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Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 4, 1901. Brought up without a father in extreme poverty, he began singing in a barbershop quartet. In his teens, he was sentenced to the Home for Colored Waifs for delinquent behaviour. It was there that he received his first musical instrument, the cornet, after joining the home's band. After his release, he was determined to become a musician. Under the guidance of King Oliver, Louis was given many opportunities to play in public and develop his musical personality. He eventually replaced Oliver in a band led by Kid Ory (at the time considered the leading jazz band in New Orleans) when Oliver left for Chicago. Then, in 1922, Oliver invited him to join his famous Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. 1
Throughout the late 1920s, Louis Armstrong's "exceptional solos, with their vocalized line and inherent vibrato, rapidly became a model for all advanced jazz musicians" 2 of the time. He toured with many bands in America, Europe and elsewhere for the next four decades and, at the urging of his long-time manager, Joe Glaser, appeared in many jazz-oriented films.
Louis Armstrong collaborated with countless artists throughout his career, including Oscar Peterson, with whom he recorded five albums, among them Ella and Louis (1956) and Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (1957).
Armstrong died on July 6, 1971, but many of his renditions, particularly It's a Wonderful World and Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, remain classics to this day.
Selected Recordings:
Ain't Misbehavin' (1929, OK 8714)
When You're Smiling (1929, OK 8729)
Star Dust (1931, OK 41530)
Rockin' Chair/Save it Pretty Mama (1947, Vic. 40-4004)
Basin Street Blues (1954, Decca 29102)
Hello Dolly (1963, Kapp 573)
Footnotes
1 Kernfeld, Barry. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1988.
2 Gammond, Peter. The Oxford Companion to Popular Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
O.P. & Friends
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