Louis Armstrong Timeline

Louis Armstrong 23

1901 Louis Armstrong born in New Orleans Louis Armstrong is born on 4 August 1901 in a neighborhood so rough it is nicknamed the Battlefield, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Willie Armstrong, abandons the family shortly after Louis's birth. His mother, Mary Ann (Mayann) Albert, works as a domestic and occasional prostitute to support Louis and his sister. Louis is raised partly by his paternal grandmother, Josephine. New Orleans in 1901 is the most musically diverse city in America -- a crossroads of African, Caribbean, French, Spanish and Anglo-American cultures from which jazz is in the process of being born.
1906 – 1912 The Karnofsky family -- first cornet As a young child Armstrong works for the Karnofsky family, Jewish immigrants who run a junk-hauling business, calling rags and bones through the streets of New Orleans. The family treats him with unusual kindness for the era -- feeding him, lending him money and encouraging his musical interest. With the money they advance him, Armstrong buys his first cornet from a pawn shop for five dollars. He later says: 'I was just a little kid and the Karnofskys were nice enough to give me money to buy that little cornet.' He wears a Star of David throughout his life in their memory.
1913 – 1914 Colored Waifs Home -- first formal music instruction On New Year's Eve 1912, Armstrong fires a pistol loaded with blanks into the air in celebration and is arrested. He is sent to the Colored Waifs Home for Boys, a reform institution run by Captain Joseph Jones. The Waifs Home has a brass band in which Armstrong begins playing bugle, then cornet. Peter Davis, the music instructor, initially dislikes Armstrong but comes to appreciate his talent and eventually makes him leader of the band. The Waifs Home gives Armstrong his only formal music instruction and the discipline that channels his extraordinary natural talent.
1914 – 1919 Learning from King Oliver -- the apprenticeship After leaving the Waifs Home, Armstrong plays in New Orleans honky-tonks and dance halls, absorbing the emerging jazz style. His primary mentor is Joe 'King' Oliver, the leading cornetist in New Orleans, who takes a paternal interest in the young musician and teaches him the advanced techniques of the instrument. Oliver eventually leaves for Chicago in 1918; Armstrong takes his place in Kid Ory's band -- the best in New Orleans -- at seventeen. The young Armstrong plays every night on the riverboats and in the dance halls, developing the technique and musical vocabulary that will make him the first great jazz soloist.
1919 – 1922 Fate Marable riverboat band -- reading music Armstrong joins Fate Marable's orchestra on the Streckfus riverboat line in 1919, playing for white passengers on excursions up and down the Mississippi. The riverboat job is prestigious and musically demanding: Marable insists his musicians read music, which forces Armstrong to develop the sight-reading skills he has previously avoided. The riverboats carry Armstrong up and down the Mississippi through Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, exposing him to audiences outside New Orleans and expanding his musical vocabulary through contact with ragtime, blues and popular song.
1922 Joins King Oliver in Chicago King Oliver sends for Armstrong in 1922, inviting him to join his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago as second cornetist. Armstrong arrives in Chicago -- the city that will be his base for the next decade -- and joins Oliver's band at the Lincoln Gardens ballroom. The Oliver band is the most celebrated jazz ensemble in the country. Armstrong plays second cornet to Oliver, harmonising and counterpointing Oliver's lead. Those who hear the band are astounded by the younger man's playing: his tone, range and inventiveness already exceed his mentor's. Armstrong is twenty years old.
1923 First recordings with King Oliver -- Gennett Records Armstrong makes his first recordings with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band for Gennett Records in April 1923. The recordings -- including 'Chimes Blues,' 'Dippermouth Blues' and 'Snake Rag' -- are the first significant documentation of New Orleans jazz and the first time Armstrong's playing is preserved on record. His cornet solos on these sessions, though restrained by the ensemble format, already show the rhythmic inventiveness and melodic authority that will explode in his later solo work. Armstrong is 21 years old.
1924 – 1925 Fletcher Henderson Orchestra -- New York Armstrong joins the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in New York in September 1924 -- the leading Black dance band in the country, playing at the Roseland Ballroom. His arrival transforms the Henderson band: his hot, swinging style is unlike anything the more formally trained New York musicians have heard. He introduces the New York jazz scene to the New Orleans conception of jazz -- rhythmically looser, more improvisational, more blues-inflected. His recordings with Henderson and as a sideman with blues singers including Bessie Smith document his already extraordinary maturity. He returns to Chicago in late 1925.
1925 – 1928 Hot Five and Hot Seven -- the greatest recordings in jazz Between November 1925 and December 1928, Armstrong records 65 tracks for Okeh Records under the names the Hot Five and the Hot Seven -- the most important series of recordings in jazz history. These studio-only ensembles (Armstrong's regular performing band at the time was different) include Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton. The recordings document jazz's transformation from collective improvisation (New Orleans style) to soloist-driven music centred on Armstrong's trumpet. 'Cornet Chop Suey,' 'Potato Head Blues,' 'West End Blues' and 'Weather Bird' are defining masterpieces.
1928 West End Blues -- the opening cadenza changes everything Armstrong records 'West End Blues' on 28 June 1928 -- and opens it with an unaccompanied trumpet cadenza of such brilliance that it redefines what the instrument can do. The cadenza lasts twelve seconds. It has no precedent in jazz and establishes the principle that the jazz soloist can command an audience alone, without harmonic or rhythmic support, purely through melodic invention and rhythmic authority. Gunther Schuller calls it 'the first unmistakable masterpiece in jazz.' Every subsequent jazz trumpet player -- Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown -- plays in Armstrong's shadow.
1929 – 1932 Moves to New York -- big band era begins Armstrong moves to New York in 1929, transitioning from small-group jazz to leading big bands and recording popular songs as well as jazz instrumentals. He appears in the Broadway revue 'Hot Chocolates' (1929) and introduces 'Ain't Misbehavin'' -- his first mainstream pop hit. His manager Joe Glaser, who takes over his affairs in 1935, steers Armstrong toward broader popular appeal. The transition from hot jazz innovator to popular entertainer generates criticism from jazz purists but reaches audiences of millions.
1930 – 1932 First European tour -- a sensation abroad Armstrong tours Europe for the first time in 1932-33, performing in Britain, Scandinavia, France and the Netherlands. European audiences, already familiar with his recordings, receive him with extraordinary enthusiasm. He is treated as a major artist rather than a novelty -- a dignity not always extended to Black American performers at home. He is nicknamed 'Satchmo' (shortening of 'Satchelmouth') by a British music magazine editor. The European tours confirm his international stature and provide relief from the racial indignities of touring the American South.
1935 Joe Glaser becomes manager -- a lifelong partnership Joe Glaser, a former nightclub operator with mob connections, becomes Armstrong's manager in 1935 -- a relationship that lasts until Glaser's death in 1969. The arrangement is financially exploitative (Glaser controls all of Armstrong's earnings and pays him a salary) but it provides Armstrong with the protection, bookings and business infrastructure that allow him to focus entirely on performing. In an era when Black entertainers were routinely cheated and exploited by white managers, Glaser's protection -- however imperfect -- is valued by Armstrong. The full terms of their arrangement remain disputed by historians.
1936 – 1947 Hollywood and popular entertainment -- films and radio Through the late 1930s and 1940s Armstrong appears in a series of Hollywood films -- 'Pennies from Heaven' (1936) with Bing Crosby, 'Going Places' (1938), 'Cabin in the Sky' (1943) -- and becomes a regular radio presence. The film roles are often embarrassing by later standards (Armstrong is frequently cast in servile or comedic roles shaped by racial stereotypes), but they make him one of the most recognisable faces in America. He navigates the contradiction between his artistic genius and the commercial and racial constraints of mainstream entertainment with pragmatic grace.
1947 All Stars formed -- small group returns Armstrong dissolves his big band in 1947 -- the era of the big band is ending as television, changing musical tastes and high costs make large ensembles economically unviable -- and forms the Louis Armstrong All Stars: a traditional jazz sextet. The All Stars, featuring trombonist Jack Teagarden and clarinetist Barney Bigard, plays in a style that harks back to the New Orleans tradition while incorporating Armstrong's decades of development. The All Stars is the ensemble Armstrong leads for the rest of his career -- recording, touring internationally and appearing on television.
1948 – 1956 Ambassador Satch -- touring the world The Louis Armstrong All Stars tours relentlessly through the late 1940s and 1950s -- Europe, Japan, Australia, Africa, South America. The US State Department supports some tours, recognising that Armstrong is the most effective cultural diplomat America possesses. His 1956 tour of West Africa, documented in the film 'Satchmo the Great,' demonstrates the profound connection between African Americans and Africans that Armstrong's music embodies. In Ghana, tens of thousands greet him at the airport. He weeps. 'After all,' he says, 'my ancestors came from here and I still got African blood in me.'
1954 "Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans" -- autobiography Armstrong publishes 'Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans' in 1954 -- a vivid, funny and remarkably candid memoir of his childhood and early career. The book reveals Armstrong as a natural writer with a distinctive voice that mirrors his musical personality: warm, rhythmic, digressive and full of specific detail. He is one of the great letter-writers in jazz history, producing thousands of letters on his typewriter to friends, fans and fellow musicians. His literary voice is as distinctive as his trumpet voice -- and equally underappreciated.
1955 – 1956 Little Rock crisis -- Armstrong speaks out In September 1957, Armstrong speaks out publicly about the Little Rock crisis -- Governor Orval Faubus's use of the National Guard to prevent Black students from entering Central High School. Armstrong, normally careful to avoid public political controversy, is furious. He tells a reporter: 'The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell.' He cancels a State Department tour of the Soviet Union, saying he cannot represent a government that treats its Black citizens as second-class. The statement shocks an industry accustomed to Armstrong's diplomatic public persona.
1956 – 1957 Ella and Louis -- the great collaboration Armstrong records 'Ella and Louis' (1956) and 'Ella and Louis Again' (1957) with Ella Fitzgerald for Verve Records -- two of the most beloved vocal jazz albums ever made. The interplay between Fitzgerald's precision and Armstrong's earthy swing is ideal: her voice rides above his gravel, his trumpet fills the space she leaves. The albums are arranged by Oscar Peterson's quartet and produced by Norman Granz. They represent the summit of classic jazz vocal collaboration and introduce both artists to audiences who know only one or the other.
1963 – 1964 "Hello, Dolly!" -- Number 1 at 62 Armstrong records 'Hello, Dolly!' in December 1963 -- a cheerful, swinging version of the title song from the Broadway musical. Released in February 1964, it reaches Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1964 -- displacing the Beatles at the height of Beatlemania and making Armstrong, at 62, the oldest artist ever to have a Number 1 single. The achievement is both commercially remarkable and musically apt: Armstrong's voice has become the most recognisable in American popular music, and 'Hello, Dolly!' captures its warmth and vitality perfectly.
1967 "What a Wonderful World" -- a valediction Armstrong records 'What a Wonderful World' in August 1967 -- a song written specifically for him by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. His recording is a gentle, slow meditation on beauty and gratitude, delivered in the gravelly voice of a 65-year-old man who has seen everything the 20th century has had to offer. The song is initially a flop in the United States but becomes a huge hit in the UK. It is rediscovered after its use in the 1987 film 'Good Morning Vietnam' and becomes one of the most played songs in history -- Armstrong's final great gift to popular culture.
1968 – 1971 Final years -- heart attack and decline Armstrong suffers a serious heart attack in 1959 and a further cardiac episode in 1968, after which his health declines significantly. He continues to perform whenever he is well enough, driven by a love of performing that overrides his doctors' advice. His final public performance is at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on 9 March 1971. He dies at home in Corona, Queens on 6 July 1971, aged 69, two days after his final rehearsal with the All Stars. He dies in his sleep of a heart attack. His wife Lucille is at his bedside.
1971 – present Legacy -- the foundation of jazz Louis Armstrong's legacy is the foundation of jazz itself. Every major jazz musician who followed him -- Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker -- plays in the tradition he established: the improvising soloist as the centre of jazz performance. His recordings of 1925-28 are the most studied in jazz history. His vocal style -- the gravelly warmth, the rhythmic freedom, the apparent spontaneity -- influenced Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and virtually every popular singer of the 20th century. 'What a Wonderful World' is played at funerals, graduations and celebrations on every continent. He is, simply, irreplaceable.