His beginnings were not auspicious, yet noted literary critic Harold Bloom cited him and Walt Whitman as the two Americans who made the greatest artistic contributions to world culture.

         Louis Armstrong was born and raised in poverty; as a child he bounced between his mother, his grandmother, a local Jewish immigrant family, and his father. He ran the streets, did odd jobs, and sang for coins. For firing his dad’s pistol on New Year’s Eve, Louis, 11-years-old, spent a year and a half in reform school, but music teacher Peter Davis taught him to play a cornet. Upon his release he looked for opportunities to immerse himself in the emerging New Orleans blues, ragtime mix known as jazz.

         Joe “King” Oliver became his mentor. By the early 1920s Louis was getting noticed for his daring solos and for his singing. In 1923 he did his first recordings with Oliver’s jazz band; A year later Louis moved to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top black band in the U.S. Louis’ impact on them was profound, turning them into America’s first major jazz band.          In Chicago, between 1925 and 1928 Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (later the Hot Seven) made musical history with such jazz classics as “Heebie Jeebies” (with its early use of scat singing) and “Potato Head Blues”. The jazz masterworks “Weather Bird” and “West End Blues ” also date from this time. Armstrong’s popularity exploded. In the 1930’s and into the ’40s Satchmo, as he was now affectionately known, was a fixture on radio, on records, and, increasingly, in film and concert. In the last two decades of his life, Armstrong was something of a cultural goodwill ambassador for the United States. He was one of the few African Americans who could straddle both white and black society. A virtuoso trumpet player whose improvisational skill and sublime solos totally transformed jazz, Duke Ellington called him a “master.” His singing style was also hugely impactful. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were both inspired by his vocals; Bing Crosby called him, “the greatest pop singer in the world that ever was and ever will be.”    – Steve Williams (4/17/23)