#HTTP-EQUIV=keywords CONTENT="classical music: CD new releases, composers, humor etc"> #NAME=author CONTENT="Bill Munger"> #NAME=description CONTENT="new CD releases, composers, humor etc">

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Chicago 1923. Honoré Dutrey, tbn; Baby Dodds, dms; King Oliver, cor;
Louis Armstrong, s tpt; Lil Hardin, pn; Bill Johnson, bj; Johnny Dodds, cl. Louis is front and center
playing a slide trumpet.This is a publicity photo of Louis Armstrong et al with the
King Oliver Band. This arrangement of musicians was never used in performance.

Louis Armstrong
July 4, 1900

He was born in New Orleans. His mother was the granddaughter of slaves. She married Louis' father, a turpentine worker at age 15. When Louis was five his parents separated and he lived with his mother at Liberty and Perdido Streets in New Orleans Third Ward.

Louis' singing career started before he started to play. When he was about seven, he and a group of friends would sing for pennies and nickels. Then on December 31, 1913 he took his mother's gun, without her knowing, and ran out into the street to fire it in celebration of the new year. He was arrested and put in the Waifs' Home in New Orleans. He was given a cornet and soon he was playing for picnics and parades. He took lessons from Peter Davis of the Waifs' Home.

After his release from the home he worked several jobs and met Joe "King" Oliver. They became friends and Oliver became Louis' mentor and sole musical influence.
Oliver left New Orleans for Chicago as many musicians did and in July 1922 he sent for Louis to work as second cornetist in his band. Louis was working as a professional musician for Kid Ory, a former member of the Oliver band.

In Chicago Louis married the pianist in Oliver's band, Lil Hardin. He and Lil began working for Ollie Powers' Dreamland Band right after their marriage in 1924. They went on to join Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. In 1926 he joined Erskine Tate and doubled in Carroll Dickerson's orchestra billed as "... World's Greatest Trumpet Player."

During this time he started making recordings under his own name: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five (or Seven). He recorded his first disc under his own name November 12, 1928, My Heart. As his recording continued he used pianist Earl Hines from Dickerson's band. There was a dispute as to which mob boss managed Louis and he had to leave New York. When he returned (in defiance of the mob) he found he had become the idol of the Black community and musicians, white musicians and the European public. His technical facility improved as did his emotional impact and refined simplicity. And he surround himself with some of the best musicians of the day: Johnny and Baby Dodds, Kid Ory and Zutty Singleton.
Except for a brief period, when swing was beginning to grip the nation, Louis Armstrong's career became stronger and stronger. He made films, recorded for several companies, drew large crowds in theaters and dance halls and was chosen by the U.S. State Department as a cultural ambassador.

Both as a vocalist and performer Louis Armstrong is central and absolutely essential to jazz. His influence was felt continuously as jazz developed through it various phases. His impact was world wide. He set the standard for warmth beauty and simplicity. Duke Ellington frequently expressed his gratitude for Louis' influence and contribution to the development of the Ellington band. The jazz trumpet starts with Louis as he built on the New Orleans tradition of Buddy Bolden, Bunk Johnson and King Oliver. Louis laid the foundation for Roy Eldridge just as Roy laid it for Dizzy Gillespie. Swing, Be-bop and other forms of jazz all owe a debt to Louis.

He was one of the greatest improvisers. He would invent extraordinary solos on the simplest of tunes. Wonderful swinging through changes of rhythm and pitch, he gave the music something few can give. Technically he showed a new possibility for the trumpet, playing it in a higher register than it was thought possible. He gave us a "subtly varied repertory of vibratos and shakes with which Armstrong colors and embellishes individual notes" as one jazz writer put ii. His "rips" to high pitches made the music alive as well as beautiful. Louis also made his contribution in the form of "scat" singing. With nonsense syllables he showed how the vocalist could be as important as the player.

J