Louis Armstrong
...Ambassador Satch , Little Louis
. Lots of nicknames can be used to mention about Louis Armstrong, but above all you can name him as The King of Jazz'. Armstrong is the most influential jazz trumpeter of all-time. He first achieved fame as a trumpeter, but towards the end of his career he was best known as a vocalist and was one of the most influential jazz singers. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, creative musical mind still dominate Jazz to this day. Louis Armstrong is not only a jazz player. He influenced all brass players in all branches with his flexibility and range on trumpet.
Like almost all early Jazz musicians, Louis Armstrong was from New Orleans. Armstrong claimed that his birth date is July 4, 1900 at his book "Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans". He wrote "I am about to be fifty nine years old
This fourth of July-1959
Born July fourth 1900
" however historical evidence discovered nearly two decades after his 1971 death suggested a different birth date, August 4, 1901. Armstrong grew up in a poor family in a rough section of New Orleans. He started working at a very young age to support his family, singing on street corners, working on a junk wagon, cleaning graves for tips, and selling coal. His travels around the city introduced him to all kinds of music, from the blues played in the Storyville to the brass bands accompanying the New Orleans. The music that surrounded him was a great source of inspiration. A born musician, Armstrong had already demonstrated his singing talents on the streets of the city and eventually taught himself to play the cornet. He received his first formal music instruction in the Colored Waif's Home for Boys, where he was confined for a year and a half as punishment for firing blanks into the air on New Year's Eve.
As the young Armstrong (called Little Louis' by King Oliver)...
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