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After dropping out of the Fisk School at eleven, Armstrong joined a quartet of boys that sang in the streets for money.
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Armstrong is arrested for firing blanks during a New Year's Eve celebration, and sent to the Colored Waif's Home as a juvenile delinquent. While living at the home, Armstrong learns to play cornet and falls in love with music. He teaches himself music by listening to leading jazz musicians, including cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, who becomes Armstrong's hero.
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Armstrong marries Daisy Parker, a prostitute, thus commencing a violent and stormy union and the first of Armstrong's four marriages. Armstrong also adopts his cousin's disabled three-year-old son, Clarence. Clarence remains under Armstrong's care for the rest of his life.
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In 1922, King Oliver sent for Armstrong to join his band in Chicago, and play second trumpet in Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. A year later Armstrong makes his first recording with Oliver, thus beginning his career of touring and recording music.
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Armstrong marries Lillian "Lil'" Hardin, a pianist, who encourages him to separate from Oliver and seek more prominent opportunities. Armstrong moves to New York to play trumpet in the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra at the Roseland Ballroom. He further develops his improvisational style, and he records with Sidney Bechet, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith.
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Armstrong returns to Chicago and forms his own band, the Hot Five, which includes Kid Ory. Between 1925 and 1928, Armstrong makes a series of recordings with his Hot Five ensemble, which expands into the Hot Seven. He introduces the concept of the virtuoso trumpet soloist, which ends the jazz convention of subordinating individual talent to the whole ensemble.
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With the recording of "HeebieJeebies," Armstrong popularizes scat singing, in which the singer uses nonsensical syllables to mimic instrumental improvisation. His later recordings introduce the public to the idea that jazz can be artistic as well as entertaining.
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Armstrong returns to New York City and appears on Broadway for the first time in Connie's Hot Chocolates. His performance of "Ain' misbehaving'" introduces the concept of using a popular song for jazz interpretation, and becomes wildly popular.
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When he appears in Bing Crosby's Pennies from Heaven, Armstrong is the first African American to have featured billing in a Hollywood film. He continues to appear in major films with performers like Mae West.
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Together with a number of incredible jazz players, Armstrong forms the small All-Star ensemble. Their performances revitalize jazz in mainstream entertainment, and Armstrong continues to perform for the rest of his life. In 1964 he releases "Hello, Dolly!" which becomes his biggest selling record.
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In June 1951 he reached the Top Ten of the LP charts with Satchmo at Symphony Hall (“Satchmo” being his nickname), and he scored his first Top Ten single in five years with “(When We Are Dancing) I Get Ideas”
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For years Armstrong refuses to air his opinions on the civil rights movement, but when Arkansas Governor Faubus sends in the National Guard to prevent nine African American students from integrating a Little Rock high school, Armstrong publicly criticizes the handling of the crisis. Both black and white public figures lash out at Armstrong for his strong words.
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Louis, a man in the November of his years, was able to nail its sentiments perfectly when he recorded it in August 1967. It’s a song that familiarity has not found contemptuous, quite simply it’s one of the most uplifting, life-affirming songs of all times – and it’s all because of Louis Armstrong.
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Louis Armstrong appeared in the movie Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand. His rendition of the song Hello Dolly won him a Grammy for best vocal performance
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Armstrong died just after a heart attack on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday, and 11 months after playing a famous show at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room.
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One of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, Louis Armstrong was responsible for innovations that filtered down through popular music to rock and roll. Armstrong himself put it like this: “If it hadn’t been for jazz, there wouldn’t be no rock and roll.” If it hadn’t been for Armstrong, popular music of all kinds - from jazz and blues to rock and roll - would be considerably poorer.
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Monsanto Stock Yards airport opened after World War II, replacing the older New Orleans Lakefront Airport (which kept the NEW and KNEW airport codes and now serves general aviation) as the city's main airport[citation needed]. MSY was renamed in 2001 after Louis Armstrong, a famous jazz musician from New Orleans.
