Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 - July 6, 1971) nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly-recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics). Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man.
Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn't travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver's band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong's role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise.
Other hits followed through the twenties and thirties, as well as troubles: crooked managers, lip injuries, mob entanglements, failed big-band ventures. As jazz styles changed, though, musical purists never lost any respect for him -- although they were sometimes irritated by his hammy onstage persona. Around the late forties, with the help of a good manager, Armstrong's business affairs finally stablilized, and he began to be seen as an elder statesman of American popular entertainment, appearing in Hollywood films, touring Asia and Europe, and dislodging The Beatles from the number-one position with Hello Dolly". Today many people may know him as a singer (a good one), but as Miles Davis said: “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him."
The 62-year-old Armstrong became the oldest act to top the US charts when "Hello Dolly" reached #1 in 1964. Four years later Satchmo also became the oldest artist to record a UK #1, when "What a Wonderful World" hit the top spot. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Similar artists
-
The Definitive Album by Louis Armstrong
Jazz - Released by Audio Fidelity on 31 jan. 1970
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
I Like Jazz: The Essence Of Louis Armstrong
Jazz - Released by Legacy - Columbia on 1 okt. 1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
16 Most Requested Songs
Jazz - Released by Legacy - Columbia on 27 mei 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Hot Fives And Hot Sevens - Volume II
Jazz - Released by Columbia on 30 aug. 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson
Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson
Jazz - Released by Iris music on 1 jan. 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Louis Armstrong, Streaming Best
Lounge - Released by Wnts on 30 okt. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Complete Louis Armstrong, Vol. 12 ("New Orleans", 1946-1947)
Jazz - Released by Fremeaux Heritage on 1 mrt. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
-
-
The Great Reunion (Remastered)
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington
Jazz - Released by Avid Entertainment on 1 jan. 1963
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sugar
Jazz - Released by Quimbaya Entretenimiento SAS on 29 sep. 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verve Jazz Masters 1: Louis Armstrong
Jazz - Released by Verve Reissues on 1 jan. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Louis Armstrong's Greatest Hits
Jazz - Released by Columbia - Legacy on 1 jan. 1967
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Louis Armstrong: Verve Ultimate Cool
Jazz - Released by Decca (UMO) on 1 jan. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Louis (Expanded Edition)
Jazz - Released by Verve Reissues on 6 jan. 1966
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
What A Wonderful World
Jazz - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 21 aug. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Complete Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings Volume 2
Jazz - Released by Columbia - Legacy on 11 apr. 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Oh Didn't He Ramble
Jazz - Released by Verve Reissues on 19 okt. 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Black And Blue
Jazz - Released by American Popsongs on 25 jun. 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo