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Louis Armstrong

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                           Louis Armstrong
   Louis Armstrong's stage personality matched his flashy trumpet.
   Armstrong is also known for his raspy singing voice.
   Louis Armstrong's stage personality matched his flashy trumpet.
   Armstrong is also known for his raspy singing voice.
                        Background information
   Birth name    Louis Daniel Armstrong
   Also known as Satchmo, Pops
   Born          August 4, 1901
                 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
   Died          July 6, 1971
                 Corona, Queens, New York City, NY, USA
   Genre(s)      Jazz
   Occupation(s) Trumpeter, Vocalist
   Instrument(s) Trumpet
   Years active  1919–1971

   Louis Daniel Armstrong ( August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971) (also known by
   the nickname Satchmo, for satchel-mouth and Pops) was an American jazz
   musician. Armstrong was a charismatic, innovative performer whose
   musical skills and bright personality transformed jazz from a rough
   regional dance music into a popular art form. One of the most famous
   jazz musicians of the 20th century, he first achieved fame as a
   trumpeter, but toward the end of his career he was best known as a
   vocalist and was one of the most influential jazz singers.

Early life

   Armstrong was born August 4, 1901, to a poor family in New Orleans,
   Louisiana. Nicknamed "Satchel Mouth", Louis Armstrong's youth was spent
   in poverty in a rough neighbourhood of uptown New Orleans, as his
   father, William Armstrong (1881-????), abandoned the family when Louis
   was an infant. His mother, Mary Albert Armstrong (1886–1942) then left
   him and his younger sister Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987) under
   the upbringing of his grandmother Josephine Armstrong. He first learned
   to play the cornet (his first of which was bought with money loaned to
   him by the Karnofskys, a Russian-Jewish immigrant family) in the band
   of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, where he had been sent
   multiple times for general delinquency, most notably for a long term
   after (as police records show) firing his father's pistol into the air
   at a New Year's Eve celebration. He followed the city's frequent brass
   band parades and listened to older musicians every chance he got,
   learning from Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, and above all Joe "King"
   Oliver, who acted as a mentor and almost a father figure to the young
   Armstrong. Armstrong later played in the brass bands and riverboats of
   New Orleans, and first started traveling with the well-regarded band of
   Fate Marable which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi
   River; he described his time with Marable as "going to the University",
   since it gave him a much wider experience working with written
   arrangements. When Joe Oliver left town in 1919, Armstrong took
   Oliver's place in Kid Ory's band, regarded as the top hot jazz band in
   the city.

Early career

   On March 19, 1918, Louis wed Daisy Parker, a prostitute from Gretna,
   Louisiana. They adopted a 3-year-old boy, Clarence Armstrong, whose
   mother, Louis's cousin Fiona, died soon after birth. Louis's marriage
   to Parker failed quickly and they separated. In 1922, Armstrong joined
   the exodus to Chicago, where he had been invited by Joe "King" Oliver
   to join his Creole Jazz Band. Oliver's band was the best and most
   influential hot jazz band in Chicago in the early 1920s, at a time when
   Chicago was the centre of jazz. Armstrong made his first recordings,
   including taking some solos and breaks, while playing second cornet in
   Oliver's band in 1923.

   Armstrong was happy working with Oliver, but his second wife, pianist
   Lil Hardin Armstrong, urged him to seek more prominent billing. He and
   Oliver parted amicably in 1924 and Armstrong moved to New York City to
   play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African American
   band of the day. Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better
   with the other musicians in his section. His influence upon Henderson's
   tenor sax soloist, Coleman Hawkins, can be judged by listening to the
   records that the band made during this period. During this time, he
   also made many recordings on the side arranged by an old friend from
   New Orleans, pianist Clarence Williams; these included small jazz band
   sides (some of the best pairing Armstrong with one of Armstrong's few
   rivals in fiery technique and ideas, Sidney Bechet) and a series of
   accompaniments for Blues singers.

   He returned to Chicago, in 1925, and began recording under his own name
   with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven with 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. His recordings
   with Earl "Fatha" Hines (most famously their 1928 "Weatherbird" duet)
   and Armstrong's trumpet introduction to "West End Blues" remain some of
   the most famous and influential improvisations in jazz history.

   Armstrong returned to New York, in 1929; then moved to Los Angeles in
   1930; then toured Europe. After spending many years on the road, he
   settled permanently in Queens, New York in 1943. Although subject to
   the vicissitudes of Tin Pan Alley and the gangster-ridden music
   business, he continued to develop his playing.

   During the subsequent thirty years, Armstrong played more than three
   hundred gigs a year. Bookings for big bands tapered off during the
   1940's 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 to support and
   finance a 16-piece touring band.

The All Stars

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

   This group was called the All Stars, and included at various times
   Barney Bigard, Edmond Hall, Jack Teagarden, Trummy Young, Arvell Shaw,
   Billy Kyle, Marty Napoleon, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole and Barrett
   Deems. During this period, Armstrong made many recordings and appeared
   in over thirty films. In 1964, he recorded his biggest-selling record,
   Hello, Dolly!. The song went to #1 on the pop chart, making Armstrong
   the oldest person to ever accomplish that feat at age 63.

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

   Armstrong died of a heart attack, in 1971, at age 69, the night after
   playing a famous show at the Waldorf Astoria's Empire Room. He was
   interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.

Personality

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

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

   The damage to his embouchure from his high pressure approach to playing
   is acutely visible in many pictures of Louis from the mid-twenties. It
   also led to his emphasizing his singing career because at certain
   periods, he was unable to play. This did not stop Louis though, because
   after setting his trumpet aside for a while, he amended his playing
   style and continued his trumpet career. Friends and fellow musicians
   usually called him Pops, which is also how Armstrong usually addressed
   his friends and fellow musicians (except for Pops Foster, whom
   Armstrong always called "George").
   Satchmo's autograph from the 1960s
   Satchmo's autograph from the 1960s

   The "Satchmo" nickname and Armstrong's warm Southern personality,
   combined with his natural love of entertaining and evoking a response
   from the audience, resulted in a public persona — the grin, the sweat,
   the handkerchief — that came to seem affected and even something of a
   racist caricature late in his career.

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

   The seeming racial insensitivity of Armstrong's King of the Zulus
   performance has sometimes been seen as part of a larger failing on
   Armstrong's part. Where some saw a gregarious and outgoing personality,
   others saw someone trying too hard to appeal to white audiences and
   essentially becoming a minstrel caricature. Some musicians criticized
   Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences, and for not
   taking a strong enough stand in the civil rights movement suggesting
   that he was an Uncle Tom. Billie Holiday countered, however, "Of course
   Pops toms, but he toms from the heart."

   Armstrong, in fact, was a major financial supporter of Dr. Martin
   Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists, but mostly preferred
   to work quietly behind the scenes, not mixing his politics with his
   work as an entertainer. The few exceptions made it more effective when
   he did speak out; Armstrong's criticism of President Eisenhower,
   calling him "two-faced" and "gutless" because of his inaction during
   the conflict over school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957
   made national news. As a protest, Armstrong cancelled 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.

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

   The concern with his health and weight was balanced by his love of
   food, reflected in such songs as Big Butter & Egg Man, Cheesecake,
   Cornet Chop Suey, and, especially, Struttin’ with Some Barbecue. He
   kept a strong connection throughout his life to the cooking of New
   Orleans, always signing his letters, "Red Beans and Ricely yours".

Music

   In his early years, Armstrong was best known for his virtuosity with
   the cornet and trumpet. The greatest trumpet playing of his early years
   can be heard on his Hot Five and Hot Seven records. The improvisations
   which he made on these records of New Orleans jazz standards and
   popular songs of the day, to the present time stack up brilliantly
   alongside those of any other later jazz performer. The older generation
   of New Orleans jazz musicians often referred to their improvisations as
   "variating the melody"; Armstrong's improvisations were daring and
   sophisticated for the time while often subtle and melodic. He often
   essentially re-composed pop-tunes he played, making them more
   interesting. Armstrong's playing is filled with joyous, inspired
   original melodies, creative leaps, and subtle relaxed or driving
   rhythms. The genius of these creative passages is matched by
   Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, which
   extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. In these
   records, Armstrong almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz
   soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and
   turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for
   individual expression.

   Armstrong's work in the 1920s shows him playing at the outer limits of
   his abilities. The Hot 5 records, especially, often have minor flubs
   and missed notes, which do little to detract from listening enjoyment
   since the energy of the spontaneous performance comes through. By the
   mid 1930s, Armstrong achieved a smooth assurance, knowing exactly what
   he could do and carrying out his ideas with perfectionism.

   As his music progressed and popularity grew, his singing also became
   important. Armstrong was not the first to record scat singing, but he
   was masterful at it and helped popularize it. He had a hit with his
   playing and scat singing on " Heebie Jeebies", and 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.

   During his long career he played and sang with the most important
   instrumentalists and vocalists; among the many, singing brakeman Jimmie
   Rodgers, Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith,
   and notably with Ella Fitzgerald. His influence upon Bing Crosby is
   particularly important with regard to the subsequent development of
   popular music: Crosby admired and copied Armstrong, as is evident on
   many of his early recordings, notably "Just One More Chance" (1931).
   The 'New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz' describes Crosby's debt to Armstrong
   in perfect 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
   chords, 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 emphasise the text - were emulated by nearly all
   later popular singers". Armstrong recorded three albums with Ella
   Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess
   for Verve Records. His recordings Satch Plays Fats, all Fats Waller
   tunes, and Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy in the 1950s were perhaps
   the last of his great creative recordings, but even oddities like
   Disney Songs the Satchmo Way have their musical moments. For the most
   part, however, his later output was criticized as being overly
   simplistic or repetitive.

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

   In 1964, Armstrong knocked the Beatles off the top of the Billboard Top
   100 chart with " Hello, Dolly", which gave the 63-year-old performer a
   U.S. record as the oldest artist to have a #1 song. In 1968, Armstrong
   scored one last popular hit in the United Kingdom with the highly
   sentimental pop song " What a Wonderful World", which topped the
   British charts for a month; however, the single did not chart at all in
   America. The song gained greater currency in the popular consciousness
   when it was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning Vietnam, its subsequent
   rerelease topping many charts around the world.

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

Death and legacy

   Louis Armstrong died of a heart attack on July 6, 1971, at age 69. He
   was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his
   passing.

   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. 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.

   Armstrong is considered to have essentially invented jazz singing. He
   had an extremely distinctive gravelly voice, which he deployed with
   great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a
   song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat
   singing, or wordless vocalizing, and according to some legends he
   invented it, during his recording "Heebie Jeebies" where the sheet
   music fell on the floor and he simply started singing nonsense
   syllables. Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra are just two singers who
   were indebted to him.

   Armstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films (though few of
   particular note), usually playing a band leader or musician. He was the
   first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show in the
   1930s. He also made assorted television appearances, especially in the
   1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring
   Johnny Carson. Louis Armstrong has a record star on the Hollywood Walk
   of Fame on 7601 Hollywood Boulevard.

   Many of Armstrong's recordings remain popular. More than three decades
   since his passing, a larger number of his recordings from all periods
   of his career are more widely available than at any time during his
   lifetime. His songs are broadcast and listened to every day throughout
   the world, and are honored in various movies, TV series, commercials,
   and even anime and computer games. "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" was
   included in the computer game Fallout 2, accompanying the intro
   cinematic. His 1923 recordings, with Joe Oliver and his Creole Jazz
   Band, continue to be listened to as documents of ensemble style New
   Orleans jazz, but more particularly as ripper jazz records in their own
   right. All too often, however, Armstrong recorded with stiff, standard
   orchestras leaving only his sublime trumpet playing as of interest.
   "Melancholy Blues," performed by Armstrong and his Hot Seven was
   included on the Voyager Golden Record sent into outer space to
   represent one of the greatest achievements of humanity.

   Armstrong set up a non-profit foundation for educating disadvantaged
   children in music, and bequeathed his house and substantial archives of
   writings, books, recordings, and memorabilia to the City University of
   New York's Queens College, to take effect after his and his wife
   Lucille's death. The Louis Armstrong archives have been available to
   music researchers, and his home at 34-56 107th Street (between 34th and
   35th Avenues), was opened to the public as a museum on October 15,
   2003.

   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 onced called Louis
   Armstrong himself "Grandísimo Cronopio" (Most Enormous Cronopio).

   The main airport in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong New Orleans
   International Airport is named for Armstrong. In addition, the U.S.
   Open tennis tournament's former main stadium was named Louis Armstrong
   Stadium in honour of Armstrong who had lived a few blocks from the
   site.

   Louis Armstrong will be inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of
   Fame in 2007.

   He is better known as a performer than as a composer.

Selected discography

     * 1923 – King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (Gennett, Okeh, Columbia, and
       Paramount. Many reissues.)
     * 1924-1925 – Clarence Williams' Blue Five (Okeh. Many reissues)
     * 1925-1927 -"Louis Armstrong & His Hot 5/Louis Armstrong & His Hot
       7" (Okeh. Many reissues)
     * 1947 – Satchmo at Symphony Hall, Vol. 2 [live] (Decca)
     * 1951 – Satchmo at Pasadena [live] (Decca)
     * 1954 – Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (Columbia/Legacy)
     * 1955 – Louis Armstrong at the Crescendo, Vol. 1 [live] (Decca)
     * 1956 – Ella and Louis (Verve)
     * 1957 – Ella and Louis Again (Verve)
     * 1957 – Porgy and Bess (Verve)
     * 1961 – Together for the First Time [With Duke Ellington] (Roulette)
     * 1997 – The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve
       (Verve)
     * 2006 – Complete New York Town Hall & Boston Symphony Hall Concerts
       (DeFinitive)

Filmography

     * Ex-Flame ( 1930)
     * A Rhapsody in Black and Blue ( 1932) (short subject)
     * I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You (1932) (short subject)
     * Pennies from Heaven ( 1936)
     * Artists & Models ( 1937)
     * Every Day's a Holiday (1937)
     * Dr. Rhythm ( 1938)
     * Going Places (1938)
     * Cabin in the Sky ( 1943)
     * Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
     * Jam Session ( 1944)
     * Atlantic City (1944)
     * Pillow to Post ( 1945)
     * New Orleans ( 1947)
     * A Song Is Born ( 1948)
     * Young Man with a Horn ( 1950)
     * I'm in the Revue (1950)
     * The Strip ( 1951)
     * Glory Alley ( 1952)
     * The Road to Happiness ( 1953)
     * The Glenn Miller Story (1953)
     * High Society ( 1956)
     * Satchmo the Great ( 1958) (documentary)
     * The Night Before the Premiere ( 1959)
     * The Five Pennies (1959)
     * The Beat Generation (1959)
     * La Paloma (1959)
     * Kærlighedens melodi (1959)
     * Jazz on a Summer's Day ( 1960)
     * Paris Blues ( 1961)
     * Auf Wiedersehen (1961)
     * When the Boys Meet the Girls ( 1965)
     * Hello Dolly! ( 1969)
     * West End Blues

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