Armstrong, Louis

Louis, as he was called in the Creole manner, was born in the poorest Negro district of New Orleans . Grew up in a dysfunctional family. His father left the family when the boy was still a baby. Mother was engaged in prostitution. The boy, along with his younger sister Beatrice, was given to their grandmother Josephine, who still remembered the times of slavery, was raised. After some time, Armstrong's mother, Mayanne, took Louis, but she never paid due attention to him. Armstrong from childhood engaged in the distribution of coal, selling newspapers and other similar work.

At the age of seven, he began to help around the house with a family of coal traders Karnofsky, Jews who had recently immigrated to America from Lithuania. Later, he began to stay with them for the night and eventually became a practically adopted son in this family ^{[4] [5]} . Thanks to this family, he was fluent in Yiddish and, until the end of his days, wore a chain with a pendant Star of David. Karnofsky lived in Storyville, an area known for its free morals, as well as bars, clubs, dance halls and brothels. It was Karnofsky who later gave money to Armstrong to buy a cornet , his first musical instrument of his own ^{[4] [5] [6]} .

Armstrong began to sing early in a small street vocal ensemble, played drums and trained his hearing for several years. He received his first musical education at the Waif's Home correctional camp for colored teenagers in 1913, where he fell for a random mischievous act - shooting from a pistol on the street on New Year's Eve (the pistol was stolen from him by a policeman - one of his mother’s clients ) . There, he immediately joined the camp brass band and learned to play the tambourine , althorn , and then mastered the cornet. The orchestra performed the traditional repertoire of that time - marches , polkas and popular songs. By the time the term ended, Louis decided to become a musician. Having freed himself, he began to go to clubs and play borrowed instruments in local orchestras. He was taken under his protection by King Oliver , who was then considered the best cornetist of the city and whom Louis Armstrong himself considered his real teacher. After Oliver left for Chicago in 1918, Armstrong was taken to his ensemble by the highly respected trombonist Kid Ori . Louis occasionally began performing in the Tuxedo Brass Band Oscar Papa Celestin, where musicians such as Paul Dominguez, Zatti Singleton, Albert Necols, Barney Bigard and Louis Russell played. He participated in jazz parades along the streets of his hometown and played in the Fats Maraible's Jazz-E-Sazz Band, which performed dances on steamboats sailing the Mississippi during the summer season. After Maraible, a fairly professional band leader, taught the young man the basics of musical notation, Armstrong became considered a qualified musician. For him, gradually, among musicians, the nickname Satchmo is fixed - an abbreviation for English Satchel Mouth ("mouth-mech").

In 1922, Oliver needed a second cornet player, and he invited Armstrong to Chicago to play Lincoln Gardens (a restaurant with 700 seats) in his Creole Jazz Band. This band was then the brightest jazz band in Chicago, and working in this band gave Armstrong a lot for his future career. As part of Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in Chicago, Armstrong made his first recordings. In 1924, he married a second time (his first wife was a prostitute, Creole Daisy Parker from New Orleans) on the ensemble pianist, Lil Hardin , and at the insistence of his wife began an independent career. The Armstrongs left for New York , where Louis joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. There he became famous, jazz lovers came to listen to the band often for the sake of his "hot" solos. By this time, Louis Armstrong's own style was finally formed - bright, improvisational and inventive.

During this period, Armstrong participated in the recordings of the “Blu Five” ensemble of the pianist Clarence Williams and worked on various accompaniment ensembles with many blues and jazz vocalists (Ma Rainey, Trixie Smith, Clara Smith, Bessie Smith , Alberta Hunter, Maggie Jones, Eva Tay Virginia Liston, Margaret Johnson, Sipy Wallace, Perry Bradford).

In 1925, after the expiration of the engagement term with Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago and worked there a lot and successfully. He played with Erskine Tate in a theater show band, where his acting talent was clearly manifested. It was during this period that historical recordings were made with their best studio cast “Hot Five”. The recordings of these years with the participation of trombonist Kid Ori, clarinet player Johnny Dodds, banjo performer Johnny St. Cyr and pianist Lil Hardin (later recorded by Fred Robinson, Jimm Strong, Earl Hines and Zatti Singleton) have become masterpieces of jazz classics. In 1926, Louis became a soloist in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra, and after he left, he became a band leader and for a short time led his own orchestra “Louis Armstrong And His Stompers”, whose members were Boyd Atkins, Joe Dixon, Al Washington, Earl Hines, Rip Basset , Pete Briggs, Tabby Hall. In 1927, Pete Briggs and Baby Dodds (Johnny's brother) joined the Hot Five studio quintet to form the new Hot Seven studio squad, with which a number of brilliant session recordings were made. In the same period, Armstrong refused the cornet, completely switching to the pipe , which he liked with a brighter sound. He performed duets with pianist Earl Hines, starting to sing in a “scat” manner (this was the first time he recorded the play “Heebie Jeebies”), gaining tremendous success with the audience.

In 1929, Louis Armstrong finally moved to New York. The era of big bands came, and he began to concentrate more and more on dance, then popular suite music ( sweet music ). Armstrong brought his vibrant individual style, characteristic of hot jazz, to this musical style and quickly became a national star. Sachmo's talent has reached its peak.

In the 1930s, Louis Armstrong toured a lot, performed with the famous big bands of Louis Russell and Duke Ellington , then in California with the orchestra of Leon Elkins and Forest Height, participated in filming in Hollywood . In 1931 he visited with a big band New Orleans; Returning to New York, he played in Harlem and Broadway . A number of tours made to Europe (in the pre-war period since 1933 he performed several times in England, toured in Scandinavia, France, Holland) and North Africa, brought Armstrong the widest fame as at home (before, he was mainly popular in the USA among the Negro public) and abroad. In between tours, he performed with the orchestras of Charlie Gaines, Chick Webb, Kid Ori, with the vocal quartet “Mills Brothers”, in theatrical productions and radio programs, starred in films.

In 1933, he again began to lead the jazz band. Since 1935, the entire business part of Armstrong’s life was taken under control by his new manager, Joe Glaser, a professional in his field. Armstrong's autobiographical book, Swing That Music, was published in New York in 1936. Then came health problems: he underwent several operations related to the treatment of an upper lip injury (deformation and rupture of tissues due to excessive pressure of the mouthpiece and improper ear cushion ), as well as an operation on the vocal cords (with its help Armstrong tried to get rid of a hoarse voice timbre , the value of which for his unique performing manner, he realized only later).

In 1938, Louis Armstrong married a fourth (and last) time dancer Lucille Wilson, with whom he lived until the end of his days.

A great musician adored his Jewish parents all his life, wrote a book about them published in New Orleans , always wore the Star of David, spoke Yiddish fluently and dedicated his song about Jews who came out of Egypt, “Let My People Go,” to his adoptive father. He wrote it for the anniversary of his beloved father in 1939, first performed in the New Orleans synagogue for the holiday of Hanukkah .

In 1947, Joe Glaser, his manager, assembled the All Stars ensemble for Armstrong. Initially, it really was an orchestra of all stars - then it included, in addition to Louis Armstrong (trumpet, vocals) Earl Hines (piano), Jack Tigarden (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Bad Freeman (tenor saxophone), Sid Catlett (drums ) and other famous jazz masters. Subsequently, musicians often changed, and thanks to their participation in the group, many little-known jazzmen until then gained great fame.

"All-Stars" focused on the performance in the style of " Dixieland ", as well as jazz processing of popular songs, the latter still prevailing in the ensemble's repertoire. By the mid-1950s, Louis Armstrong was one of the most famous musicians and showmen in the world, in addition, he starred in more than 50 films. The US State Department awarded him the unofficial title of “Ambassador of Jazz” and has repeatedly sponsored his world tours. In the mid-50s, when the State Department under Eisenhower was ready to finance his trip to the USSR, but Louis refused ^[7] :

People would ask me there what is being done in my country. What could I answer them?

Original text

The people over there ask me what's wrong with my country. What am I supposed to say?

Subsequently, in the 1960s, various options for his tour in the USSR were repeatedly discussed, but all this remained in the projects . Nevertheless, Armstrong performed in other cities of the socialist camp, vivid evidence is the recording of the March concerts of All stars 1965 in Lucerne Hall in Prague , played literally in one go ^[8] .

In 1954, Armstrong wrote his second autobiographical book, Satchmo. My Life in New Orleans. "

In the future, the artist’s popularity continued to grow due to his tireless and versatile creative activity. Noteworthy is his collaboration with Sydney Bechet , Bing Crosby , Sai Oliver, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and other jazz stars, participation in jazz festivals (1948 - Nice , 1956-1958 - Newport , 1959 - Italy , Monterey ), many tours countries of Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa. With his assistance, a number of philharmonic jazz concerts were organized in the Town Hall and on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera . The recording of Gershwin ’s opera Porgy and Bess, made by him and Ella Fitzgerald in the 1950s, became classic.

In 1959, Armstrong suffered a heart attack , and from that moment his health did not allow him to perform in full, but he did not stop the concert performances.

In the 1960s, Armstrong worked more often as a vocalist, recording both new versions of traditional gospel compositions (“ Go Down Moses ”) and new songs (for example, the theme for Her Majesty's Secret Service movie, “We Have All the Time in the World "). Together with Barbra Streisand, he took part in the musical “Hello, Dolly!”; single-released song “ Hello, Dolly! "In his performance reached the first place in the American hit parade of sales . Armstrong's latest hit was the life-affirming song “ What a Wonderful World ” (first place in the UK).

5 months before Armstrong’s death in 1971, a trumpeter’s live performance was recorded on which, among other compositions, he performed the famous themes Mack the Knife , Rockin 'Chair and Boy from New Orleans . Later, in 1972, a release with this improvised set was released under the name Satchmo at the National Press Club: Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours . Released only on vinyl, this disc was no longer reissued until 2012 - on April 24, it became available on CDs ^[9] .

In the late 1960s, the artist's health began to deteriorate sharply, but he continued to work. On January 21, 1971, he played and sang for the last time on The David Frost Show with his old stage partner Bing Crosby. ^[10] In March, Armstrong and his All Stars performed for two more weeks at Waldorf Astoria in New York. But another heart attack again made him go to the hospital, where he spent two months. On July 5, 1971, Armstrong asked to assemble his orchestra for rehearsal. He died on July 6: heart failure led to kidney failure.

Armstrong's death caused a flood of condolences. Many newspapers, not only in the United States, but also in other countries (including the Soviet newspaper Izvestia ) posted on the front page a message about his death. The funeral was very solemn and broadcast on television throughout the country. On July 8, the body was exhibited for a solemn farewell at the National Guard training hall, which was provided for these purposes by personal order of the US President . A statement made by President Nixon said: “Ms. Nixon and I share the grief of millions of Americans over the death of Louis Armstrong. He was one of the creators of American art. A man of bright personality, Armstrong has gained worldwide fame. His brilliant talent and nobility enriched our spiritual life, made it more eventful ” ^[11] .

Favorite DVDs

• Hollywood Walk of Fame - List of Laureates for Contributing to the Recording Industry

• Collier J.L. Louis Armstrong. American genius . - M .: Pressverk Publishing House, 2001. ISBN 5-94584-027-0
• Feuertag V. B. Jazz. XX century. Encyclopedic reference book. - St. Petersburg: "Scythia", 2001, p.22-24. ISBN 5-94063-018-9
• Shapiro N. Listen to what I tell you ... The story of jazz told by the people who created it. - Novosibirsk: Sib.univ.izd-in, 2006. ISBN 5-94087-307-3
• Bohlander K., Holler K.-H. Jazzfuhrer.— Leipzig, 1980, p. 18-23.
• Nadezhdin N. Ya. And old Moses came down. - M.: Publisher Major, 2009. ISBN 978-5-98551-068-3
• Brothers, Thomas David ,. Louis Armstrong, master of modernism. - First edition. - New York. - xi, 594 pages p. - ISBN 9780393065824

• Official Armstrong Website
• Armstrong Louis at Discogs
• Armstrong Louis on MusicBrainz
• Louis Armstrong's profile at Last.fm