Louis Armstrong Biography - Jazz Musicians

Louis Armstrong was the greatest of all Jazz musicians. Armstrong defined what it was to play Jazz. outstanding technical ability of his, joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive mind still dominate Jazz to this day. Only Charlie Parker comes close to having as much influence on the history of the Louis Armstrong Jazz did. As with almost all early Jazz musicians, Louis was from New Orleans. He came from a very poor family and was sent to reform school, when he was 12 years after firing a gun in the air on New Year's Eve. At school, he learned to play the cornet. Once released at the age of fourteen, he worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart. He does not own an instrument at this time, but continued to listen to the bands at clubs like the Funky Butt Hall. Joe "King" Oliver louis favorite musician that also acts as a father to Louis, provide louis first cornet, and taught him the instrument.


In 1917 he played in Oliver inspired group at dive bar at the Storyville New Orleans'. In 1919 he left New Orleans for the first time to join Fate Marable's band in St. Louis. Marable led a band that played in the line of the river boat Mississsippi Strekfus. When the boat left from New Orleans Armstrong also played regular gigs in Kid Ory's band. Louis stayed with Marable until 1921 when he returned to New Orleans and played in Zutty Singleton's. He also played in the parade with the Allen Brass Band, and on stage with Papa Celestin Tuxedo Orchestra, and Silver Leaf's Band. When King Oliver left the city in 1919 to go to Chicago, Louis took place in Kid Ory band from time to time.

In 1922 Louis received a telegram from his mentor Joe Oliver, asking him to join the Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens (459 East 31 Street) in Chicago. This is a dream come true for Armstrong and played superbly in the band immediately made a sensation among other musicians in Chicago. New Orleans style of music took the town by storm and soon many other bands from down south goes north to Chicago. While playing in Oliver Creole Jazz Band, Armstrong met Lillian Hardin, a piano player and arranger for the band.

In February 1924 they were married. Lilian Hardin is a very smart woman and ambitious who felt that Louis wasting himself playing in Oliver's band. In late 1924 he was pressured Armstrong to reluctantly leave the band mentor. He briefly worked with the Syncopators Ollie Powers' Harmony before she moved to New York to play in Fletcher Henderson Orchestra for 13 months. During that time he also did dozens of recording sessions with many blues singers, including Bessie Smith's classic 1925 recording of "St. Louis Blues". He also recorded with Clarence Williams and Red Onion Jazz Babies. In 1925 Armstrong moved back to Chicago and joined his band in Dreamland Cafe (3520 South State Street). He also played in Erskine Tate's Vendome Orchestra and then with Carrol Dickenson's Orchestra at the Sunset Cafe (313-17 East Street 35 at the corner of Calmet Street).

Armstrong recorded the first Hot Five records that same year. This is the first time Armstrong has made a record under his own name. Recording made by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven are considered absolute classics of jazz and creative force Armstrong spoke. The band never played live, but continued recording until 1928. While working at Sunset, Louis met his future manager, Joe Glaser. Glaser managed the Sunset at the time. Armstrong continued to play in Carrol Dickenson's Orchestra until 1929. He also led his own band in the same place with the name of Louis Armstrong and Stompers nya.Selama next two years Armstrong played with Carroll Dickerson's Savoy Orchestra and with Clarence Jones' Orchestra in Chicago. By 1929 Louis became a huge star. He toured with the show "Hot Chocolates" and sometimes comes with Luis Russell Orchestra, with Dave Peyton, and with Fletcher Henderson. Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 where he fronted a band called Louis Armstrong and his New Sebastian Cotton Club Orchestra.

In 1931 he returned to Chicago and assembled his own band for touring purposes. In June of that year he returned to New Orleans for the first time since he left in 1922 to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. Armstrong was welcomed as a hero, but racism marred back when a White radio announcer refused to mention Armstrong in the air and a free concert that Louis will provide to city residents' African-Americans was canceled at the last minute. Lil Louis and also separated in 1931.

In 1932 he returned to California, before heading off to England where he became a huge success. Over the next three years Armstrong was almost always on the road. He crisscrossed the U.S. dozens of times and returned to Europe playing in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK. In 1935 he returned to the United States and hired Joe Glaser to be a manager. He knew Glaser when he was manager of the Sunset Cafe in Chicago in 1920. Glaser allegedly connected to Al Capone mob, but proved to be a great manager and friend for Louis. Glaser remained Armstrong's manager until his death in 1969. Glaser care for the business part of things, leaving Armstrong free to concentrate on his music. He also hired Luis Russell Orchestra as a backup band Louis' with Russell as the musical director. It's like coming home for Armstrong, because Russell's Orchestra was made up of a majority of New Orleans musicians, many of them also played with King Oliver. The band is named after Louis Armstrong & Orchestra and is one of the most popular acts of the Swing era.

Glaser put the band to work and they toured constantly for the next ten years. During this period Armstrong became one of the most famous people in America. In 1938 Lil and Louis finally divorced. Louis then married Alpha, his third wife. This endless touring hard on their marriage and they divorced four years later, but Armstrong quickly remarried Lucille and they remained married for the rest of his life.

For the next nine years, Louis Armstrong Orchestra continued to tour and release records, but as the 1940s drew to a close the public taste in Jazz began to shift away from commercial sound era Jazz Swing and big band. Jazz called Dixieland revival just beginning and Be Bop was also starting to challenge the status quo in the Jazz world. Louis Armstrong Orchestra began to look tired and concert and record sales are down. Armstrong complained that the criticism of being too commercial. So, in 1947 Glaser fired the orchestra and replaced it with a small group that became one of the biggest and most popular bands in the history of Jazz. The group is called the Louis Armstrong Allstars and over the years featuring outstanding musicians like Barney Bigard, Jack Teagarden, 'Big Sid' Sidney Catlett, vocalist Vilma Middleton, and Earl Hines.

The band went through a number of personnel changes over the years but remains very popular around the world. They toured extensively traveling to Africa, Asia, Europe and South America over the next twenty years until health Louis' failed causing them to disperse. Armstrong is known as the American ambassador. In 1963 Armstrong scored a major international hit with his version of "Hello Dolly". The number one even knocked the Beatles off the top of the chart.

In 1968 he recorded another number one hit with the touchingly optimistic "What A Wonderful World". Armstrong's health began to fail and he was hospitalized several times over the three years of his life, but he continued to play and record. July 6, 1971 at the world's greatest jazz musician died in his sleep at his home in Queens, New York.