August 4
Louis Armstrong, the man whom Bing Crosby called “the beginning and the end of music in America,” was born 114 years ago today. If jazz had a Mount Rushmore, “Satchmo” is its George Washington. Armstrong was almost singlehandedly responsible for the emergence of the soloist in jazz music, was one of its best improvisors, and helped bring scatting (the singing of nonsense words) into the genre. Thanks to his charisma, his unparalleled skill with the trumpet and that warm, gravelly voice, his influence on popular music remains as strong as ever over four decades after his death.
Born in a rough part of New Orleans where prostitution was legal, Armstrong was bounced around between his mother, father and extended family for most of his childhood. Unsurprisingly, he got into a fair amount of trouble during his youth, and was sent numerous times to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs. While he had already taught himself to play the coronet by this point, it was here where he received formal musical training. Playing gigs around town as part of the Home’s band, young Louis was already drawing notice at the age of 13.
From the beginning, Armstrong was a studious musician and soaked up everything he could from the Big Easy’s greats of the day. He polished his skills on the riverboats of New Orleans during his late teens, and at age 21, moved with his mentor, Joe “King” Oliver, to Chicago (then the capital of the jazz world). Oliver’s band quickly became one of the hottest in town, and soon, other trumpeters were challenging Armstrong to “cutting contests,” all to no avail; dethroning a man who could blow high C two hundred times in a row proved impossible.
Armstrong’s continued rise to fame was assisted by adversity he would encounter during the ‘30s. As the Depression decimated the jazz scene in Chicago, Armstrong found new opportunities in Hollywood, and landed his first movie role in 1931. (He would star in 12 films over the course of his career.) In a few years time, he would also find his strenuous playing style had taken a toll on both his fingers and lips, which forced him to focus more on developing his unique voice.
Soon, Armstrong’s reach extended well beyond the world of jazz. He became one of the first black entertainers to achieve mass appeal among white audiences, and eventually enjoyed a lifestyle of luxury and sociality completely unheard of for a black man in his day. Leaders of the African-American community who hoped to use his celebrity in advancing the cause of civil rights were largely disappointed, however; Armstrong very rarely spoke out on controversial issues of the time, including Segregation — with one very notable exception.
During the 1957 school integration crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, Armstrong expressed his ire at the federal government’s response (or lack thereof), and backed out of a U.S.S.R. tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. “The way they are treating my people in the South, the Government can go to hell,” he said. He also directed additional invective against both President Eisenhower and Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, calling the latter an “uneducated plow boy.”
The protest was not without impact; “Mr. Armstrong was regarded by the State Department as perhaps the most effective unofficial goodwill ambassador this country had,” reported the New York Times. Six days after his comments received national attention, federal troops were dispatched to escort the Little Rock Nine through the doors of Little Rock Central High School.
Such an uncharacteristic remonstration did little, if anything, to hurt Armstrong’s career, as some of his greatest successes were yet to come; in 1964, his recording of “Hello Dolly” topped the Billboard charts, ending the Beatles’ fourteen-week dominance. A few months shy of 63 at the time, Armstrong remains the oldest performer ever to reach No. 1.
Armstrong was married four times. While he may have fathered an illegitimate daughter (whom he supported), none of his unions produced any children. During his first marriage, however, he and his wife adopted a little boy orphaned and mentally disabled from an early head trauma; Armstrong cared for him for the rest of his life. Armstrong died of a heart attack in 1971 at the age of 69. Said Duke Ellington, “He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone along the way.”
Sources: Wikipedia entry for Louis Armstrong; 1957 New York Times article on Armstrong’s Little Rock comments; 1995 Riverwalk Jazz (Stanford University) piece
