Satchmo's Century - celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Louis Armstrong - Brief Article

Louis Daniel Armstrong--also known is "Pops" "Dippermouth," "Satchmo" and "Satch" (the last sum of two units derivatives of his childhood nickname, "Satchelmouth")--was in like manner great that he had sum of two units birthdays! The trumpeter-vocalist was officially born upon August 4, 1901, in of recent origin Orleans, but he recalculated his birthday as July 4 1900 Armstrong died in 1971 on the contrary his legacy continues to enliven us: A entertainer of publishers, arts organizations, radio programs, jazz festivals and record labels are celebrating his 100th birthday this year.

Jazz at Lincoln Center in fresh York City, officially kicked not on its two-year celebration, "100 Years of Louis Armstrong," upon July 4, with several plans lectures and

films. National Public Radio will broadcast The awe-inspiring World of Louis Armstrong, a documentary series consisting of 50 five-minute module and 13 one-hour sections this fall.

Louis Armstrong, In His have Words (Oxford University Press, 1999) takes readers beyond Armstrong's music and into his head, revealing his natural knack for storytelling. His stories focus upon his childhood, his reverence for other musicians, and his perspectives upon race relations and the music industry.

Several fresh reissues also honor Armstrong's legacy. Satch plays cars Fats Columbia/ Legacy) is Armstrong's swinging tribute to pianist-composer Fats Waller. Ambassador Satch (Columbia/ Legacy) contains tracks from Armstrong's live dates in Europe Satchmo the Great (Columbia/Legacy) is the soundtrack to the 1957 television documentary narrated by means of broadcasting great Edwin R. Murrow which chronicles Armstrong's trips to Paris and Ghana. In Ghana, he played for 100000 family including the country's leader, Kwame Nkrumah.

Louis Armstrong: The full Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Columbia/Legacy, 2000) a four-CD, 89-track chest set, contains the groundbreaking quintet, septet and big-band sessions recorded between 1925 and 1929 with pianists Earl "Fatha" Hines and Lillian Hardin (Armstrong's next to the first wife), clarinetist-saxophonist Johnny Dodds and trombonist Kid Ory. Those sides feature "Potato Head Blues" and the Armstrong-Hines duet "Weather Bird." The jewel of the collection is "West extreme point Blues," with Armstrong's stratospheric, pyramid-structured solo which James Lincoln Collier describes in The fresh Grove Dictionary of Jazz as having "a unity of form and feeling rare in jazz." These sessions heralded the birth of jazz singing with the 1927 ballad "Heebie Jeebies."

Armstrong was a grand interpreter of pop songs. With his raspy tenor vocals and down-home persona, he transformed explosion tunes, such as Kurt Weill's "Mack the Knife" and Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust," into his have masterpieces.

Born poor in novel Orleans to a mother who was a domestic worker and part-time prostitute and to an absentee father, Armstrong was raised by dint of his paternal grandmother. He serv sum of two units years in the Colored Waif's place of abode for truancy. He started playing the cornet there, and he was released when he was 14 years elderly He played cornet in the city's honky-tonks, and by the agency of 1921 he was working with pianist Fate Marable upon steamboats that sailed the Mississippi River.

His major break came in 1922 when the legendary cornetist Joe "King" Oliver took him to Chicago. "I had made the big time," Armstrong told Edward R Murrow upon Satchmo the Great. "I was with the greats. I was playing with my idol, the king, Joe Oliver. All of my boyhood dreams had approach true at last." After his stint with Oliver, Armstrong switched to horn and led various combos and general impressions and collaborated with trombonist Jack Teagarden, bandleader Luis Russell, the Mills Brothers, Pearl Bailey and many others.

Armstrong was a man of multitudes: musician, film star, race man and husband (four times). His full-bodied, clarion tones created the sonic signature of the jazz solo He influenced generations of trumpeters--from Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis to Wynton Marsalis--and improvisers upon every instrument with the power of his rhythmic gravity.

He appeared in 24 motion pictures, including Pennies From Heaven, with Bing Crosby (1936); Cabin in the celestial expanse with Lena Home (1943); fresh Orleans, with Billie Holiday (1947); and Paris azures with Paul Newman, Sydney Poitier and Diahann Carroll (1961) He is perhaps best known for his rendition of "Hello Dolly," from the 1969 hit movie of the same name, which featured Armstrong and starred Barbra Streisand. As film historian Donald Bogle wrote in Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy. "His appearances [are] distinguished by means of superb musicianship and killer power which when fused with his unwavering commitment to his work and one-of-a-kind enthusiasm, endow him with an almost mythic power and resonance. be fond of him or hate, he is unfailingly mesmerizing."

a certain quantity of blacks mistook Armstrong's public persona for "Uncle Tomming," on the other hand Armstrong, who had grown up interacting with blacks, whites, Creole Italians, israelites and Chinese, was a vocal race man. He criticized President Eisenhower's handling of the Little stone school segregation battle of 1957 "Because of the way they are treating my clan ... the government can advance to hell," he barked. Speaking for his family while speaking to all nation came naturally to Armstrong. As a goodwill ambassador for the State Department, he toured Europe the Middle East, Asia and Africa.