Louis Armstrong, 1901-1971, Trumpeter/Singer

Paintings» Louis Armstrong, by Jerry Malinka

Artist: Jerry Malinka
Media Types: Acrylic, Canvas, Painting
Style & Subject: Abstract, Impressionism, Musical

More Details & Buy Painting: ~dart.fine-art.com

Quotes: "Louis Armstrong"

Anyone can learn what Louis Armstrong knows about music in a few weeks. Nobody could learn to play like him in a thousand years.


— Benny Green

Videos: Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World

Articles: Louis Armstrong (~www.louisarmstronghouse.org)

Louis Armstrong


Louis Armstrong was born in a poor section of New Orleans known as “the Battlefield” on August 4, 1901.

By the time of his death in 1971, the man known around the world as Satchmo was widely recognized as a founding father of jazz—a uniquely American art form. His influence, as an artist and cultural icon, is universal, unmatched, and very much alive today.


Louis Armstrong’s achievements are remarkable. During his career, he:

• developed a way of playing jazz, as an instrumentalist and a vocalist, which has had an impact on all musicians to follow;

• recorded hit songs for five decades, and his music is still heard today on television and radio and in films;

• wrote two autobiographies, more than ten magazine articles, hundreds of pages of memoirs, and thousands of letters;

• appeared in more than thirty films (over twenty were full-length features) as a gifted actor with superb comic timing and an unabashed joy of life;

• composed dozens of songs that have become jazz standards;

• performed an average of 300 concerts each year, with his frequent tours to all parts of the world earning him the nickname “Ambassador Satch,” and became one of the first great celebrities of the twentieth century.

Through the years, Louis entertained millions, from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in Corona. Despite his fame, he remained a humble man and lived a simple life in a working-class neighborhood. To this day, everyone loves Louis Armstrong—just the mention of his name makes people smile.

~www.louisarmstronghouse.org

Louis Armstrong, 1901-1971, Trumpeter/Singer

Biography: Louis Armstrong (~wikipedia)

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" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, resembling the sound of a trumpet, 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 greatly 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. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.