What a Wonderful World: a Wonderful Life of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong, also known as his nickname "Satchmo" or "Pops" or "Sweet Papa Dip", was one of greatest Jazz musicians of all time. He's a man who shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. His influence as an artist and cultural icon is universal, unmatched, and very much alive today.

Louis Armstrong was born into a very poor family as the grandson of slaves in one of the poorest sections of New Orleans, known as "Back of Town", on August 4, 1901 - a true date which was discovered by writer Gary Giddins on the mid-1980s through the examination of baptismal records. Before this true birth date revealed, many biographies - and even Armstrong himself often stated in public interviews that he was born on July 4, 1900.

His father, William Armstrong (1881–1922), abandoned the family when Louis was an infant and took up with another woman. He and his younger sister Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1903–1987) then left by their mother, Mayann Armstrong (1886–1942) in the care of their grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, then moved back to her at five, and saw his father only in parades.

At his poor childhood he doing every type of jobs for food for his family he can do, including going out on street corners at night to sing for coins. However, Armstrong had his first formal music lessons when he was 11 years old in the Jones Home for Colored Waifs after juvenile court sent him there for firing a pistol on New Year's Eve.

After being released, he worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart. He didn't own an instrument at this time, but continued to listen to bands at clubs like the Funky Butt Hall. He largely supported himself as a musician, playing with pick-up bands and in small clubs with his mentor Joe "King" Oliver, his favorite and the older man acted as a father to him. Oliver was one of a handful of noted musicians in New Orleans who were creating a distinctive and widely popular new band music out of blues and "ragtime" - before called "jazz".

Later, Armstrong played in the brass bands and first started traveling with the well-regarded band of Fate Marable which toured on a steamboat up and down the Mississippi River. In 1919, Joe Oliver decided to go north and he resigned his position. Armstrong replaced his Oliver and played second cornet. Soon he was promoted to first cornet and he also became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band.

In 1922, Armstrong left the city to go to Chicago, where he had been join Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. There he could make a sufficient income so that he no longer needed to doing day labor jobs. Armstrong lived like a king in Chicago, a center of the jazz universe at that time, in his own apartment with his own (first) private bath.

Then he moved on to New York City in 1924 to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African–American band of the day. There he influenced the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra with his improvisation and a new musical vocabulary.

Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925. In publicity, much to his chagrin, she billed him as "the World’s Greatest Trumpet Player". He wowing audiences with freedom of his groundbreaking trumpet solos, as it has been said that he used his voice like a musical instrument and used his horn like a singer's voice. Armstrong also began recording under his own name with his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, producing hits such as "Potato Head Blues", "Muggles", and "West End Blues", the music of which set the standard and the agenda for jazz for many years to come.

By 1929 Louis Armstrong was becoming a grudgingly respected big star. In June of 1933 he returned to New Orleans for the first time since he left in 1922, and he was greeted as a hero, despite racism issue marred his return. Jazz also was becoming a worldwide phenomenon and Armstrong was its leader, as was recorded in the November 1934 issue of Music: Le Magazine du Jazz (Brussels): "Armstrong arrives! Who is Armstrong? The true king of jazz. The only one who could convince those who doubt."

Armstrong's nickname "Satchmo" or "Satch" is short for Satchelmouth (describing his embouchure) who become stuck after Melody Maker magazine editor Percy Brooks greeted him in London with "Hello, Satchmo!".

After World War II and though the early years of the Cold War, Armstrong served as "Ambassador Satch", spreading good will for America around the globe including State Department-sponsored tours and broadcasts in the '60s. Armstrong was also a major financial supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists. He mostly preferred to work quietly behind the scenes, not mixing his politics with his work as an entertainer. However, he publicly condemned the violence that swept Little Rock, Arkansas, over school desegregation in 1957 and how it was handled. He said, "Do you dig me when I say, 'I have a right to blow my top over injustice?'". The FBI kept a file on Armstrong, for his outspokenness about integration.

In 1963, Armstrong scored an international hit with his version of "Hello Dolly", then followed with another 1968 hit What a Wonderful World; a song about his living philosophy. On July 6th 1971, the world's greatest Jazz musician died of heart attack in his sleep at his home in Queens, New York.

Shortly before his death he stated, "I think I had a beautiful life. I didn't wish for anything that I couldn't get and I got pretty near everything I wanted because I worked for it."

What a Wonderful life.
----------------------------

References:

Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy
Louis Armstrong House Museum
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong (1901-1971)