Louis Armstrong Bio - Cengage

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The First Great Soloist: Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was the greatest innovator in the early history and development of jazz. According to Duke Ellington, “Louis Armstrong was the epitome of jazz and always will be.” 17 His playing, singing, rhythm, improvisation, and outlook on life and art helped shape the direction of jazz as the quintessential expression of American culture.

New Orleans Origins Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1901. As a child he went to school and worked delivering coal to Storyville, the red light district. He remembered with fondness his Russian Jewish immigrant neighbors, who often shared meals with him and gave him his first musical instrument, a tin horn. At eleven he dropped out of school and joined a vocal group with friends, performing popular songs on the street. He also began to play cornet, and came to the attention of local musicians, including cornetists Bunk Johnson and Joe “King” Oliver, and reedman Sidney Bechet. New Years’ Eve, 1912 marked a turning point in Armstrong's life when he was arrested for shooting a .38 revolver into the air while celebrating with friends. He was sent to the “Colored Waif’s Home,” a reform school on the outskirts of New Orleans. While imprisoned for a year, Armstrong joined the band and ultimately became its student leader, developing important performance skills in the process. After his release, Armstrong played cornet sporadically in different small groups and eventually came under the influence of King Oliver. He developed a name for himself among the city’s musicians, and at the age of 18, he took Oliver's place in Kid Ory's band when Oliver left for Chicago.

In 1919 Armstrong left New Orleans for the first time to join Fate Marable’s 12-piece band, one of the first black groups to provide entertainment on Mississippi river excursion boats. By the time the boat reached St. Louis, word of its music had preceded it, and Marable’s musicians were invited to sit in with the best jazz band in St. Louis. As Armstrong recalled it,

We were interested to see how our New Orleans bands would stack up against them. In no time at all we could tell they were doing things that had been done down home years before. The leader would try to swing them away from the score but they didn’t seem to know how. When we took our places we cut loose with one of the very newest hot songs and we let it swing, plenty. We almost split that room open—man, did we play! 18
Armstrong’s experience indicates how innovative the New Orleans jazz style must have sounded at the time. This experience would later be repeated in Chicago, and again in New York. It was at one of the boat’s stops in Davenport, Iowa that cornetist Bix Beiderbecke first heard Armstrong play, inspiring him to develop his own sound. Trombonist Jack Teagarden, who later played with Armstrong, had a similar experience when he heard Armstrong’s riverboat band in New Orleans.

Chicago and New York In 1922 Armstrong was asked to join King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. The members of the band at the time were all master New Orleans musicians: Baby Dodds on drums, Honoré Dutrey on trombone, Johnnie Dodds on clarinet, and Bill Johnson on string bass. He joined the band as second trumpet player, and became adept at playing harmonies to King Oliver’s lines. Armstrong's chance to display his amazing virtuosity started to come in “cutting contests,” when rival musicians would challenge his prowess. According to clarinetist Barney Bigard, “One night this guy walked on to the stand and said to Louis, ‘Boy! Give me that horn. You don't know how to do.’ That made Joe Oliver real angry and he told Louis, ‘Go get him.’ Louis blew like the devil. Blew him out of that place.” 19

Armstrong moved to New York in 1924 and played in Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra for just over a year. Most jazz historians agree that Henderson’s hiring of Louis Armstrong in 1924 accelerated the band’s evolution. Armstrong’s soloing and rhythmic conception had a major impact on the band. According to clarinetist Buster Bailey, “Louis made the same impact in New York that had made in Chicago when he first came there.” 20 Duke Ellington elaborates: “So when Smack’s (Henderson’s) band hit town and Louis was with them, the guys had never heard anything just like it. There weren’t the words coined for describing that kick.” 21 During the time he was in New York, Armstrong also did dozens of recording sessions with blues singers, including Bessie Smith’s 1925 classic recording of “St. Louis Blues.”

The Historic Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings In 1925 Armstrong moved back to Chicago and formed recording groups called the “Hot Five” and “Hot Seven.” His recordings with these groups are widely recognized as jazz classics, presenting Armstrong at the peak of his creative powers. The recordings redefined jazz language by shifting the focus of the music to solo rather than collective improvisation. Armstrong’s trumpet playing also expanded jazz rhythms and the range of the trumpet, and his singing introduced a new jazz vocal style. The groups never played live, but continued recording until 1928.

Listening Example

Listen to Armstrong's recording of “Potato Head Blues.” Notice how the record begins with a classic New Orleans style collective improvisation on the opening statement of the melody. What happens next? Can you distinguish which instruments perform individual solos? How would you describe Armstrong’s syncopated solo over the stop-time rhythm background? Recording technology of the time made the recording of drums extremely difficult. Armstrong’s rhythmic intensity on this famous solo demonstrates his ability to internalize what the drums may have sounded like.

Now listen to Armstrong's “West End Blues.” How would you describe the opening break? Many critics think of this as a revolutionary moment in jazz. Listen next for Armstrong’s call and response, scat singing with the clarinet. Pianist Earl Hines next demonstrates his “trumpet style” of piano playing on his solo. Is this song a 12-bar blues form?

The 1930s and Swing By the late 1920s and early 1930s, Armstrong had become a national star. He toured in Europe and throughout the United States. He also toured with the show Hot Chocolates and developed his innovative vocal performing style by introducing such songs as Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” In 1935 he formed his own big band, Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra—formerly the Luis Russell Orchestra—made up predominately of New Orleans musicians, and became one of the most popular acts of the Swing Era, touring constantly for over ten years.

Armstrong was also successful in Hollywood, appearing in dozens of movies, including Pennies From Heaven (1936), Goin’ Places (1938), Cabin in the Sky (1942), High Society (1956), and The Five Pennies (1959). He became one of the most highly paid African American film actors. Unfortunately, many of the roles that Armstrong played reinforced negative racial stereotypes, although recent interpretations suggest that he was able to transcend some of the degrading film settings through his musical genius.

The 1940s “Revival” and Beyond As the 1940s drew to a close, the public's taste in jazz shifted away from the commercial sounds of swing. A “Dixieland”—traditional New Orleans jazz—“revival” was under way, and bebop was also beginning to challenge the status quo in the jazz world. In 1947 Armstrong replaced his big band with a small group called “The Louis Armstrong All Stars,” featuring musicians like clarinetist Barney Bigard, trombonist Jack Teagarden, drummer Sid Catlett, trombonist Trummy Young, and pianist Earl Hines. The band became perennially popular, touring extensively in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America for the next twenty years, and Armstrong was known as “America’s Ambassador.” In 1964 he even scored a hit with his version of “Hello Dolly,” which knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts. Although he had long ceased to be a cutting-edge jazz innovator, he retained the ability to stand at the forefront of American popular music. Another Armstrong classic, the touching “What A Wonderful World,” became popular well after his death in 1988 as the soundtrack for the film Good Morning Vietnam. Armstrong's health began to fail and he died in his sleep in 1971 at his home in Queens, New York after suffering a heart attack.

It is difficult to overstate the contributions of Louis Armstrong to jazz and American popular music. He transformed our popular music in four important areas: instrumental technique, improvisation, rhythm, and singing.

Louis Armstrong’s Major Contributions
Instrumental Technique Armstrong’s technical ability on the trumpet was unsurpassed. He set a new standard, playing with greater range, more power, better tone, and greater agility than any trumpet player before him.
Improvisation Armstrong was the first great soloist in jazz history, and he made the improvised solo the centerpiece of jazz. Although he came from the New Orleans jazz tradition of collective improvisation, he established a new path of solo improvisation that was subsequently followed by most jazz musicians. His solos were well-structured and superbly paced. He also broke away from melodic paraphrasing to base his improvisations on chord structures, an approach still dominant in jazz.
Rhythm Armstrong was one of the first jazz musicians to develop an approach to rhythm that abandoned the stiffness of ragtime and emphasized a swing feel. He also demonstrated great ingenuity in his phrasing and use of syncopation.
Singing Armstrong’s vocal style reshaped American popular singing. He deeply influenced many popular singers including Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Prima. Armstrong also popularized “scat” singing, a vocal technique in which the voice improvises without lyrics, as if it were a horn played by a jazz player.

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