Day?
3. Moonlight in Vermont
4. They Can't Take That Away from Me
5. Under a Blanket of Blue
6. Tenderly
7. A Foggy Day
8. Stars Fell on Alabama
9. Cheek to Cheek
10. The Nearness of You
11. April in Paris

Músicos / Personnel :

Ella Fitzgerald -- Voz
Louis Armstrong -- Trompeta, Voz
Herb Ellis -- Guitarra
Ed Hall -- clarinete
Trummy Young -- Trombón
Oscar Peterson -- Piano
Billy Kyle -- Piano
Louie Bellson -- Batería
Barrett Deems -- Batería
Buddy Rich -- Batería

LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOT FIVE & SEVEN

leo kornalijnslijper
18/28 videos

Louis Armstrong meets Duke Ellington 1961 (Full CD HQ):

Giants of Jazz Collection

Release 1996.
1- It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) 3:56
2- Just Squeeze Me 3:55
3- Do Nothin' 'Till You Hear From Me 2:38
4- In a Mellow Tone (In a Mellotone) 3:49
5- Solitude 4:52
6- Don't Get Around Much Anymore recording of:
Don't Get Around Much Anymore
composer: Duke Ellington
lyricist: Bob Russell (US songwriter/lyricist Sidney Keith "Bob" Russell) 3:30
7- The Mooche
clarinet: Barney Bigard
trumpet: Louis Armstrong
drums: Danny Barcelona
double bass / contrabass / acoustic upright bass:
Mort Herbert
piano: Duke Ellington
trombone: Trummy Young
lead vocals: Louis Armstrong
recording of: The Mooche
composer:
Duke Ellington, Irving Mills 3:40
8- I'm Beginning to See the Light 3:35
9- Mood Indigo 4:01
10- The Beautiful American 3:08
11- I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good 5:28
12- Drop Me Off at Harlem 3:50
13- Black and Tan Fantasy 3:59
14- Cotton Tail (Shuckin' And Stiffin') 3:43
15- I'm Just a Lucky So and So 3:07
16- Duke's Place 5:04
17- Azalea 5:02

"Battle Royal" film scene - Louis Armstrong, Sidney Poitier, and Paul Newman--"Paris Blues"(1961):

Louis Armstrong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louis Armstrong
Armstrong in 1953
Background information
Born	August 4, 1901 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	July 6, 1971 (aged 69) Corona, Queens, New York City, U.S.
Genres	Dixieland, jazz, swing, traditional pop
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Trumpet, cornet, vocals
Years active	c. 1914–1971
Associated acts	Joe "King" Oliver, Ella Fitzgerald, Kid Ory, Jack Teagarden

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971),^[1] nicknamed Satchmo^[2] or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer who became one of the pivotal and most influential figures in jazz music. His career spanned from the 1920s to the 1960s, covering many different eras of jazz.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance^{[citation needed]}. With his instantly recognizable 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 skilled at scat singing.

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were highly restricted for black men of his era.

Early life

Handcolored etching Louis Armstrong (2002) by Adi Holzer

Armstrong often stated that he was born on July 4, 1900,^[3]^[4] a date that has been noted in many biographies. Although he died in 1971, it was not until the mid-1980s that his true birth date of August 4, 1901 was discovered by researcher Tad Jones through the examination of baptismal records.^[5]

Armstrong was born into a poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana, and was the grandson of slaves. He spent his youth in poverty, in a rough neighborhood known as "the Battlefield", which was part of the Storyville legal prostitution district. 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 (1886–1927), 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 only saw his father in parades.

He attended the Fisk School for Boys, where he most likely had early exposure to music. He brought in some money as a paperboy and also by finding discarded food and selling it to restaurants, but it was not enough to keep his mother from prostitution. He hung out in dance halls close to home, where he observed everything from licentious dancing to the quadrille. For extra money he also hauled coal to Storyville, and listened to the bands playing in the brothels and dance halls, especially Pete Lala's, where Joe "King" Oliver performed as well as other famous musicians who would drop in to jam.

After dropping out of the Fisk School at age eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who 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,^[6] although in his later years Armstrong gave the credit to Oliver. Armstrong hardly looked back at his youth as the worst of times but drew inspiration from it instead: "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."^[7]

He also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, the Karnofskys, who had a junk hauling business and gave him odd jobs. They took him in and treated him like family; knowing he lived without a father, they fed and nurtured him.^[8] He later wrote a memoir of his relationship with the Karnofskys titled, Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907. In it he describes his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by "other white folks" nationalities who felt that they were better than the Jewish race... "I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for."^[9] Armstrong wore a Star of David pendant for the rest of his life and wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination."^[10] The influence of Karnofsky is remembered in New Orleans by the Karnofsky Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to accepting donated musical instruments to "put them into the hands of an eager child who could not otherwise take part in a wonderful learning experience."^[11]

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

Armstrong developed his cornet playing skills by playing in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for firing his stepfather's pistol into the air at a New Year's Eve celebration, but it was only a empty shot, as police records confirm. Professor Peter Davis (who frequently appeared at the home at the request of its administrator, Captain Joseph Jones)^[12] 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.^[13] At fourteen he was released from the home, living again with his father and new step-mother, Gertrude, and then back with his mother and thus 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 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 brass bands and riverboats of New Orleans, and began 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 resigned his position in Kid Ory's band; Armstrong replaced him. He also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band, a society^{[clarification needed]} band.^[14]

Career

Label for gramophone record, "Heebie Jeebies" by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five

"Muggles"(1938 reissue pressing)

"Skokiaan"

"Mack The Knife"

1920s

Through all his riverboat experience Armstrong's musicianship began to mature and expand. At twenty, he could read music and started to be featured in extended trumpet solos, one of the first jazz men 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 city was teeming with jobs available also for black people, who were making good wages in factories and had plenty to spend on entertainment.

Oliver's band was among the most influential jazz bands in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when Chicago was the center of the jazz universe. Armstrong lived luxuriously 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 Armstrong's reputation grew, he was challenged to "cutting contests" by hornmen trying to displace the new phenomenon^{[clarification needed]}, who could blow two hundred high Cs 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 friend Bix Beiderbecke, who now had his own Chicago band.

Armstrong enjoyed working with Oliver, but Louis' 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 time. 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. 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 prominent venues for white-only patrons, including the famed Roseland Ballroom, featuring the arrangements of Don Redman. Duke Ellington's orchestra would go to Roseland to catch Armstrong's performances and young horn men around town tried in vain to outplay him, splitting their lips in their attempts.
During this time, Armstrong 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 most memorable 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 band leading 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] Among the most notable of the Hot Five and Seven records were "Cornet Chop Suey," "Struttin' With Some Barbecue," "Hotter Than that" and "Potato Head Blues,", all featuring highly creative solos by Armstrong. His recordings soon after with pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 "Weatherbird" duet) and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to and solo in "West End Blues" remain some of the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history. Armstrong was now 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, 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 nonsensical words) and was among the first to record it, on the Hot Five recording "Heebie Jeebies" in 1926. The recording was so popular that the group became the most famous jazz band in the United States, even though they had not performed live to any great extent. Young musicians across the country, black or white, were turned on by Armstrong's new type of jazz.^[22]

With Jack Teagarden (left) and Barney Bigard (right), Armstrong plays the trumpet in Helsinki, Finland, October 1949

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,^[23] though Hines was the music director and Glaser managed the orchestra. Hines and Armstrong became fast friends and successful collaborators.^[24]

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.^[25]

1930s

Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows,^[26] 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 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 introduced by sobbing horns, 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".

Louis Armstrong in 1953

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 Great Depression of the early 1930s 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 Orleans and raised chickens.^[27]

Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities. He played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums. The band drew the Hollywood crowd, which could still afford a lavish night life, while 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 and was also convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence.^[28] 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,^[29] Armstrong visited New Orleans, had a hero's welcome and saw old friends. He sponsored a local baseball team known as "Armstrong's Secret Nine" and had a cigar named after him.^[30] 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 United 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 African American to host a sponsored, national broadcast.^[31]

1940s

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

Louis Armstrong in 1953

During the 1940s, a widespread revival of interest in the traditional jazz of the 1920s made it possible for Armstrong to consider a return to the small-group musical style of his youth. 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 traditional jazz 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 Louis Armstrong and his 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, Joe Darensbourg, Eddie Shu and percussionist Danny Barcelona. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared in over thirty films. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine, on February 21, 1949. In 1948, he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival, where Suzy Delair sang "C'est si bon", by Henri Betti and André Hornez, for the first time in public.

1950s-1970s

With the publishers' permission, Armstrong recorded the first American version of "C'est si bon" on June 26, 1950, in New York, with English lyrics by Jerry Seelen. When it was released, the disc garnered worldwide sales.^{[citation needed]} In the 1960s, he toured Ghana and Nigeria, performing with Victor Olaiya during the Nigerian Civil war.^[32]^[33] In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record, "Hello, Dolly!", a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong's version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record produced that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person ever to accomplish that feat. In the process, he dislodged the Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.^[34]

Armstrong kept up his busy tour schedule until a few years before his death in 1971. He also toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under the sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch" and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors.^[35]

Personal life

Pronunciation of name

The Louis Armstrong House Museum website states:

Judging from home recorded tapes now in our Museum Collections, Louis pronounced his own name as "Lewis." On his 1964 record "Hello, Dolly," he sings, "This is Lewis, Dolly" but in 1933 he made a record called "Laughin’ Louie." Many broadcast announcers, fans, and acquaintances called him "Louie" and in a videotaped interview from 1983 Lucille Armstrong calls her late husband "Louie" as well. Musicians and close friends usually called him "Pops."^[36]

In a memoir written for Robert Goffin between 1943 and 1944, Armstrong states, "All white folks call me Louie," suggesting that he himself did not.^[37] That said, Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 U.S. Census. On various live records he's called "Louie" on stage, such as on the 1952 "Can Anyone Explain?" from the live album In Scandinavia vol.1. It should also be noted that "Lewie" is the French pronunciation of "Louis" and is commonly used in Louisiana.

Family

On March 19, 1918, at the age of 16, Louis married Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna, Louisiana.^[38] They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose mother, Louis' 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.^[39] Louis' marriage to Parker failed quickly and they separated in 1923.

Armstrong with Lucille Wilson (c. 1960s)

On February 4, 1924, Louis married Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was Oliver's pianist and had also divorced her first spouse only a few years earlier. His second wife was instrumental in developing his career, but in the late 1920s Hardin and Louis grew apart. They separated in 1931 and divorced in 1938, after which Louis married longtime girlfriend Alpha Smith.^[40] His marriage to his third wife lasted four years, and they divorced in 1942. Louis then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club, to whom he was married until his death in 1971.^[41]
Armstrong's marriages never produced any offspring, though he loved children.^[42] However, in December 2012, 57-year-old Sharon Preston-Folta claimed to be his daughter, from a 1950s affair between Armstrong and Lucille "Sweets" Preston, a dancer at the Cotton Club.^[43] In a 1955 letter to his manager, Joe Glaser, Armstrong affirmed his belief that Preston's newborn baby was his daughter, and ordered Glaser to pay a monthly allowance of $400 to mother and child.^[44]

Personality

This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (November 2011)

Armstrong was noted for his colorful and charismatic personality. His own biography vexed some biographers and historians, as he had a habit of telling tales, particularly of his early childhood, when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments of his history often lack consistency.

In addition to an entertainer, Armstrong was a leading personality of the day. He was beloved by an American public that gave even the greatest African American performers little access beyond their public celebrity, and he was able to live a private life of access and privilege afforded to few other African Americans during that era.
He generally remained politically neutral, which at times alienated him from members of the black community who looked to him to use his prominence with white America to become more of an outspoken figure during the Civil Rights Era of U.S. history.

Nicknames

Autograph of Armstrong on the muretto of Alassio

The nicknames Satchmo and Satch are short for Satchelmouth. Like many things in Armstrong's life, which was filled with colorful stories both real and imagined, many of his own telling, the nickname has many possible origins.

The most common tale that biographers tell is the story of Armstrong as a young boy dancing for pennies in the streets of New Orleans, who would scoop up the coins off of the streets and stick them into his mouth to avoid having the bigger children steal them from him. Someone dubbed him "satchel mouth" for his mouth acting as a satchel. Another tale is that because of his large mouth, he was nicknamed "satchel mouth" which became shortened to Satchmo.

Early on he was also known as Dipper, short for Dippermouth, a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues.^[45] and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.

The nickname Pops came from Armstrong's own tendency to forget people's names and simply call them "pops" instead. The nickname was soon turned on Armstrong himself. It was used as the title of a 2010 biography of Armstrong by Terry Teachout.

Armstrong's autograph from the 1960s

Race

Armstrong was largely accepted into white society, both on stage and off, a privilege reserved for very few African-American public figures, and usually those of either exceptional talent or fair skin tone.^{[citation needed]} As his fame grew, so did his access to the finer things in life usually denied to a black man, even a famous one.^{[citation needed]} His renown was such that he dined in reputable restaurants and stayed in hotels usually exclusively for whites.^[46]^{[not in citation given]} It was a power and privilege that he enjoyed, although he was very careful not to flaunt it with fellow performers of color, and privately, he shared what access that he could with friends and fellow musicians.

That still did not prevent members of the African-American community, particularly in the late 1950s to the early 1970s, from calling him an Uncle Tom, a black-on-black racial epithet for someone who kowtowed to white society at the expense of their own racial identity. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."^[47] He was criticized for accepting the title of "King of The Zulus" for Mardi Gras in 1949. In the New Orleans African-American community it is an honored role as the 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.

Some musicians criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not taking a strong enough stand in the civil rights movement.^[48] 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.^[49]

The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.^[50]

Religion

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.^[51] 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,^[51] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Music

Horn playing and early jazz

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Selmer trumpet, given as a gift by King George V of the United Kingdom to Louis Armstrong in 1933

In his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with the cornet and trumpet. The most lauded recordings on which Armstrong plays trumpet include the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, as well as those of the Red Onion Jazz Babies. Armstrong's improvisations, while unconventionally sophisticated for that era, were also subtle and highly melodic.

Prior to Armstrong, most collective ensemble playing in jazz, along with its occasional solos, simply varied the melodies of the songs. Armstrong was virtually the first to create significant variations based on the chord harmonies of the songs instead of merely on the melodies. This opened a rich field for creation and improvisation, and significantly changed the music into a soloist's art form.

Often, Armstrong re-composed pop-tunes he played, simply with variations that made them more compelling to jazz listeners of the era. At the same time, however, his oeuvre includes many original melodies, creative leaps, and relaxed or driving rhythms. Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In his records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what had been essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression.

Armstrong was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself. 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.^[60]

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 with the first recording on which he scatted, "Heebie Jeebies". At a recording session for Okeh Records, when the sheet music supposedly fell on the floor and the music began before he could pick up the pages, Armstrong simply started singing nonsense syllables while Okeh president E.A. Fearn, who was at the session, kept telling him to continue. Armstrong did, thinking the track would be discarded, but that was the version that was pressed to disc, sold, and became an unexpected hit. Although the story was thought to be apocryphal, Armstrong himself confirmed it in at least one interview as well as in his memoirs.^[61] On a later recording, Armstrong also sang out "I done forgot the words" in the middle of recording "I'm A Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas."
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.

Composing

Armstrong was a gifted composer wrote more than fifty songs, which in a number of cases have become jazz standards (e.g., “Gully Low Blues,” “Potato Head Blues,” and “Swing That Music”).

Colleagues and followers

During his long career he played and sang with some of the most important instrumentalists and vocalists of the time; among them were Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Jimmie Rodgers, Bessie Smith and perhaps most famously Ella Fitzgerald. His influence upon 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 two albums with Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, and Ella and Louis Again for Verve Records, with the sessions featuring the backing musicianship of the Oscar Peterson Trio and drummers Buddy Rich (on the first album), and Louie Bellson (on the second). Norman Granz then had the vision for Ella and Louis to record Porgy and Bess which is the most famous and critically acclaimed version of the Gerswhin brothers' masterpiece.
His recordings for Columbia Records, Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954) and Satch Plays Fats (all Fats Waller tunes) (1955) were both being considered masterpieces, as well as moderately well selling. In 1961 the All Stars participated in two albums - "The Great Summit" and "The Great Reunion" (now together as a single disc) with Duke Ellington. The albums feature many of Ellington's most famous compositions (as well as two exclusive cuts) with Duke sitting in on piano. His participation in Dave Brubeck's high-concept jazz musical The Real Ambassadors (1963) was critically acclaimed, and features "Summer Song," one of Armstrong's most popular vocal efforts.

Louis Armstrong in 1966

In 1964 his recording of the song "Hello Dolly" went to number one. An album of the same title was quickly created around the song, and also shot to number one (knocking The Beatles off the top of the chart). The album sold very well for the rest of the year, quickly going "Gold" (500,000). His performance of "Hello Dolly" won for best male pop vocal performance at the 1964 Grammy Awards.

Hits and later career

Armstrong had nineteen "Top Ten" records^[62] including "Stardust", "What a Wonderful World", "When The Saints Go Marching In", "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "You Rascal You", and "Stompin' at the Savoy". "We Have All the Time in the World" was 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 Hot 100 chart with "Hello, Dolly!", which gave the 63-year-old performer a U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a number one song. His 1964 song "Bout Time" was later featured in the film Bewitched.

Armstrong performed in Italy at the 1968 Sanremo Music Festival where he sang "Mi Va di Cantare"^[63] alongside his friend, the Eritrean-born Italian singer Lara Saint Paul.^[64] 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.^[65]

In 1968, Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with "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 re-release topping many charts around the world. Armstrong even appeared on the October 28, 1970, 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 No. 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 him to stay in convenient narrow categories. Armstrong was inducted into the 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 TV

Armstrong 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.^[66] In the 1959 film, The Five Pennies (the story of the cornetist Red Nichols), Armstrong played himself as well as singing and playing several classic numbers. With Danny Kaye Armstrong performed a duet of "When the Saints Go Marching In" during which Kaye impersonated Armstrong. Armstrong also had a part in the film alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story in which Glenn (played by Stewart) jammed with Armstrong and a few other noted musicians of the time.

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.

Armstrong played a bandleader in the television production "The Lord Don't Play Favorites" on Producers' Showcase in 1956

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.

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 Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (The Great Cronopio).

Armstrong appears as a minor fictionalized character in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Series. When he and his band escape from a Nazi-like Confederacy, they enhance the insipid mainstream music of the North. A young Armstrong also appears as a minor fictionalized character in Patrick Neate's 2001 novel Twelve Bar Blues, part of which is set in New Orleans, and which was a winner at that year's Whitbread Book Awards.

There is a pivotal scene in Stardust Memories (1980) in which Woody Allen is overwhelmed by a recording of Armstrong's "Stardust" and experiences a nostalgic epiphany.^[67] 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.^[68]
Terry Teachout wrote a one-man play about Armstrong called Satchmo at the Waldorf that was premiered in 2011 in Orlando, Fla., and has since been produced by Shakespeare & Company, Long Wharf Theater, and the Wilma Theater. The production ran off Broadway in 2014.

Death

Against his doctor's advice, Armstrong played a two-week engagement In March 1971 at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room, at the end of which he was hospitalized for a heart attack.^[69] He was released from the hospital in May, and died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday.^[70] He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death.^[71] He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.^[72] His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost.^[73] 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.^[74]

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.^[75]

Year	Category	Title	Genre	Label	Result
Grammy Award
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 25 years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."^[76]^[77]

Year recorded	Title	Genre	Label	Year inducted	Notes
Grammy Hall of Fame
1925	"St. Louis Blues"	Jazz (Single)	Columbia	1993	Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, cornet
1926	"Heebie Jeebies"	Jazz (Single)	OKeh	1999
1928	"West End Blues"	Jazz (Single)	OKeh	1974
1928	"Weather Bird"	Jazz (Single)	OKeh	2008	with Earl Hines
1929	"St. Louis Blues"	Jazz (Single)	OKeh	2008	with Bessie Smith
1930	"Blue Yodel No. 9 (Standing on the Corner)"	Country (Single)	Victor	2007	Jimmie Rodgers (featuring Louis Armstrong)
1932	"All of Me"	Jazz (Single)	Columbia	2005
1955	"Mack the Knife"	Jazz (Single)	Columbia	1997
1958	Porgy and Bess	Jazz (Album)	Verve	2001	with Ella Fitzgerald
1964	"Hello Dolly!"	Pop (Single)	Kapp	2001
1967	"What a Wonderful World"	Jazz (Single)	ABC	1999

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed Armstrong's West End Blues on the list of 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll.^[78]

Year recorded	Title	Label	Group
1928	West End Blues	Okeh	Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five

Inductions and honors

In 1995, the U.S. Post Office issued a Louis Armstrong 32 cents commemorative postage stamp.

Year inducted	Title	Results	Notes
1952	Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame
1960^[79]	Hollywood Walk of Fame	Star	at 7601 Hollywood Blvd.
1978	Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
2004	Nesuhi Ertegün Jazz Hall of Fame at Jazz at Lincoln Center
1990	Rock and Roll Hall of Fame		Early influence
2007	Louisiana Music Hall of Fame
2007	Gennett Records Walk of Fame, Richmond, Indiana
2007	Long Island Music Hall of Fame

Legacy

Louis Armstrong and Grace Kelly on the set of High Society, 1956

The influence of Armstrong on the development of jazz is virtually immeasurable. Yet, his irrepressible personality both as a performer, and as a public figure later in his career, was so strong that to some it sometimes overshadowed his contributions as a musician and singer.
As a virtuoso trumpet player, Armstrong had a unique tone and an extraordinary talent for melodic improvisation. Through his playing, the trumpet emerged as a solo instrument in jazz and is used widely today. Additionally, jazz itself was transformed from a collectively improvised folk music to a soloist's serious art form largely through his influence. He was a masterful accompanist and ensemble player in addition to his extraordinary skills as a soloist. With his innovations, he raised the bar musically for all who came after him.

Though Armstrong is widely recognized as a pioneer of scat singing, Ethel Waters precedes his scatting on record in the 1930s according to Gary Giddins and others.^[80] Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra are just two singers who were greatly indebted to him. Holiday said that she always wanted Bessie Smith's 'big' sound and Armstrong's feeling in her singing. Even special musicians like Duke Ellington have praised Armstrong through strong testimonials. Duke Ellington said, "If anybody was a master, it was Louis Armstrong." In 1950, Bing Crosby, the most successful vocalist of the first half of the 20th century, said, "He is the beginning and the end of music in America."

In the summer of 2001, in commemoration of the centennial of Armstrong's birth, New Orleans's main airport was renamed Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

In 2002, the Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925–1928) were preserved in the United States National Recording Registry, a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.^[81]

The US Open tennis tournament's former main stadium was named Louis Armstrong Stadium in honor of Armstrong who had lived a few blocks from the site.^[82]

Today, there are many bands worldwide dedicated to preserving and honoring the music and style of Satchmo, including the Louis Armstrong Society located in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Home turned National Historic Landmark

The house where Armstrong lived for almost 28 years was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and is now a museum. The Louis Armstrong House Museum, at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and 37th Avenues) in Corona, Queens, presents concerts and educational programs, operates as a historic house museum and makes materials in its archives of writings, books, recordings and memorabilia available to the public for research. The museum is operated by the City University of New York's Queens College, following the dictates of Lucille Armstrong's will. The museum opened to the public on October 15, 2003. A new visitors center is planned.^[83]

Discography

Singles

Year	Title(s)	Label	Credit (if not Louis Armstrong)
1923	"Froggie Moore" / "Chimes Blues"	Gennett Records 5135	King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
1923	"Mandy Lee Blues" / "I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind"	Gennett Records 5134	King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
1923	"Riverside Blues" / "Mabel's Dream" [Take 1]	Claxtonola 40292	King Oliver's Jazz Band
1924	"Prince of Wails" [Take 2] / "Mandy Make Up Your Mind" [Take 2]		Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra
1928	"Hotter Than That" / "Savoy Blues"	OKeh 8535
1930	"I Ain't Got Nobody (And Nobody Cares for Me)" / "Rockin' Chair"	OKeh 8756
1930	"I'm a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas" / "I'm in the Market for You"	Odeon 36141
1930	"Song of the Islands" / "Blue Turning Grey Over You"	Odeon 36039
1938	"Elder Eatmore's Sermon on Generosity" / "Elder Eatmore's Sermon on Throwing Stones"	Decca Records 15043
1939	"Jeepers Creepers" / "What Is This Thing Called Swing?"	Decca Records 2267
1940	"Marie" / "Sleepy Time Gal"	Decca Records 3291	Louis Armstrong and Mills Brothers / Mills Brothers
1946	"Endie" / "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans"	RCA Victor 20-2087
1951	"(When We Are Dancing) I Get Ideas" / "A Kiss to Build a Dream On"	Decca Records 27720
1952	"It Takes Two to Tango" / "I Laughed at Love"	Decca Records 28394
1962	"Mack the Knife" / "The Faithful Husar"	CBS CA 281.144 [France]
1967	"What a Wonderful World" / "Cabaret"	ABC Records 10982 [7-inch vinyl]
1968	"What a Wonderful World" / "Cabaret"	His Master's Voice [Great Britain]
1968	"I Will Wait for You" / "Talk to the Animals"	[7-inch vinyl]

Original albums

These LPs and EPs were released during Armstrong's lifetime and contained original studio and/or live recordings. The year and label information is for the first vinyl release, unless otherwise noted. Additional information such as number of tracks is given only when necessary to distinguish between different releases under the same title. In most cases, the number of CD releases listed is limited, with preference given to the label that originally released the album.

Year	Title	Label	CD release(s)	Credit (if not Louis Armstrong) and additional notes
1947	Satchmo at Symphony Hall	GRP
1951	Satchmo at Pasadena	Decca
1954	Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy	Columbia CL 591 (11 tracks)	Columbia: 1986 (12 tracks), 1997 (16 tracks), 1999 (16 tracks, SACD)	composer W. C. Handy
1954	Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers, Volume One	Decca Records ED 2113 (4 tracks) [Decca Records 3291?]		Louis Armstrong & The Mills Brothers
1955	Satch Plays Fats: A Tribute to the Immortal Fats Waller	Columbia CL 708 (9 tracks)	Columbia: 2000 (20-track SACD); Legacy: 2008 (20-track CD); Sony Music: 2009 (20-track CD)	composer Fats Waller
1955	Louis Armstrong at the Crescendo, Vol. 1	Decca
1956	Louis Armstrong and Eddie Condon at Newport	Columbia CL-931		Louis Armstrong & Eddie Condon
1956	Satchmo the Great		Columbia: 1994, 2000	songs are introduced by excerpts from interviews with Edward R. Murrow
1956	An Evening With Louis Armstrong and His All Stars
1956	Ella and Louis	Verve MG V-4003	Verve: 1985, 2000, 2002 (SACD)	Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
1957	Ella and Louis Again	Verve Records MGV 4006-2 [double LP]	Verve: 2003	Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
1957	I've Got the World on a String	[10 tracks]
1957	Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson	Verve Records [12 tracks]	Verve: 1997 (16 tracks)	Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson
1957	Under the Stars	Verve Records MGV 4012
1957	Louis and the Angels	Decca	Universal/MCA: 2000; Verve: 2001
1958	Porgy & Bess	Verve Records MGV 4011-2 [double LP]	Verve: 1986; Verve Music Group: 2008; Essential Jazz Classics	Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
1958	Louis and the Good Book	Decca Records DL 8741 [12 tracks]	MCA [France]: 1987, 1992; Verve [Germany]: 2001 (20 tracks)
1959	Satchmo In Style	Decca
1959	The Five Pennies	London Records SAH-U 6044		Danny Kaye & Louis Armstrong
1960	Bing & Satchmo	MGM E3882P	DRG: 2009	Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong
1961	Recording Together for the First Time	Roulette Records SR52074 [10 tracks]		Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington
1961	The Great Reunion			Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington
1962	The Real Ambassadors	Columbia OL 5850 [15 tracks]	CBS: 1990 [20 tracks], 1994 [20 tracks]; Poll Winners: 2012 [25 tracks]	with Dave Brubeck, Carmen McRae, and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
1964	Hello, Dolly!	Kapp KL-1364 [mono], KS-3364 [stereo]	MCA: 2000
1968	Disney Songs the Satchmo Way	Buena Vista Records STBV 4044	Walt Disney: 1996, 2001
1968	The One and Only	Vocalion VL 73871
1970	What a Wonderful World	Bluebird

Posthumous releases

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

These LPs and CDs were released after Armstrong's 1971 death.

Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions
- Hot Fives & Sevens (JSP, 1998)
- The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings (Columbia/Legacy)
Struttin' (Drive Archive, 1996) — 8 February 1947 concert with Edmond Hall's All-Stars
The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve (1997) — repackaging of Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess
rereleases of Together For The First Time and The Great Reunion
- The Great Summit: The Master Takes (2001)
- Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington: The Great Summit/Complete Sessions (2000) — includes additional CD of alternate takes
The Legendary Berlin Concert (Jazzpoint Records, 2000) — 22 March 1965 concert with Billy Kyle, Tyree Glenn, Eddie Shu, Arvell Shaw and Danny Barcelona

List of songs recorded

Chronology of the recordings of Armstrong's songs:

Song title	Year(s) recorded
Just Gone	1923-04-05^[84]^[85]
Canal Street Blues	1923^[85]
Mandy Lee Blues	1923^[85]
I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind	1923^[85]
Chimes Blues	1923^[85]
Weather Bird Rag	1923^[86]
Dipper Mouth Blues^[86] (Dippermouth Blues)	1923, 1946^[87]
Froggie Moore	1923^[86]
Snake Rag	1923
Sweet Lovin' Man	1923^[88]
High Society Rag	1923^[89]
Sobbin' Blues	1923^[89]
Where Did You Stay Last Night?	1923^[89]
Jazzin' Babies' Blues	1923^[90]
Buddy's Habit	1923^[89]
Tears	1923^[89]
I Ain't Gonna Tell Nobody	1923^[89]
Room Rent Blues	1923^[89]
Riverside Blues	1923^[89]
Sweet Baby Doll	1923^[91]
Workin' Man Blues	1923
Mabel's Dream	1923^[89]
Chattanooga Stomp	1923
London (Cafe) Blues	1923
Camp Meeting Blues	1923^[92]
New Orleans Stomp	1923^[93]
Manda	1924
Go 'Long, Mule	1924
Tell Me Dreamy Eyes	1924
My Rose Marie	1924
Don't Forget You'll Regret Day by Day	1924
Shanghai Shuffle	1924
See See Blues	1924^[94]
See See Rider Blues	1924
Jelly Bean Blues	1924
Countin' the Blues	1924
Texas Mooner Blues	1924
Early in the Morning	1924^[95]
Of All the Wrongs You've Done to Me	1924
One of These Days	1924
My Dream Man	1924
The Meanest Kind of Blues	1924
Naughty Man	1924^[96]
How Come You Do Me Like You Do	1924
Araby^[97] (The Sheik of Araby)	1924
Everybody Loves My Baby	1924
Papa, Mama's All Alone Blues	1924
Changeable Daddy of Mine	1924^[97]
Terrible Blues	1924
Santa Claus Blues	1924^[98]
Baby I Can't Use You No More	1924
Trouble Everywhere I Roam	1924
Prince of Wails	1924^[98]
Mandy Make Up Your Mind	1924
Poor House Blues	1924
Anybody Here Want to Try My Cabbage	1924
Thunderstorm Blues	1924
If I Lose, Let Me Lose (Mama Don't Mind)	1924
Screamin' the Blues	1924^[99]
Good Time Flat Blues	1924
I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird	1924
Nobody Knows the Way I Feel Dis Mornin'	1924
Early Every Morn	1924^[100]
You've Been a Good Ole Wagon	1925
I'll See You in My Dreams	1925
Sobbin' Hearted Blues	1925
Cold in Hand Blues	1925
Why Couldn't It Be Poor Little Me?	1925^[101]
Bye and Bye	1925^[102]^[103]
Play Me Slow	1925^[103]
Alabamy Bound	1925
Swanee Butterfly	1925
Poplar Street Blues	1925
12th Street Blues	1925
Me Neenyah (My Little One)	1925
You've Got to Beat Me to Keep Me	1925^[104]
Mining Camp Blues	1925
Cast Away	1925
Papa De-Da-Da	1925
The World's Jazz Crazy and So Am I	1925
Railroad Blues	1925^[105]
Shipwrecked Blues	1925
Court House Blues	1925
My John Blues	1925
Memphis Bound	1925
When You Do What You Do	1925^[106]
Just Wait 'Til You See My Baby Do the Charleston	1925
Livin' High Sometimes	1925
Coal Cart Blues	1925
T N T	1925^[107]
Carolina Stomp	1925
Squeeze Me	1925,^[108] 1928^[109]
You Can't Shush Katie (The Gabbiest Girl in Town)	1925
Lucy Long	1925
I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle	1925
Low Land Blues	1925
Kid Man Blues	1925^[108]
Lazy Woman's Blues	1925^[110]
Lonesome Lovesick	1925^[110]
Gambler's Dream	1925^[110]
Sunshine Baby	1925^[110]
Adam and Eve Had the Blues	1925^[110]
Put it Where I Can Get it	1925^[110]
Washwoman Blues	1925^[110]
I've Stopped My Man	1925^[110]
My Heart	1925-11-12^[111]
Yes! I'm In The Barrel	1925-11-12^[111]
Gut Bucket Blues	1925-11-12^[111]
Come Back Sweet Papa	1926^[112]
Lonesome, All Alone And Blue	1926^[112]
Trouble In Mind	1926^[112]
A Georgia Man^[113]	1926^[112]
You've Got To Go Home On Time^[113]	1926^[112]
What Kind O' Man Is That^[113]	1926^[112]
Deep Water Blues	1926^[113]
G'wan, I Told You	1926^[113]
Lonesome hours	1926^[113]
Georgia Grind	1926^[113]
Heebie Jeebies	1926^[114]
Cornet Chop Suey	1926^[113]
Oriental Strut	1926^[113]
You're Next	1926^[113]
Muskrat Ramble	1926
A Jealous Woman Like Me	1926^[113]
Special Delivery Blues	1926^[113]
Jack O'diamond Blues	1926^[113]
The Mail Train Blues	1926^[113]
I Feel Good	1926^[113]
A Man For Every Day Of The Week	1926^[113]
After I Say I'm Sorry	1926^[113]
Georgia Bo Bo	1926^[113]
Static Strut	1926^[113]
Stomp Off, Let's Go	1926^[113]
Drop That Sack	1926^[113]
Willie the Weeper	1927^[115]
Wild Man Blues	1927^[116]
Melancholy	1927^[116]
Dead Drunk Blues	1927^[116]
Have You Ever Been Down?	1927^[116]
Lazy Man Blues	1927^[116]
The Flood Blues	1927^[116]
Chicago Breakdown	1927^[117]
Alligator Crawl	1927^[117]
Potato Head Blues	1927^[117]
Weary Blues	1927^[118]
Twelfth Street Rag	1927^[117]
Keyhole Blues	1927^[118]
S. O. L. Blues	1927^[119]
Gully Low Blues	1927^[119]
That's When I'll Come Back To You	1927^[119]
The Last Time	1927^[119]
Struttin' With Some Barbeque	1927^[120]
Got No Blues	1927^[120]
Once In A While	1927^[120]
I'm Not Rough	1927^[120]
Hotter Than That	1927^[121]
Savoy Blues	1927^[122]
A Monday Date	1928^[121]
Don't Jive Me	1928^[121]
West End Blues	1928^[122]
Sugar Foot Strut	1928^[109]
Two Deuces	1928^[109]
Save It Pretty Mama	1928^[123]
Weather Bird	1928^[123]
Muggles	1928^[123]
I Can't Give You Anything But Love	1928^[123]
Baby!	1928^[124]
I Sweathearts On Parade	1928^[124]
I Must Have That Man!	1928^[123]
I Heah Me Talkin' To Ya?	1928^[124]
St. James Infirmary^[125]	1928^[126]
St. James Infirmary Blues	1928^[127]
Tight Like This	1928^[126]
Knockin' A Jug	1929^[128]
Mahogany Hall Stomp	1929^[128]
S'Posin'	1929^[129]
To Be In Love (Espesh'lly With You)	1929^[129]
Funny Feathers	1929^[129]
How Do You Do It That Way?	1929^[129]
When You're Smiling	1929^[130]
After You've Gone	1929^[130]
I Ain't Got Nobody	1929^[130]
Dallas Blues	1929^[131]
Saint Louis Blues	1929^[131]
Rockin' Chair	1929^[131]
Ain't Misbehavin'	1929
Song Of The Islands	1930^[132]
What It Takes To Bring You Back	1930^[131]
Bessie Couldn't Help It	1930^[131]
Blue Turning Grey Over You	1930^[132]
Dear Old Southland	1930,^[133] 1947^[134]
My Sweet	1930^[133]
I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me	1930^[133]
If I Could Be with You (One Hour Tonight)	1930^[135]
EX-FLAME	1930^[135]
Body and Soul	1930^[135]
Memories of You	1930^[136]
You're Lucky to Me	1930^[136]
Sweethearts on Parade	1930 (December^[62])
Just a Gigolo	1931^[137]
Shine	1931^[137]
Walkin' My Baby Back Home	1931^[137]
I Surrender Dear	1931^[137]
When It's Sleepy Time Down South	1931,^[138] 1944^[139]
Blue Again	1931^[138]
Little Joe	1931^[138]
I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You	1931^[138]
Them There Eyes	1931^[140]
When Your Lover Has Gone	1931^[140]
Lazy River^[140] (Up A) Lazy River)	1931^[141]
Chinatown, My Chinatown	1931,^[140] 1932^[142]
You Can Depend on Me	1931^[143]
Georgia On My Mind	1931^[143]
The Lonesome Road	1931^[143]
I Got Rhythm	1931^[143]
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea	1932^[144]
Kickin' the Gong Around	1932^[144]
All of Me	1932^[144]
Rhapsody in Black and Blue	1932^[142]
High Society	1932,^[145] 1933^[146]
That's My Home	1932^[147]
Hobo, You Can't Ride This Train	1932^[147]
I Hate to Leave You Now	1932^[147]
You'll Wish You'd Never Been Born	1932^[147]
Love, You Funny Thing	1932 - charted in March^[62]
I've Got the World on a String	1933^[148]
I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues	1933^[148]
Hustlin' and Bustlin' for Baby	1933^[148]
Sittin' in the Dark	1933^[148]
He's a Son of the South	1933^[149]
Some Sweet Day	1933^[149]
Basin Street Blues	1933^[149]
Honey, Do!	1933^[150]
Snow Ball	1933^[150]
"I'm in the Mood for Love"/"You Are My Lucky Star"	1935
Swing You Cats	1933^[150]
Alexander's Ragtime Band	1937
"Public Melody Number One"	1937
When the Saints Go Marching In	1938, 1946^[87]
No Love No Nothing	1944^[139]
Is My Baby Blue Tonight	1944^[139]
Blues in the Night	1944^[139]
Keep on Jumpin'	1944^[139]
Harlem on Parade	1944^[139]
(Unknown titles)	1944-06-07^[139]
King Porter Stomp	1944^[139]
It's Love, Love, Love	1944^[139]
Whatcha Say	1944^[151]
Groovin'	1944^[151]
Baby Don't You Cry	1944^[151]
Louise	1944^[151]
Goin' My Way?	1944^[151]
Sweet and Lovely	1944^[151]
Is You or Is You Ain't My Baby	1944^[151]
Perdido	1944^[152]
Me and Brother Bill	1944^[152]
Swingin' on a Star	1944^[152]
Confessin'	1944^[152]
It Had to be You	1944^[152]
Solid Sam	1944^[152]
Dance with the Dolly	1944^[153]
I'll Walk Alone	1944^[153]
Jack-Armstrong Blues	1944^[153]
Confessin' that I Love You	1944^[153]
I Wonder	1945
Raymond Street Blues	1946^[87]
Flee as a Bird	1946^[87]
Shimme-Sha-Wabble	1946^[87]
Ballin' the Jack	1946^[87]
Brahms' Lullaby	1946^[87]
The Blues Are Brewin'	1946^[87]
Endie	1946^[154]
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?	1946^[154]
Where the Blues Were Born in New Orleans	1946^[154]
You Won't Be Satisfied	1946 and^[155] 1947
Stompin' at the Savoy	1947^[155]
If I Loved You	1947^[155]
Mop Mop	1947^[155]
Back O'Town Blues	1947^[155]
Roll 'Em	1947^[155]
I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder	1947^[156]
I Believe	1947^[156]
Why Douby My Love?	1947^[156]
It Takes Time	1947^[156]
You Don't Learn That in School	1947^[156]
Reminiscin' with Louis	1947^[157]
Way Down Yonder in New Orleans and Intro	1947^[157]
2:19 Blues	1947^[157]
'Way Down Yonder in New Orleans	1947^[158]
Pennies from Heaven	1947^[159]
Royal Garden Blues	1947^[160]
Panama	1947^[160]
Someday You'll Be Sorry	1947^[134]
Tiger Rag	1947^[134]
Before Long	1947^[161]
Lovely Weather We're Having	1947^[161]
Black and Blue	1947^[161]
Lover	1947^[162]
On the Sunny Side of the Street	1947^[163]
Baby Won't You Please Come Home	1947^[163]
That's My Desire	1947^[163]
C-Jam Blues	1947^[163]
How High the Moon	1947^[163]
Boff Boff	1947^[163]
Blues from the Sky	1948^[164]
The Flat Footed Foogie	1948^[164]
I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly	1948^[164]
Roll	1948^[164]
Blue Skies	1948^[164]
Velma's Blues	1948^[165]
I Cried Last Night	1948^[165]
Steak Face	1948^[165]
Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues	1948^[165]
Stars Fell on Alabama	1948^[166]
Buzz Me Baby	1948^[166]
Tea for Two	1948^[166]
Someone to Watch over Me	1948^[166]
Honeysuckle Rose	1948^[166]
The One I Love Belongs to Someone Else	1948^[167]
Together	1948^[167]
Don't Fence Me In	1948^[167]
That's A Plenty	1948^[167]
East of the Sun	1948^[167]
Tin Roof Blues	1948^[168]
Little White Lies	1948^[168]
"Shadrack"/"When the saints go marching in"	1948^[168]
Maybe You'll Be There	1948^[168]
"When We Are Dancing"	1951
April in Paris	1956^[169]
Autumn in New York	1957^[170]
Oh Lawd, I'm On My Way	1957^[171]
"Hello, Dolly!"	1964
"What a Wonderful World"	1967
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah	1968
Back Home Again in Indiana	1951^[172]
Big Butter and Egg Man	1926^[173]
Blueberry Hill	1947^[174]
C'est si bon	1950^[175]
Can't We Be Friends	1956^[169]
Cheek to Cheek	1956^[169]
Cold, Cold Heart	1951^[176]
Cool Yule	1953^[177]
Dream a Little Dream of Me	1950^[178]
El Choclo	1952
Frankie and Johnny	1959^[179]
Get Together	1970^[180]
Gone Fishin'	1951^[181]
The Gypsy in My Soul	1957^[182]
Hey Lawdy Mama	1941^[183]
High Society Calypso	1956^[184]
I Get Ideas	1951^[185]
It's Been a Long, Long Time	1964^[186]
Jeepers Creepers	1938^[187]
A Kiss to Build a Dream On	1951^[185]
Let's Call the Whole Thing Off	1957^[170]
Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love	1957^[188]
Mack the Knife	1955^[189]
Moon River	1964^[186]
Moonlight in Vermont	1956^[169]
Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen	1938^[190]
Now You Has Jazz	1956^[184]
On a Little Bamboo Bridge	1937^[191]
On My Way	1958^[192]
Red Sails in the Sunset	1935^[193]
Skokiaan	1954^[194]
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child	1958^[195]
If We Never Meet Again	1930
Standing on the Corner (Blue Yodel No. 9)	1930^[196]
Stardust	1931^[197]
Takes Two to Tango	1952^[197]
That Lucky Old Sun	1949^[198]
They All Laughed	1957^[170]
Uncle Satchmo's Lullaby	1959^[199]
La Vie en rose	1950^[200]
We Have All the Time in the World	1969^[201]
Willow Weep for Me	1957^[188]
Winter Wonderland	1952^[202]

Notes

Armstrong said he was not sure exactly when he was born, but celebrated his birthday on July 4. He usually gave the year as 1900 when speaking in public (although he used 1901 on his Social Security and other papers filed with the government). Using Roman Catholic Church documents from when his grandmother took him to be baptized, New Orleans music researcher Tad Jones established Armstrong's actual date of birth as August 4, 1901. With various other pieces of collaborative evidence, this date is now accepted by Armstrong scholars. See also age fabrication. Armstrong had no middle name, but a 1949 Time magazine profile gave him the middle name of Daniel. The census and baptismal records confirms he had no middle name.

For "satchel-mouth."

Teachout, Terry, Pops, a life of Louis Armstrong," Houghton Mifflin, 2009, page 25. ISBN 978-0-15-101089-9

The TIME 100. Louis Armstrong. TIME, Stanley Crouch, June 8, 1998. "For many years it was thought that Armstrong was born in New Orleans on July 4, 1900, a perfect day for the man who wrote the musical Declaration of Independence for Americans of this century. But the estimable writer Gary Giddins discovered the birth certificate that proves Armstrong was born Aug. 4, 1901." Retrieved January 8, 2009.

When is Louis Armstrong's birthday? The Official Site of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives.

Current Biography 1944, pp. 15–17.

Bergreen, Laurence (1997). Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life. New York: Broadway Books. p. 6. ISBN 0-553-06768-0.

Karnow, Stanley (February 21, 2001). "My Debt to Cousin Louis's Cornet". The New York Times. Retrieved January 10, 2007.

Armstrong, Louis; Brothers, Thomas (2001). Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words: Selected Writings. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 019514046X. Retrieved Jan 24, 2014. I had a long time admiration for the Jewish People. Especially with their long time of courage, taking so much abuse for so long. I was only seven years old, but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for. It dawned on me, how drastically. Even 'my race,', the Negroes, the way that I saw it, they were having a little better Break than the Jewish people, with jobs a plenty around. Of course, we can understand all the situations and handicaps that was going on, but to me we were better off than the Jewish people.

Teachout, Terry. "Satchmo and the Jews" Commentary magazine, 1 November 2009.

"The Karnofsky Project".

Current Biography 1944 p. 16.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 78.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 142.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 170.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 199.

Stephen Leacock (1920-08-18). "Britannica.com". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2015-08-18.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 247.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 260.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 274.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 264.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 267.

Collier, James Lincoln (1985). Louis Armstrong. Pan Books. pp. 160–162. ISBN 0-330-28607-2.

Nairn: Earl "Fatha" Hines: [1] - see External Links/Video clips below.

"Louis Armstrong & his Orchestra". Redhotjazz.com. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

Morgenstern, Dan. "Louis Armstrong and the development & diffusion of Jazz", Louis Armstrong a Cultural Legacy, Marc H Miller e.d., Queens Museum of Art in association with University of Washington Press, 1994 pg110

Bergreen, 1997, p. 320.

Collier (1985), p221-2

Louis Armstrong in the 30s: A Tribute to the Life and Music of Armstrong in the 30s. Retrieved May 5, 2015.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 344.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 385.

Robin D. G. Kelley (2012). Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times The Nathan I. Huggins lectures. Harvard University Press. p. 72. ISBN 9780674065246.

Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. December 30, 1971. p. 61.

Hale, James (editor of Jazzhouse.org), Danny Barcelona (1929–2007), Drums, Armstrong All-Star, The Last Post, 2007. Retrieved July 4, 2007.

Penny M. Von Eschen. Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004; ISBN 0674015010), 79–91.

"Louis Armstrong House Museum - FAQ". louisarmstronghouse.org.

Armstrong, Louis; Brothers, Thomas (2001). Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words: Selected Writings. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 109. ISBN 019514046X. Retrieved Dec 8, 2014.

Collier, James Lincoln (1983). Louis Armstrong: An American Genius. USA: Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0195033779.

Giddins, Gary (16–22 April 2003). "Satchuated". Village Voice. Retrieved 17 October 2007.

"Lillian Hardin Armstrong". RedHotJazz.com. Retrieved 16 January 2015.

"Biography of Louis Daniel Armstrong". LouisArmstrongFoundation.org. Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation. Retrieved 16 January 2015.

"Louis Armstrong: FAQ". Louis Armstrong House Museum. Retrieved December 18, 2012.

Goddard, Jacqui (December 15, 2012). "Louis Armstrong's secret daughter revealed, 42 years after his death". The Daily Telegraph.

Armstrong, Louis; Brothers, Thomas (2001). Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words: Selected Writings. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 158–163. ISBN 019514046X. Retrieved 7 December 2014.

Armstrong, 1954, pp. 27-28

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Vol. 3, Disk 7, Mystery of the Blues Special Features, Louis Armstrong: Ambassador of Jazz (DVD). Lucasfilm, Ltd. Event occurs at 17:30.

100 Most Influential People of All Times. Books.google.com. January 1, 2007. ISBN 978-1-60501-124-0. Retrieved October 2, 2011.

Collier (1985), p. 317-320

"Louis Armstrong, Barring Soviet Tour, Denounces Eisenhower and Gov. Faubus". New York Times. September 19, 1957. Retrieved August 30, 2007. See also, from September 23, 2007, *David Margolick, The Day Louis Armstrong Made Noise.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 472.

Gabbard, Krin (2001). Louis and The Good Book (CD booklet). Louis Armstrong. New York City: Verve Records. p. 1.

Gilstrap, Peter (February 29, 1996). "Leave It All Behind Ya". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved August 11, 2007.

Teachout, Terry (2009) Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong pp. 293–294.

Armstrong, Louis. Christmas Through the Years, Laserlight 12744.

Satchmo.net. 'Red Beans and Ricely yours, Louis Armstrong.'

Jive Dictionary, by Cab Calloway: "Barbecue (n.) – the girl friend, a beauty." Retrieved February 10, 2009.

Elie p. 327.

Bergreen, 1997, p. 4.

"Non-masons – Louis Armstrong". Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon. Retrieved September 3, 2010.

Michael Cogswell, Louis Armstrong: The Offstage Story of Satchmo (Collector's Press, Portland, Oregon, 2003) ISBN 1-888054-81-6 pp. 66–68.

"NPR's Jazz Profiles from NPR: Louis Armstrong: The Singer". National Public Radio. Retrieved August 8, 2015.

"Louis Armstrong". billboard.com.

"Hit Parade Italia" Hit Parade Italia – Festival di Sanremo 1968.

"Mi va di cantare" Lara Saint Paul – lavocedelledonne.it.

Louis Armstrong: "Grassa e bella" Louis Armstrong Discography.

imp-6 (April 18, 1947). "New Orleans (1947)". IMDb.

"Stardust Memories :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews". Rogerebert.suntimes.com. January 1, 1980. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

MisterWhiplash (September 26, 1980). "Stardust Memories (1980)". IMDb.

Morgenstern, Dan, and Sheldon Meyer. 2004. Living with Jazz. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 03-754-2072-X

Meckna, Michael; Satchmo, The Louis Armstrong Encyclopedia, Greenwood Press, Connecticut & London, 2004.

Krebs, Albin. "Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies", The New York Times, July 7, 1971. Accessed October 1, 2009. "Louis Armstrong, the celebrated jazz trumpeter and singer, died in his sleep yesterday morning at his home in the Corona section of Queens."

Louis Armstrong at Find a Grave

Collier, James Lincoln (1985). Louis Armstrong. Pan. p. 333. ISBN 0-330-28607-2.

"Louis Armstrong Dies: 1971 Year in Review". Upi.com. December 28, 1971. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

"Lifetime Achievement Award". Grammy.com. February 8, 2009. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

"Grammy Hall of Fame Database". Grammy.com. February 8, 2009. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

"The Recording Academy" (PDF). Retrieved August 17, 2009.

"Experience The Music: One Hit Wonders and The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". Rockhall.com. Retrieved May 7, 2011.

"Hollywood Walk of Fame". Walkoffame.com. February 8, 1960. Retrieved October 2, 2011.

See Ken Burns' Jazz CD Set liner notes.

"Library of Congress archive". Loc.gov. February 18, 2009. Retrieved August 17, 2009.

"Ashe & Armstrong Stadiums". Usta.com. May 25, 2008. Retrieved May 7, 2011.

"New visitor center at Armstrong museum". Queens Chronicle. November 10, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2012.

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.1

Willems p.2

Willems p.158

Willems p.3

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.4

Willems p.7

Willems p.8

Willems p.9

Willems p.10

Willems p.11

Willems p.14

Willems p.15

Willems p.16

Willems p.17

Willems p.18

Willems p.21

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.22

Willems p.23

Willems p.24

Willems p.25

Willems p.29

Willems p.30

Willems p.56

Willems p.31

Willems p.32

Willems p.33

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.45

Willems p.44

Willems p.46

Willems p.48

Willems p.49

Willems p.51

Willems p.52

Willems p.53

Willems p.59

Willems p.60

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.61

I Went Down to St. James Infirmary; by Robert W. Harwood, p.139

Willems p.62

Willems p.63

Willems p.66

Willems p.67

Willems p.69

Willems p.70

Willems p.170

Willems p.73

Willems p.74

Willems p.76

Willems p.77

Willems p.146

Willems p.78

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.83

Willems p.80

Willems p.81

Willems p.82

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Willems p.84

Willems p.86

Willems p.87

Willems p.88

Willems p.147

Willems p.148

Willems p.149

Willems p.159

Willems p.163

Willems p.164

Willems p.165

Willems p.167

Willems p.166

Willems p.168

Willems p.172

Willems p.173

Willems p.175

Willems p.177

Willems p.179

Willems p.180

Willems p.182

Willems p.183

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Ella Fitzgerald: An Annotated Discography; Including a Complete Discography ... By J. Wilfred Johnson, p.67

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

Louis Armstrong: The Life, Music, and Screen Career; by Scott Allen Nollen, p.142

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

"Jimmie Rodgers & Louis Armstrong: Blue Yodel #9". Jazz.com. Retrieved 2012-04-09.

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years; by Ricky Riccardi, p.51

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

"The Louis Armstrong Discography". michaelminn.net.

External links

By Louis Armstrong
Library resources about Louis Armstrong
Resources in your library Resources in other libraries
Resources in your library Resources in other libraries

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Louis Armstrong.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong by Nat Hentoff
Obituary, NY Times
Quotes and tributes
Discography
Filmography @ imdb.com
The Louis Armstrong Society Jazz Band
Louis Armstrong: A Life in Music – slideshow by Life magazine
Seeing Black jazz critic on the Uncle Tom question
the official website of the Louis Armstrong House & Archives
"Louis Armstrong Transcription Project – john p birchall"
Louis Armstrong at pbskids.org
Louis Armstrong at Find A Grave
David Margolick, The Day Louis Armstrong Made Noise
Smithsonian Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy
Louis Armstrong at NPR Music
Louis Armstrong in Athens, Blog of the Digital Library of Georgia
Louis Armstrong: discography and early recordings (RealPlayer format) on the Red Hot Jazz website.
Milestone Louis Armstrong recordings at Three Perfect Minutes
Louis Armstrong's autobiography online book
- "Satchmo – My Life in New Orleans(1954)" free download
- "Satchmo – My Life in New Orleans" another website
Louis Armstrong collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Works by or about Louis Armstrong in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Louis Armstrong discography at Discogs

Video clips

"Now You Has Jazz" on YouTube
"Blueberry Hill" on YouTube
"Stompin' At The Savoy" on YouTube Germany, 1959
"Tiger Rag" on YouTube
"C'est si bon" on YouTube 1962
"Dream a Little Dream" on YouTube photo slide show
"Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra – The Birth of The Blues" on YouTube – The Edsel Show
"What a Wonderful World" on YouTube
Nairn, Charlie, (1975): Earl "Fatha" Hines: [2]. 1hr documentary, with much about Louis Armstrong, filmed at Blues Alley jazz club, Washington DC. Produced and directed by Charlie Nairn for UK ATV Television, 1975. Many refs to Louis Armstrong. Original 16mm film, plus out-takes of additional tunes, archived in British Film Institute Library at bfi.org.uk; also at http://www.itvstudios.com; DVD copies with the "Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library" (which holds The Earl Hines Collection/Archive), University of California, Berkeley, California; also at University of Chicago "Hogan Jazz Archive", Tulane University New Orleans and at the Louis Armstrong House Museum Libraries: see also www.jazzonfilm.com/documentaries.
New Orleans Jazz Great Louis Armstrong's Jewish Connection
"If We Never Meet Again" on YouTube

Sound Projections

Welcome to Sound Projections

Saturday, February 13, 2016

LOUIS ARMSTRONG (1901-1971): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, composer, singer, song stylist, arranger, ensemble leader, and teacher

The Permanence of Pops

Louis Armstrong and American Music

Louis Armstrong

The Complete Columbia/Okeh & Victor Recordings, 1925-33

(Sony Legacy)US: 6 Nov 2012UK: 6 Nov 2012

Louis Armstrong - The Hot Fives-- Volume I:

Album of Louis Armstrong, The Hot Fives 1925.

Louis Armstrong - The Hot Fives vol.II [HD 1080P]:

Album of Louis Armstrong, the hot fives vol.II 1926.

The Hot Fives & Hot Sevens vol III [HD 1080P]:

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Ella & Louis (Full Album)--Verve , 1956:

Tracklist:

1. Can't We Be Friends?2. Isn't This a Lovely Day?3. Moonlight in Vermont4. They Can't Take That Away from Me5. Under a Blanket of Blue6. Tenderly7. A Foggy Day8. Stars Fell on Alabama9. Cheek to Cheek10. The Nearness of You11. April in Paris

Músicos / Personnel :Ella Fitzgerald -- VozLouis Armstrong -- Trompeta, VozHerb Ellis -- GuitarraEd Hall -- clarineteTrummy Young -- TrombónOscar Peterson -- PianoBilly Kyle -- PianoLouie Bellson -- BateríaBarrett Deems -- BateríaBuddy Rich -- Batería

LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOT FIVE & SEVEN

Louis Armstrong meets Duke Ellington 1961 (Full CD HQ):

Giants of Jazz Collection

"Battle Royal" film scene - Louis Armstrong, Sidney Poitier, and Paul Newman--"Paris Blues"(1961):

Louis Armstrong

Contents

Early life

Career

1920s

1930s

1940s

The All Stars

1950s-1970s

Personal life

Pronunciation of name

Family

Personality

Nicknames

Race

Religion

Music

Horn playing and early jazz

Vocal popularity

Composing

Colleagues and followers

Hits and later career

Stylistic range

Literature, radio, films and TV

Death

Awards and honors

Grammy Awards

Grammy Hall of Fame

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Inductions and honors

Legacy

Home turned National Historic Landmark

Discography

Singles

Original albums

Posthumous releases

List of songs recorded

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links

Video clips

Editor's Bio

Blog Archive

Labels

(Sony Legacy)
US: 6 Nov 2012
UK: 6 Nov 2012

1. Can't We Be Friends?
2. Isn't This a Lovely Day?
3. Moonlight in Vermont
4. They Can't Take That Away from Me
5. Under a Blanket of Blue
6. Tenderly
7. A Foggy Day
8. Stars Fell on Alabama
9. Cheek to Cheek
10. The Nearness of You
11. April in Paris

Músicos / Personnel :

Ella Fitzgerald -- Voz
Louis Armstrong -- Trompeta, Voz
Herb Ellis -- Guitarra
Ed Hall -- clarinete
Trummy Young -- Trombón
Oscar Peterson -- Piano
Billy Kyle -- Piano
Louie Bellson -- Batería
Barrett Deems -- Batería
Buddy Rich -- Batería