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 Perhaps the most beloved popular performer of the twentieth century, Louis Armstrong was also one of the most groundbreaking and influential artists in the history of jazz music. Remembered both for his virtuoso trumpet playing as well as the warm, raspy growl of his singing voice, "Satchmo" -- as Armstrong affectionately came to be called, and short for "Satchelmouth" -- served as an ambassador of goodwill for more than three decades. Much jazz music can be traced back to the innovations developed by Armstrong in the 1920s and 1930s, and musicians like Miles Davis and Coleman Hawkins were profoundly influenced by Armstrong. Armstrong had a hand in all of the most important developments in early jazz, from Dixieland to big band to scat singing.
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, and although for many years his date of birth was believed to be July 4, 1900, recent research has revealed that he was actually born on August 4, 1901. Armstrong's father was a turpentine laborer and his mother was a domestic worker whose grandparents had been slaves. His father left when Louis was five years old; Louis, his sister Beatrice, and their mother moved in with his maternal grandmother. Armstrong exhibited musical talent from an early age, singing in the streets and performing in a band for which he played a guitar fashioned from a cigar box. On New Year's Eve 1913, he spent a night in jail after firing his stepfather's gun into the air six times, and he was subsequently detained by the Colored Waifs' Home for Boys. During the 18 months that he spent at the detention center, the home's drill instructor and bandleader Peter Davis taught Armstrong to play cornet and bugle, and Armstrong eventually became leader of the institution's band. Upon his release in 1915, Armstrong took on a number of jobs in the Storyville district of New Orleans, home to many bordellos and nightclubs. He also received trumpet lessons from Joe "King" Oliver, who played the ragtime and blues music that was popular in New Orleans at that time. When the U.S. Navy shut down the bordellos in 1917, King Oliver left for Chicago, and Armstrong took his place in Kid Ory's band, soon emerging as a star player known for his improvisational ability. While in New Orleans, he met and married Daisy Parker, but their marriage was short-lived and tempestuous.
From 1920 to 1921, Armstrong joined Fate Marable's band, which traveled up and down the Mississippi river on a boat called the Dixie Belle each summer. This group made some progress toward the eradication of racist Jim Crow laws in the South, playing for white audiences without incident. Armstrong next became a full-time member of the Tuxedo Brass Band, a group led by the trumpet player Celestin, but even as his popularity grew, Armstrong dreamed of playing with King Oliver. Around this time Armstrong wrote one of his first songs, "Get Off Katie's Head," but the publishers renamed it "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" and did not pay him the money they had promised him for it. The following year King Oliver summoned Armstrong to Chicago to join the Original Creole Jazz Band, which had become a success. Armstrong played second cornet for his former teacher and appeared on many recordings, an experience that further facilitated his growth as a musician. In 1924 he played with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Henderson's group was a training ground for many up-and-coming musicians; several members, including Roy Eldridge, Don Redman, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young, later went on to become successful bandleaders and solo artists. While in New York Armstrong also recorded with blues singer Bessie Smith. He soon began playing trumpet and singing, returning to Chicago to form a band that included jazz pianist Lil Hardin, whom he later married. Armstrong invented scat singing while in the studio recording "Heebie Jeebies" for Chicago's Okeh label when he dropped his music and was forced to improvise nonsense syllables while he waited for the recording director to retrieve it for him.
From 1925 to 1929, Armstrong recorded with his legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven bands, which marked a move away from the 4/4 beat of Dixieland jazz and toward a more rhythmically complex style of playing that would influence jazz musicians and arrangers for years to follow. Whereas previously emphasis had been placed on ensemble playing, the Hot Five and Hot Seven ushered in a period in which soloists received the most attention. Their best known songs included "Big Butter and Egg Man," "Struttin' with Some Barbecue," and "Potato Head Blues." In 1930 Armstrong began to lead big bands in renditions of popular songs, a decision that disappointed many jazz journalists and listeners. Armstrong was criticized for the remainder of his career for what some saw as a demeaning willingness to gain favor from white audiences; in the 1950s and 1960s, however, his renditions of songs such as "Mack the Knife," "Blueberry Hill," "Hello Dolly," and "What A Wonderful World" were immensely popular.
In 1932, Armstrong toured Europe for the first time, and he divorced Lil Hardin. Following World War II, Armstrong became a huge international star, playing with a smaller band known as Louis Armstrong and the All Stars for audiences familiar with the jazz music enjoyed by American G.I.s stationed throughout the world. The band played a number of goodwill concerts for the U.S. State Department. In 1956, Armstrong visited Africa for the first time and was received as a hero. The historic journey was documented for both CBS's "See It Now" and a documentary film entitled Satchmo the Great (1957). Armstrong was treated as royalty whenever he returned to the African continent. In 1964, Armstrong's "Hello Dolly" received a Grammy Award after knocking out the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from the number one spot on Billboard's popular music chart. In 1965, Armstrong embarked on two tours of Central and Eastern Europe; on one occasion, he played for an audience of 91,000 in Budapest.
Armstrong's racially integrated band sometimes had trouble finding places to play in the southern region of his own country, and they were not allowed to play in his hometown of New Orleans. Armstrong made few public statements about racism, but when he did speak up, he was candid. After state troopers brutally attacked protest marchers in Selma, Alabama, in March 1965, the trumpeter remarked, "They would beat Jesus if he was black and marched." When the Civil Rights Act was passed later that year, Armstrong's band played a triumphant benefit concert in New Orleans.
Armstrong made numerous television and film appearances throughout his career. His first film was 1936's Pennies From Heaven, which featured Bing Crosby. Other films include Every Day's A Holiday (1937), Going Places (1938), Cabin in the Sky (1943), New Orleans (1947), The Strip (1951), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), High Society (1957), and A Man Called Adam (1966). He also appeared on television in Hollywood Palace and on Broadway in Hot Chocolates (1929) and Swingin' the Dream (1939), a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Armstrong married former chorus girl Lucille Wilson in 1942. In 1959, he suffered from a heart attack, which slowed him down considerably. The couple lived together in his home in Corona, Queens, until his death on July 6, 1971. Armstrong appeared on hundreds of recordings and his music remains popular many years after his death. He is generally considered to be both the greatest soloist and jazz singer that the genre has ever known, and many key jazz figures who followed him named Armstrong as a primary influence. As poet and teacher Leroi Jones (a.k.a. Amiri Baraka) pointed out in Blues People, many of the most significant innovators in the history of jazz were trumpet players. According to Miles Davis, "You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." New Orleans unveiled a statue of Armstrong in 1976 and named a park after him. He was awarded a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award (1972) as well as two Hall of Fame Grammy Awards (1974 and 1993).
Click to buy Louis Armstrong in The Glenn Miller Story
Click to buy Louis Armstrong: Satchmo
Click to buy Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings
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