Louis Armstrong ( New Orleans , 4 of July of 1900 – New York , 6 of July of 1971 ) was a trumpeter, singer and director of group of jazz American. One of the most charismatic and innovative figures in jazz history and probably its most popular musician.
Summary
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- 1 Biography
- 1 Childhood and youth
- 2 Beginnings in his musical career
- 3 Your own group
- 4 Louis Armstrong and the All Stars
- 5 Death
- 2 Awards received
- 3 Discography
- 4 Sources
Biography
He was born into a very poor family and in one of the marginal neighborhoods of that city. Son of William Armstrong and Mary “Mayann” Albert. The misery worsened when their father abandoned them.
Childhood and youth
With no musical background in his family, his interest in this art germinates when he listens to the famous New Orleans bands that regularly parade through the avenues of the city play in his hometown. His first contact with music took place in a reformatory for abandoned children when he was admitted for good behavior in the band of the reformatory. There, advised by the musical director of the same, Peter Davis, he opts for the trumpet among other instruments.
When in 1914 he left the reformatory, he began to work in the Storyville cabarets , where all the nightclubs in the city were concentrated, and there he met the cornetist, King Oliver . In 1918 , with a well-earned reputation as a cornet player, he was hired by the conductor, Kid Ory . A short time later, it is Fate Marable , who sets his sights on him to join his prestigious band that performs daily on the steamboats that sail the Mississippi .
He carefully watched all the parades of the usual marching bands in the city and listened to veteran musicians as often as possible, learning from Bunk Johnson , Buddy Petit and, above all, Joe King Oliver .
Beginnings in his musical career
In 1922 , his big break came King Oliver called him to join his “Creole Jazz Band” in Chicago , where he married the band’s pianist, Lilian Hardin. There begins his tremendous career. He recorded his first albums and his fame reached the ears of himself, Fletcher Henderson , the best black conductor of the moment, who invited him to New York in 1924to play in his big band, with which he recorded some records that showed the creativity and originality of the musician. His virtuosity in improvisation exerted a great influence on New York jazz musicians. In just one year, he revolutionized the style and playing of his peers and recorded with the best blues singers of the time, among others with the great, Bessie Smith .
Your own group
In 1925 he returned to Chicago and began one of the most momentous chapters in the history of jazz. He formed his own two groups, first The Hot Five and then The Hot Seven , with which he became one of the most renowned jazz musicians in the world and achieved that in the 1920s Chicago shared the world capital of jazz with Nueva York , a city to which he returned at the end of that decade, among other reasons, to strengthen his film career. Armstrong’s work with both groups would become a classic in jazz history, being enormously influential and reinterpreted.
Outside of the studio he continued to play with Big Bands. The appearance in 1926 of Heebie Jeebies marks the first sample of the vocal style called scatting, which Armstrong would make famous.
He returned to New York in 1929 , then moved to Los Angeles in 1930 and then toured Europe starting in 1932 , achieving spectacular success in Paris . After many years of touring, he settled permanently in Queens , New York, in 1943 and continued to develop his technique and his musical career.
He performed an average of three hundred times per year. In the 1940s, big bands went into decline due to changes in public taste, moving to second place. It became impossible to maintain and finance traveling orchestras of 16 musicians.
He made his film debut with an appearance in the film Ex-flame, the year he also separated from Lilian Hardin. In 1932 he made a successful tour of the United Kingdom , which he would repeat the following year, although this time he also included Denmark , Norway and the Netherlands on his itinerary .
In 1936 , his popularity was such that he decided to publish an autobiography, which he titled Swing that music . Seven years after their marital separation he obtained a divorce and then married Alpha Smith.
In 1939 he participated in the making of Swingin the dream , a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare in jazz key . After four years of marriage, he divorced his second wife and married Lucille Wilson for a third time.
Louis Armstrong and the All Stars
Louis Armstrong
Armstrong’s group, which had taken on the shape of a big band after its definitive move to New York in 1929, underwent a further transformation in 1947 , reducing its number of members to seven and changing its name to Louis Armstrong and the All Stars . With this septet he participated in the Nice Jazz Festival ( France ) held in 1948 , which is considered the first in history. Six years later he published a second autobiography, Satchmo: My live in New Orleans .
During the 1950s he gave concerts in much of the world and toured Africa , Australia and Japan .
Apart from his musical side, he was a man of deep political convictions, which led him to publicly condemn racial segregation. In 1964 , the song Hello, Dolly from the self-titled musical earned her her first number one on the national charts. The following year, the municipal authorities of his native New Orleans granted him the key to the city.
In 1970 he was paid a tribute in the framework of the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, in which figures such as the singer Mahalia Jackson , Dizzy Gillespie , Bobby Hackett or The Eureka Brass Band participated .
Death
He died at his home in Corona, New York the 6 of July of 1971 , in his sleep of complications from the heart, just a month before his 70th birthday.
Awards received
In 1964 , he recorded what would be his best-selling song: Hello, Dolly . The song took the position number one in the lists of the United States , surpassing the English group The Beatles .
He also earned the album a Grammy Award for the Best Male Artist and was nominated for Best Album of the year . In this album you will also find another of his classic Jeepers Creepers
