Why I Chose Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong is mostly remembered for his music. As a trumpeter and singer, he influenced the music of his time period. Armstrong developed a different style of jazz music, and the people listening absolutely love it. His new jazz music consisted of more prominent solos and more

Louis Armstrong was the greatest of all Jazz musicians. Armstrong defined what it was to play Jazz. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive musical mind still dominate Jazz to this day. Only Charlie Parker comes close to having as much influence on the history of Jazz as Louis Armstrong did. Like almost all early Jazz musicians, Louis was from New Orleans. He was from a very poor family and was sent to reform school when he was twelve after firing a gun in the air on New Year's Eve. At the school he learned to play cornet. After being released at age fourteen, he worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart. He didn't own an instrument at this time,

Armstrong had elevated music and Jazz to a whole new level. “Armstrong’s contagious humor and flamboyant style made him an ideal goodwill ambassador for American music” (Copton, 632). His style encouraged soloist's art to assemble within jazz, which increased opportunities for black people. “People learned to appreciate both jazz, and African American music even more, because of this man... Armstrong played music up until the day he died at 70 years old, on July 6, 1971” (Musicians- The Harlem Renaissance). His ideas influenced millions of perspectives on African Americans and music, people started respecting his style of music and many also began acknowledging and admiring black people’s music to a new extent. Just like the others, Armstrong often faced racial inequality. However, a few others accompanied him and found a way to crack the racial barrier through music, art, and

Louis Armstrong, also known as the king of jazz was born on Augest 4th, 1901, in New Orleans Louisiana; he died July 6, 1971 in Corona Queens New York. Louis Armstrong is famous for his stunning jazz performance, unique vocals, and amazing styles with the trumpet/cornet. Louis Armstrong recorded many popular songs like La Vie en Rose, and his theme song When its Sleepy Time Down South. Louis's Father left him around childbirth, and his mother often used prostitution for money. He was often left with his grandmother, and left school in fifth grade to start working. Louis was able to get hired as a junk collecter and coal deliverer.

Many great performers have come out of the jazz industry, but the most widely known is Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Louis began playing at a young age when he was growing up in New Orleans. His greatest inspiration was Joe “King” Oliver. He began following him and eventually Oliver became Armstrong’s mentor. Armstrong practiced his instrument and eventually he became the jazz great everyone knows today. Armstrong’s unique singing and masterful improvisation transitioned jazz from the traditional style to a newer, more rhythmic style. He popularized scat singing and was the first musician to have his solo on a recording (Rodgers 85). The solos Armstrong performed along with his popular scat singing helped make jazz musicians more popular along with making the fans take notice of Armstrong and jazz itself (Rennert 8).

Many people knew Louis Armstrong as the “first real genius of jazz”(Shipton 26). He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 4, 1901. Louis was the illegitimate son of William Armstrong and Mary Est “Mayann” Albert. He was abandoned by his father, a boiler stoker, shortly after his birth and was raised by his paternal grandmother. Then, at the age of five, he was returned to the care of his mother, who at the time worked as a laundress. Together with his mom, they moved to a better area of New Orleans. This is where Armstrong first fell in love with music; he would listen to people playing any chance that he would get(Tirro). He would attend parades, funerals, churches and go to cheap cabarets to be able to hear some of the greats play

after seven years of living with her he moved 18 blocks away to live with his mother

From its inception, Jazz has applied both innovative approaches in different degrees and boundless configuration. And has continually amplified, progress, and modify music through various distinctive episodes of growth. So, an all-encompassing denotation of jazz is likely vain. Additionally, jazz as a music whose prime attribute was “improvisation,” for example, revealed to be too regulated and chiefly false. Meanwhile composition, adaptation, and ensembles have also been imperative constituent of Jazz (for most of its backstory). Furthermore, “syncopation” and “swing,” often viewed as important and distinctive to jazz, are certainly lacking the genuineness of it, whether of the 1920s (or of later decades). However, the prolonged perception that swing could not transpire without syncopation was utterly refuted when trumpeter Louis Armstrong often produced vast swing while playing repeated, and unsyncopated quarter notes (Armstrong, L., Fitzgerald, E., & Middleton, V. (1988). Satchmo. Gong.)

“Little Louis” sung in a vocal quartet in his early teens. His rise to the top, though not overnight, occurred quickly, he played with mostly all the major bands in New Orleans over the next few years (Friedwald 350). In 1922, his mentor, King Oliver, invited him to work his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. After recording with Oliver for over a year, Armstrong moved into what would become the most important early-jazz big band, Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra (Shipton 201). As if it were not enough that Armstrong would rewire instrumental music for the rest of the century, his singing did the same for vocal music. He sang much as he played, but with a playfulness and a rasp, that would forever be part of American culture (Winfield 167). The first important trend in New York Jazz was Hot Jazz that was an incendiary style introduced by Louis Armstrong (Winfield 170). He was known for both his joyous ways with the trumpet and his peculiarly touching and funny vocal style. There was a cheerful impatience in his playing, an optimistic confidence that led him to risk going over the top (Shipton 157). Louis Armstrong is arguably the most important musician that the United States has ever produced (Shipton 160). Eldridge is the obvious link between Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. Armstrong could make an audience cheer, but Roy Eldridge, made those top and bottom notes feel like a natural part of what the horn should do (Friedwald 21). Blessed with

I think something that Louis Armstrong did for the Harlem Renaissance is that he made a lot of African Americans feel beautiful by his music. People could listen to his music and dance while forget the world around them. He was important because he was one of the first African Americans to write an Autobiography (“Swing That Music”). He continued to appear in movies and that is something else that is good for African Americans during that

He was known as the greatest of all jazz musicians. He defined what it really was to play genuine jazz music and taught the world to swing. He included joy, spontaneity, and amazing technical abilities. Louis Armstrong was a genius when it came to his inventive musical ability. In this paper, I will tell you about who Armstrong was, his early childhood, accomplishments, and his living legacy.

Louis Armstrong, one of the most influential figures in jazz music, enjoyed a career that spans across 50 years, and through different eras of jazz. Nicknamed” Satchmo”, “Pops”, and” Ambassador Satch”, Armstrong could do it all, he sang, occasionally acted, composed music, but was most famous for his cornet and trumpet playing. Although Armstrong is well known for his amazing trumpet play, he also influenced the direction that jazz music during his time was headed. Over the course of this paper I will concisely go over his early life, and focus more on his music career.

Many events in Louis Armstrong’s early life played a role in making him into one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. He was born August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana to parents William “Willie” and Mary Ann “Mayann” Armstrong on Jane Alley. At the time, New Orleans was musical center of the United States and maybe even the western world. Racism, illiteracy, extreme poverty, gang violence, adultery, and heavy drug use were all very prevalent in the city as well. To make things even worse, Louis lived in the worst neighborhood in town, called The Battlefield, because you had to fight to survive in the terrible conditions. These factors were important in young Louie’s life. Both of his parents could barely read or write. Soon after Armstrong’s birth, his father abandoned the family. This made Louie, resent him till the day he died. His mother was very unreliable as well, frequently being absent for days at a time at the local bars and clubs with many boyfriends, forcing Louie to take care of his younger sister, Beatrice (or sometimes referred to as Lucy). Regardless, Armstrong

Louis Armstrong is a man of many talents and skills known for creating a new environment, especially in his home town of New Orleans. He was born into poverty on August 4, 1901 in the streets of Back o’ Town (Meckna). He’s a professional jazz performer who played with Oliver and Henderson. He started as a soloist for Henderson after marrying Lil Hardin. He has many nicknames in which some are Satchmo and Pops. He also played as a second trumpet for King Oliver. He interprets and contributes to the genre of jazz, creates great form through his performance in the “Hot Chocolates,” and his work represents a whole for equality and the civil rights movement.

Nps.gov states that some of the greatest musician in America History has come from the jazz side of the world. Artist such as Louis Armstrong, Billy Holiday and Jelly “Roll” Morton, pave the way for jazz to reach its height as it did in the early 20’s with the upbeat tempo and smooth classical sound. These artist brung a unique sound to jazz that was not there. Louis Armstrong contribute to jazz is so remarkable, he played the trumpet like no other. His sound was so soothing to the ears. When you think about jazz, Louis Armstrong is one of the first names most people relate to jazz. Jelly “Roll” Morton was probably the most influence artist there is. An innovative piano stylist and composer, began his odyssey outside of New Orleans as early as 1907. He continue his work throughout the 1920’s and was mainly consider the reason of the swing era.