Louis Armstrong

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We're talking about Louis Daniel Armstrong this time on Let's Make Music. And welcome, Welcome to Let's Make Music, the show all about music. We surely truly appreciate you joining us today for this installment, And as promised, we're going to talk about a true icon in jazz, a man who had a pretty tragic life, but through it all found love through music and performing and making people happy, many times at the sacrifice of his own We're talking about Louis Daniel Armstrong, better known as Louis Armstrong or Pops, was a nickname sach Satchmo. He was born August fourth, nineteen oh one and passed away July sixth, nineteen seventy one, and he's an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz. Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans, coming to prominence in the nineteen twenties as an inventive trumpet and cornett player. Armstrong was a a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of music from collective improvisation to solo performance. Around nineteen twenty two, he followed his mentor, Joe King Oliver to Chicago to play in the Creole Jazz Band Now. While in Chicago, he spent time with other popular jazz musicians of the day, reconnecting with his friend Bix Bickerdy and spending time with Hogy, Carmichael, and Lil Harden. He earned a reputation at cutting contests. What that is is when musicians would get together and just try and outdo one another, but in a friendly competition, and his fame reached bandleader Fletcher Henderson. Now, Henderson persuaded Armstrong to come to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band, soloist and recording artist. Harden became Armstrong's second wife when they returned to Chicago to play together, and then began to form his own hot jazz bands. After years of touring, he settled in Queen's and by the nineteen fifties he was a national music icon, assisted in part by his appearances on radio and in film and television in addition to his concerts. Now, we're going to listen to a little excerpt here that we got from YouTube. Now the channel giving full credit is the Grunge Channel, and this is some audio from them in regards to that we're taking and again giving them full credit. About some information more about the tragic life of Louis Armstrong. Behind Louis Armstrong's career, success and fame, there was tragedy. The man nicknamed Pops and satch Mood didn't have an easy life by any stretch of the imagination, and even as he was taking the stage and wowing fans, he struggled. Here's the tragic real life story of Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong was born on August fourth, nineteen oh one, and grew up in an insanely tough New Orleans neighborhood called the Battlefield. Abandoned by his father as a small child and raised by his single mother, Armstrong and his family struggled to get by. In his memoirs, Armstrong detailed abject poverty, describing how he and his sister would have to go into the better parts of town and scavenged through dumpsters for food. He also began working at the age of six, scavenging for scrap metal, bones, rags, and bottles alongside the children of a local Jewish family called the Kronofskis, and at night he made other rounds through the red light district selling buckets of coal. But the Kronofskis provided a rare ray of light in his young life, regularly invited him to dinner and treating him with kindness. According to history, as an adult, Armstrong regularly wore a Star of David in tribute to the Jewish family who would welcomed him into their home and their lives. Just how and when Armstrong began playing the trumpet is a matter of some debate. He often cited a stint in a juvenile detention center at age eleven as the start of his love of music, as the band director took Armstrong under his wing and gave him his first cornet, but Armstrong also wrote in his memoir that his first performances were much earlier, blowing a tin horn to attract customers to the Kronofsky's peddler wagon. Whatever the case, music soon proved to be his ticket to a better life, but not an easier one. The Mob Museum says that prohibition, jazz, and the Mob all went hand in hand. The Mafia owned the clubs and made sure there was boots, and jazz musicians provided the perfect musical accompaniment to the evening's revelries. Armstrong did his best to stay away from mob establishments, but the mob had different ideas. According to biographer Terry Teachout, in nineteen thirty one, a mobster named Frankie Foster pulled a gun on Armstrong in Chicago and told him to play a gig the next day in New York. Armstrong ultimately fled to Europe to escape problems with the mob, but when he finally returned, he ultimately threw in with Joe Glazer, who ran nightclubs for al Capone. What developed was a mutually beneficial relationship. Blazer protected Armstrong, and Armstrong packed the house. Another reason Armstrong went to Europe may have been his trouble with the law. In the Jim Crow South in nineteen thirty one, he was arrested for sitting next to a white woman on a bus, even though that woman was the wife of his manager. Armstrong and his whole band spent the night in jail, but the next night they played a gig and dedicated the first song to the Memphis Police Department, the song I'll be Glad when You're dead, you rascal you, even though some of those police officers were in the crowd and were actually members of the Ku Klux Klan. Armstrong not only got away with it, they even thanked him for the on stage mention why well Armstrong had a trick to disarmed racists. He always made sure to play a particular song called when Its Sleepy Time down South, which was a romanticized anthem to the days of the slave owning South. Not everyone appreciated Armstrong's outlook on things, though, and during the civil rights era of the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, he was attacked by both sides, sometimes all too literally. In February nineteen fifty seven, for instance, someone drove by the venue where Armstrong was playing and through a stick of dynamite. It caused an explosion so loud some people heard it five miles away, but Armstrong was unharmed and unfazed. He later told reporters, horn don't dig those race troubles members of the African American community. He also criticized Armstrong, though, according to The New York Times, fellow jazz legend Miles Davis said, I love the way Louis played trumpetman, but I hated the way he had to grin to get over with some tired white folks. Though Armstrong strongly criticized the government over segregation. He also served as a goodwill ambassador for the State Department at the same time, leading some to consider him a sellout. But as his very pointed words to Ebony magazine make abundantly clear, Armstrong never lost sight of who he was and where and win he was. He also took a stand towards equality and integration when he refused to perform in his birthplace of New Orleans after they passed the law in nineteen fifty five banning integrated bands. He told Ebony, I can't even play in my own hometown because I've got white cats in the band. All I'd have to do is take all colored cats down there, and I could make a million bucks. But the hell with the money. If we can't play down there like we play everywhere else we go, we don't play. If my people don't dig me the way I am, I'm sorry. According to history, Armstrong played the horn with such force that he regularly split his lips open and had to use a special cream to protect them. In fact, his lips were also covered with such hard calluses that he regularly used a razor blade to remove the worst of the scar tissue. Worst of all, though, is what is now known as Satchmo centrome, a potentially career ending injury that happens when lip muscles rupture. Armstrong suffered just such an injury at one point in his career and had to take a year off from performing to recover. There were some health issues, though, that he couldn't recover from so easily. During a European tour in nineteen fifty nine, Armstrong suffered a serious heart attack. Over the next few years, he began experiencing swelling in his legs due to poor circulation and a steadily worsening heart condition. By nineteen sixty four, his gallbladder, kidneys, and liver were failing. He finally saw treatment in nineteen sixty eight and spent the next year bedridden. After emergency surgery, he was eventually able to perform again, but only briefly. He suffered another heart attack and passed away in his sleep two months later, on July sixth, nineteen seventy one. Armstrong left behind an unparalleled musical legacy, but he also left behind a legacy of another kind, a daughter named Sharon Preston Fulton, whose existence was kept secret for many years until she finally came forward with the shocking truth. Sharon was born in nineteen fifty five, but not to any of Armstrong's four wives. Instead, her mother was a dancer by the name of Lucille Preston, whom Armstrong had a long affair with. He was married at that time, but he made space for us. Preston finally ended things in nineteen sixty seven after Armstrong refused to marry her, but he continued to provide financial support for Sharon until his death. In one of his final letters, he wrote, Sharon may not realize now what I mean to her and doing for her, but I'm sure as she matures, she'll dig Pops as the man who will be loving her until the day he dies or she dies. That's sincerity and from the heart stuff. Check out one of our newest videos right here, plus even more grunge videos about your favorite stuff or coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bells you don't have. Therey you gil. There's a little bit from the Grunge Channel. Thank you to them for this audio to give you some more information about Lewis Armstrong. What a performer, What a performer? Evidently still influences music to this day. And I'll tell you if you you got to check out his discography. Probably one of his most famous songs, what a Wonderful World, was used in a movie with Robin Williams back in the late nineties. I believe it was the was a Good Morning Vietnam, That's what it was. But what a performer, Just a great influencer, A great influencer and to this day, to this day, still still making impact on jazz and music overall, a tireless performer. There's a great biography on him. If you have Apple Plus streaming service, they have a great biography about him on there as well. Look for that. But the man, you know, again, his personal style, you know, his personal life had, like every other person on this planet, some ups and downs. But I would strongly urge you to pick up his discography and just check out the music of Lewis Armstrong. He was in a few movies at the time. He would He played with Duke Ellington, he played with Frank Sinatra. I mean, he covers of when the Saints Go Marching in Oh, I mean what else here? I mean, You've got all kinds of stuff with him in here. I mean, here's you know, one of his most famous songs ever. Seen red I see Them Blue, and I'm think to myself. I mean, come on, who hasn't heard this, Who hasn't heard that song? Right? I mean, come on, I mean, it's just amazing, amazing the amount of music that this man made and provided the world. You know. Here's another one called Someday. This is him playing the trumpet. This is from a nineteen sixty two live broadcast in New York. Nobody could play the trumpet like this man, I'll tell you especially, he was known for hitting those high notes. He he hit the high notes where, oh my gosh, unbelievable the notes he hit. And people to this day, people this to this day, a lot of them can't hit what he could do, could do what he could do on the trumpet. Here's another song with him. This is some Saint Louis blues from his band. I bought them en Eggman around. I mean, there's just some of the samples of this man's life's work and some of the songs that he has done. It's just amazing, amazing some of the stuff he's done. Here's another one he did here called summertime with him and Ella Fitzgerald Smert and live it is. It's a Elephitzgerald with Louis Armstrong as well. And the amount of work that this man left behind is just astounding. Like I said, here's here's a little bit of when the Saints Go Marching In from him. This is Lewis Armstrong in the main trumpet. I mean, listen to that vibrato. Here's a hit in the high notes. About folks. Everybody saying, now win that Sights go marching in. No wind. That's Saints School by June and yes, side to me in that, nob I win that Sights School by Jude. Dude, say it again, win, that's Sight. I mean the when the Saints go Marching in. That's an early performance of that. Let's see what else we got here. Let's see what we get for Louis Armstrong. Let's let's see if we can get another one of his great Here's a Frank Sinatra with Louis Armstrong. They say, some people. Long ago. Were searching for a different tune, the one that's a good throon. Only they can they only have the rhythm, So they started swinging to and through They didn't know just what you This is how the Blue. There's a little bit of Lewis Armstrong with Frank Sinadro, the chairman of the board and doing the birth of the Blues. So just to give you a little idea, a little smattering of his work and definitely an icon, an American treasure, an American legend, someone who should be celebrated daily from all of us who love music. We're talking about the late great Lewis Armstrong. That's all the time we got for this time on Let's Make Music. I implore you go seek out some of Lewis Armstrong's work and have a listen. Just put on a good pair of headphones, sit back and relax and enjoy a phenomenal talent that we were blessed to have with us. If only we maybe could have had a few more years with him. That's all the time we have for on this episode of Let's Make Music. We hope you enjoyed the podcast, and until next time, keep making music. It makes people smile and I look forward to getting together with you on the next episode of Let's Make Music. Take care everybody,