Louis Armstrong was born in 1901, on a gritty street in New Orleans to a neglectful mother and an absentee father. His future could have played out on these streets if it had not been for one, fateful New Years Eve. At midnight, thirteen-year-old Louis fired a celebratory shot into the air from his stepfather’s thirty-eight-calibre pistol and was promptly arrested.
Louis Armstrong Music Emerges After Life Altering Event
For this act of youthful enthusiasm, Armstrong received an indefinite sentence in a Colored Waif’s Home. Fortunately, for Louis, the home had a brass band and it’s leader; Peter Davis, upon discovering the boy’s keen ear and musical ability, gave him a cornet to play. Young Louis soon mastered the instrument and was promoted to head bugler and eventually to the leader of the Homes jazz ensemble.
In his autobiography, Louis Armstrong, my Life in New Orleans, page 44,Armstrong disputed this version of his introduction to the cornet. He claimed as a boy working for junk dealer, he saw a battered cornet in a store window. Borrowing five dollars as an advance on his salary from the junkman, Louis bought the instrument. Armstrong said, “After blowing into it a while, I realized I could play “Home Sweet Home,” and then here come the blues.”
Upon his release from the Home, Armstrong returned to his life on the streets, but every chance he got he would sneak into a neighborhood cabaret where legendary bandleader and jazz cornet player ,Kid Ory/ Joe “King” Oliver and his band were playing. Oliver noticed the boy’s interest in music and began teaching him how to play jazz cornet.
Soon, Louis was sitting in with the Oliver band and when they moved to Chicago, Armstrong went with them. For the next five years, he continued to, as the musician say “cut” all comers.
But what was it in Armstrong’s horn playing that led to his meteoric rise? According to Jazz historian James L. Collier, in his book, “The Making of Jazz,” page 144, "while Louis may have been taught to play jazz cornet by “King” Joe Oliver, he did not copy his style."
The Innate Musical Intelligence of Satchmo Louis Armstrong
Collier also said that "Armstrong’s playing developed a clean, sharp edge and his ability to improvise marvellous melodic phrases made any band he played with swing. On long held notes, he would deliberately start slightly flat and pull up to the note creating tension and emotion. His high notes had more smoothness and clarity than any other horn player had ever achieved." One critic observed, “Armstrong brought high register into playing jazz.”
A Dynamic Big Band Jazz Trumpet Player
In 1926 while playing with the Carroll Dickerson band at the Sunset Café in Chicago, Louis developed into a more rounded entertainer by singing and doing little comedy routines. He also switched from playing cornet to trumpet. The trumpet had more power and brilliance in the upper registers and made Armstrong’s playing even more dynamic.
Throughout his long career as a jazz virtuoso, Louis Armstrong played and recorded with most of the Jazz greats of his generation.
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong died from a heart ailment on July 6, 1971. In his later years, many regarded Armstrong as more of an entertainer than Jazz impresario. This is still a topic of debate, but in his heyday, no one has ever doubted the inventive, brilliance of Louis Armstrong's gold trumpet.
Sheila Aylesworth - Sheila Aylesworth is a retired Student Resource Assistant. Her responsibilities included positive, communication with people from all ...
