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Quick Facts
- NAME: Louis Armstrong
- OCCUPATION: Singer, Trumpet Player
- BIRTH DATE: August 04, 1901
- DEATH DATE: July 06, 1971
- EDUCATION: Fisk School for Boys
- PLACE OF BIRTH: New Orleans, Louisiana
- PLACE OF DEATH: Queens, New York
- Nickname: Pops
- Nickname: Satchmo
Best Known For
Louis Armstrong was a trumpeter, bandleader, singer, soloist, film star and comedian. He is considered one of the most influential artists in jazz history.
Louis Armstrong. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 07:56, May 23, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912
Louis Armstrong [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912, May 23
" Louis Armstrong." 2012. Biography.com 23 May 2012, 07:56 http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912
' Louis Armstrong', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912 [accessed May 23, 2012]
" Louis Armstrong," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912 (accessed May 23, 2012).
Louis Armstrong [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 May 23]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912.
Louis Armstrong, http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912 (last visited May 23, 2012).
Louis Armstrong, http://www.biography.com/people/louis-armstrong-9188912 (last visited May 23, 2012).
Synopsis
Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo, was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. An all-star virtuoso, he came to prominence in the 1920s playing cornet and trumpet with an excitingly new and improvisational style. His charismatic stage presence impressed not only the jazz world but all of popular music.
Contents
Quotes
If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.
Early Life
Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana, in one of the poorest sections of town. Armstrong had a difficult childhood. His father was a factory worker and abandoned the family soon after Louis' birth. His mother, who often turned to prostitution, frequently left him with his maternal grandmother. At the age of 11, after firing a gun in the air during a New Year's Eve celebration, Armstrong was deemed a juvenile delinquent and sent to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs. There he received musical instruction on the cornet and fell in love with music. In 1914, the home released him, and for several years he made a pittance selling papers, hauling coal to the city's famed red-light district, and singing and dancing for coins.
At the age of 17, Armstrong began playing at dive bars in New Orleans' Storyville section. The exposure earned him invitations to play in local marching and jazz bands, eventually leading him to replace the famed Joe “King” Oliver in the well-known Kid Ory band. During this time, Armstrong adopted a three-year-old boy named Clarence. The boy's mother, Armstrong's cousin, had died in childbirth. Clarence, who had become mentally disabled from a head injury he had suffered at an early age, was taken care of by Armstrong his entire life.
Career
By the early 1920s, Armstrong had left New Orleans. He first played in St. Louis, and then joined his idol Joe Oliver in his Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens in Chicago. As a trumpet virtuoso, he was highly imaginative. His emotionally charged improvisational style came to define not only him but also the Swing era of jazz. Armstrong crisscrossed the U.S. dozens of times, always bringing his charismatic presence to the masses. As the public's taste in jazz began to shift toward Dixieland and bebop, Armstrong mixed it up. In 1963, he scored a huge international hit with his version of “Hello Dolly,” and in 1968 he recorded “What a Wonderful World.”
Personal Life
Armstrong was married four times. Later in life, his health began to fail him, but he continued to play and record music. On July 6, 1971, he died in his sleep at his home in Queens, New York. The Louis Armstrong House Museum, his personal home for much of his life, was restored and opened to the public in 2003.
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