The work of trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong once summarized the achievements of New Orleans jazz style and pointed the way to the latest development of music as a solo-oriented art. Its historical importance is offset by its popular appeal – a rare combination in the jazz art form, which is often suspicious of commercial success – and his career, is the favorite of “West End Blues” in 1928, at one end this has changed the course of jazz with his flamboyance and virtuosity, and (at the other end), in his hit records “Hello Dolly” and “What a Wonderful World”, which attracted a mass audience with their charisma and emotionally direct. Leslie Critic Gourse entitled his book on jazz singers Louis “The children, but may equally well be applied to all jazz musicians later, which swim in the inheritance and often work in ’shadow of this huge figure of the art of the first time.
Armstrong often stated that his birthday was the fourth of July, 1900 – a symbolic milestone to celebrate the arrival of this important figure at the dawn of the American Century. However, he used 1901 on the application of social security and other official documents. Search by Tad Jones and Gary Giddins led to the discovery of records of baptism Armstrong has created the most prosaic birthday of August 4 1901.
Armstrong suffered the stigma of an illegitimate child of a prostitute, raised in abject poverty of the tower-of-the-century New Orleans. His father, William Armstrong has left the family when Louis was still an infant, and his mother Mary Armstrong was often absent, and with the child to fall into the care of his grandmother and uncle. He briefly attended the Fisk School for boys, but left when he was eleven years. He earned money by singing in the streets with a quartet, young and working odd jobs. Arrested for firing a gun as part of a celebration of New Year’s Eve, Armstrong was placed in the House of New Orleans Waifs. Armstrong has benefited from the structured and disciplined environment in this context, but perhaps even more so by the musical training he received from the hands of Professor Peter Davis. Armstrong was soon attracting the attention of his cornet playing, and absorb the sounds of jazz from New Orleans.
Armstrong was excited by playing of cornetist Buddy Bolden, a quasi-legend who has never registered, but is often credited as the first musician to perform New Orleans jazz style. The youth was also admired and learned from Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, Buddy Petit and especially the great Joe ‘King’ Oliver. When Oliver left New Orleans in 1919 to try his luck in the North, Armstrong took his place in the Kid Ory. Armstrong also played on the river boats, and served as second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band. Around this time Armstrong married Daisy Parker, and the couple adopted Clarence Armstrong, the son of Louis the cousin of Flora who died shortly after childbirth. But marriage did not last long, and Parker is dying soon after the divorce.
In 1922, Armstrong was invited to travel to Chicago to join King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. This was the most famous jazz band in Chicago at the time, Armstrong and the association has given a platform to continue his fame and success. Armstrong and Oliver gained attention for the counterpoint of two cones, but in time the youngest player of the more assertive tend to surpass the work of his employer. King Oliver’s classic recording of “Dippermouth Blues”, we see the contrast between the two designers. Former Oliver remains faithful to the tradition of New Orleans mixed with other instruments, and concentrating on the timbre and texture rather than the variety of notes, but the young Armstrong was chomping at the bit, anxious to demonstrate his virtuosity on the horn. His second wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, who was also with pianist Oliver band, encouraged him to go as a leader and to develop his own style and sound like a jazz musician.