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Swing-Era Dossier

Louis Armstrong

1900 – 1971

Born

Disputed. Armstrong claimed July 4, 1900, New Orleans, LA his entire life — his mother told him fireworks were going off the night he was born. In 1988, researcher Tad Jones found his Sacred Heart Catholic Church baptismal record showing August 4, 1901 (parents Willie Armstrong and Mary Ann "Mayann" Albert). The 1901 date is now generally accepted, though some scholars still argue for 1900. Birth certificate has never been located.

Died

July 6, 1971, Corona, Queens, NY. Heart attack in his sleep, age 69 (or 70, by his own count). Had observed "his" 71st birthday two days earlier on July 4.

Instruments

Cornet (primary, 1913–c.1926), then trumpet; vocals (his other primary instrument); also bugle as a kid. Started on a tin horn given to him by the Karnofskys.

Nicknames

  • "Satchmo" — contraction of "Satchelmouth." British editor Percy Brooks (Melody Maker) greeted him "Hello, Satchmo!" in 1932, slurring the older nickname; Armstrong adopted it.
  • "Satchelmouth" / "Dippermouth" / "Gatemouth" — all childhood mouth-size jokes. "Dippermouth Blues" is named for him.
  • "Pops" — what musicians and friends called him. He also called everyone else "Pops" because he was bad with names.

Bands / years

  • Colored Waifs' Home Brass Band (1913–1914) — learned cornet under Peter Davis.
  • Kid Ory's band, New Orleans (1918–1919, replacing King Oliver when Oliver left for Chicago).
  • Fate Marable's riverboat band on the SS Sidney (1919–1921) — learned to read music.
  • King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Chicago (1922–1924) — second cornet to his mentor at the Lincoln Gardens.
  • Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, NYC (1924–1925) — the gig that taught New York what swing was.
  • Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven (1925–1928) — studio-only group; the recordings that rewrote jazz.
  • Carroll Dickerson, then Luis Russell big bands fronting "Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra" (1929–1947).
  • The Louis Armstrong All Stars (1947–1971) — small combo built for the road; final two decades.

Active

c. 1913–1971.

Signature tunes

"West End Blues" (1928), "Stardust," "Heebie Jeebies" (1926 — the scat-singing landmark), "Hello, Dolly!" (1964), "What a Wonderful World" (1967), "Mack the Knife" (1955), "When the Saints Go Marching In," "St. Louis Blues," "Sleepy Time Down South" (his theme).

Famous compositions

Songs he actually wrote (most from the Hot Five/Seven era, several co-credited to second wife Lil Hardin):

  • "Cornet Chop Suey" (1926) — copyrighted lead sheet in his hand survives. Named because he loved Chinese food.
  • "Potato Head Blues" (1927) — Hot Seven. The lead sheet was filed by Lil six months after recording; the famous stop-time solo was improvised in the studio.
  • "Struttin' with Some Barbecue" (1927) — credited to Lil Hardin Armstrong; Louis introduced it.
  • "Wild Man Blues" (1927, co-written with Jelly Roll Morton — disputed credit).
  • "Weather Bird" (with King Oliver, 1923).
  • NOT his: "Hello, Dolly!" (Jerry Herman, 1963), "What a Wonderful World" (Bob Thiele/George David Weiss, 1967), "Mack the Knife" (Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht, 1928), "West End Blues" (King Oliver), "St. Louis Blues" (W.C. Handy).

Interesting facts

  • The Karnofskys. Age 7, he worked on a coal/junk wagon for the Karnofsky family — Lithuanian Jewish immigrants on South Rampart Street. They fed him, lent him $2 to buy his first cornet from a pawn shop, and gave him a tin horn to blow on the wagon. He wore a Star of David necklace for the rest of his life and wrote a 1969 memoir titled Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La, the Year of 1907.
  • The .38. On New Year's Eve 1912, age 11, he fired his stepfather's .38 revolver (loaded with blanks) into the air at Rampart and Perdido. Arrested, sentenced to the Colored Waifs' Home for Boys — where Peter Davis put a cornet in his hands. The arrest made him.
  • Joe "King" Oliver mentored him in New Orleans, gave him his Kid Ory chair when he left, then summoned him to Chicago in 1922. Armstrong: "If it had not been for Joe Oliver, jazz would not be what it is today."
  • "Hello, Dolly!" knocked the Beatles off #1 (Billboard Hot 100, May 9, 1964), ending 14 straight weeks of Beatles dominance. At 62, Armstrong became the oldest artist ever to top the chart. He'd recorded it as a favor to Joe Glaser and forgotten about the song entirely — had to relearn it from the record when audiences started shouting for it.
  • The 1930 marijuana bust. Arrested with drummer Vic Berton outside the Cotton Club in Culver City, CA, smoking a joint. Six-month suspended sentence. He smoked daily for the rest of his life and called it "the gage." Wrote a long letter to Joe Glaser defending it after wife Lucille's 1954 Hawaii bust.
  • Four wives: Daisy Parker (1918–1923, a New Orleans prostitute), Lil Hardin (1924–1938, pianist who pushed him out of Oliver's shadow and into solo stardom), Alpha Smith (1938–1942), Lucille Wilson (1942–1971, Cotton Club dancer, with him until death).
  • Heebie Jeebies, 1926 — Armstrong dropped the lyric sheet mid-recording and scatted the rest. Popular myth says this invented scat; it didn't (Jelly Roll Morton and others predate it), but the record made it mainstream.
  • Little Rock, 1957. Canceled a State-Department-sponsored Soviet tour after Eisenhower wouldn't move on school integration. Told a North Dakota student reporter Eisenhower had "no guts," Faubus was an "uneducated plow boy," and "the way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell." Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne into Little Rock a week later.
  • Joe Glaser, his manager 1935 until Glaser's death in 1969, was a former Al Capone associate. The relationship was total — Glaser controlled the money; Armstrong played, on the road ~300 nights a year for decades.
  • The FBI kept a file on him. Hoover was suspicious of his civil-rights statements and his cannabis.
  • Laxatives. Famously evangelical about Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives; handed them out, signed autographs with the tagline "Leave it all behind ya," and posed for a photo on the toilet that he sent as a Christmas card.

Sources