Satchmo shifted jazz from group riffs to the solo spotlight
Louis Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo and Pops, lived from a debated 4 August 1901 to 6 July 1971. Rising in 1920s New Orleans and Chicago, he made jazz about the virtuoso solo instead of collective improv. Hits from What a Wonderful World to Hello, Dolly! carried his gravel voice into mainstream pop.
He often claimed a July 4, 1900 birthday; parents were Mayann Albert and William Armstrong. Work for the Jewish Karnoffsky family—collecting rags and coal—shaped early years. Collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald yielded classic albums; scat singing and melodic paraphrase influenced generations.
As one of the first African-American entertainers with broad cross-racial popularity, he stretched jazz's social reach as much as its harmony.
Five decades on record map early jazz into swing and beyond, always with that unmistakable trumpet smile in the tone.
His youth was rough. He left school at 11 and moved with his mother into a one-room house on Perdido Street, singing on the streets with a quartet of boys. On 31 December 1912 he fired a blank from his stepfather's gun into the air, was arrested, and was sent to the Colored Waif's Home. As a teenager he worked in Henry Ponce's dance hall, protected by the towering drummer Black Benny. In the late 1910s he played in brass bands and on Mississippi riverboats with Fate Marable's band aboard the steamer Sidney, and by 20 he could read music; he became one of the first jazz players featured in long trumpet solos. In 1922 King Oliver invited him to Chicago to play second cornet in the Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens, and on 5–6 April 1923 the band cut his first studio recordings for Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, after a long train ride and little rehearsal.
Source: Louis Armstrong
