Historical Figures Codexery

Louis Armstrong

The pioneering jazz trumpeter and vocalist who reshaped music and crossed cultural boundaries.

Louis Daniel Armstrong was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans.[1][2] His career spanned five decades and he received a Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance in 1965.[1] The Voyager Golden Record, a collection of Earth's sounds sent into space, features Armstrong's performance of "Melancholy Blues" by his Hot Seven group.[3][4]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Louis Daniel Armstrong
Born
4 August 1901
Birthplace
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died
6 July 1971
Place of death
New York City, U.S.
Resting place
Flushing Cemetery
Other names
  • Satchmo
  • Satch
  • Pops
Education
Colored Waifs' Home for Boys, Fisk School for Boys

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

He worked for the Karnoffsky family, Lithuanian Jews who fed and nurtured him.[5][6] In his memoir, Armstrong wrote that the Karnoffskys taught him "how to live—real life and determination"[7][8] At age 11, Armstrong dropped out of school and later fired a blank from his stepfather's gun, leading to his arrest on December 31, 1912.[9][10] He was sentenced to the Colored Waif's Home, where he developed his cornet skills in the band.[9][11]

Growing up, Armstrong experienced extreme poverty in a notoriously tough New Orleans district referred to as the Battlefield.[12][13] Armstrong relocated to Chicago during 1922, joining King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band as a performer.[14][2] Armstrong's scat singing first appeared on record with the 1926 Hot Five release "Heebie Jeebies", making him an early pioneer of that vocal technique.[15] Public discussion of racial matters was something Armstrong generally avoided, yet he made a notable exception by publicly supporting desegregation efforts during the Little Rock Crisis.[3]

What the cited sources add

The National Park Service account notes that Armstrong grew up in the Back o' Town area, also called the Battlefield.[13] The same source states that Armstrong met his first wife near a honky tonk called the Brick House in Gretna.[13]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Krebs, "Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies", The New York Times, July 7, 1971; Laurence Bergreen, "Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life", Broadway Books, 1997, p. 4 5; "Louis Armstrong: All That and More", American Songwriter, August 17, 2021; Cook, "Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia", Penguin Books, 2005, p. 18–19 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergreen (1997), p. 1. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Golden Record Contents", NASA (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. "Golden Record Contents", NASA. facts only, no text reused. science.nasa.gov
  5. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Some sources spell Karnofsky with one "f". This article is spelling it with two "f"s based on Bergreen (1998). (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Teachout, "Satchmo and the Jews", Commentary Magazine, November 1, 2009; Karnow, "My Debt to Cousin Louis's Cornet", The New York Times, February 21, 2001 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Armstrong, "Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings", Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 3–36; Teachout, "Satchmo and the Jews", Commentary Magazine, November 1, 2009 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Open Library record, ISBN 0195119584 ("Louis Armstrong, in his own words"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergreen (1997), pp. 67–68. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergreen (1997), pp. 27, 57–60.; Giddins (2001), pp. 36–37. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergreen (1997), pp. 70–72. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Teachout, "Pops", Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009, p. 30; Giddins (2001), pp. 22–23; Giddins (2001), pp. 22–23; Giddins (2001), p. 26.; "Jazz Neighborhoods – New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)", nps.gov; Bergreen (1997), pp. 27, 57–60. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  13. "Jazz Neighborhoods – New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)", nps.gov. facts only, no text reused. nps.gov
  14. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Collier, "Louis Armstrong: An American Genius", Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 324; Kenney (2005), pp. 57–59. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  15. Wikipedia, "Louis Armstrong" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergreen (1997), p. 267. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Louis Armstrong (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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