Wiki User. Armstrong was featured nightly on Ain't Misbehavin', breaking up the crowds of (mostly white) theatergoers nightly. Eventually tour ended and Louis went back home to continue his. This newfound popularity introduced Armstrong to a new, younger audience, and he continued making both successful records and concert appearances for the rest of the decade, even cracking the "Iron Curtain" with a tour of Communist countries such as East Berlin and Czechoslovakia in 1965. Despite failing to make a new record for two years, Armstrong remained a fan favorite. he put his soul and dedicated his life to his music. Armstrong was a busy man, he always had more than one thing going on, if he wasnt recording with Hot Five/Seven, he was performing in the Vendome theatre, playing music for silent movies.. ", During the mid-'50s, Armstrong's popularity overseas skyrocketed. Armstrong was arrested at eleven years old for disturbing the peace. He found that the only way to reap the benefits of success and be protected was if there was a white captain to back you in the old days (Armstrong). He was employed by a Jewish family who encouraged him to sing. 149 Copy quote. Armstrong's charismatic stage presence impressed not only the jazz world but all of popular music. All music is folk music. During this time, Armstrong adopted a three-year-old boy named Clarence. He recorded several songs throughout his career, including he is known for songs like "Star Dust," "La Vie En Rose" and "What a Wonderful World. He was known for both his joyous ways with the trumpet and his peculiarly touching and funny vocal style. Love, baby - love. Armstrong defined what it was to play Jazz. Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive musical mind still dominate Jazz to this day. Although he is often thought of by the general public as a lovable, clowning personality, a gravel-voiced singer who played simple but dramatic trumpet in a New Orleans-styled Dixieland setting, Armstrong himself was so much more. In 1993, it gained renewed popularity when it was used in the film Sleepless in Seattle. Armstrong began to sing on the records, creating a new form of singing, scat singing. He performed in Europe for the first time in 1932 and returned in 1933, staying for over a year because of a damaged lip. By 1932, Armstrong, who was now known as Satchmo, had begun appearing in movies and made his first tour of England. The most important and influential musician in jazz history, and one of the leading singers and entertainers from the 1920s through the '50s. He also learned to sing. Armstrong sang his heart out on the number, thinking of his home in Queens as he did so, but "What a Wonderful World" received little promotion in the United States. WebLouis Armstrong was a key asset to the Harlem Renaissance due to his inspiring music and playing his instruments for African Americans people during this period. Armstrong returned to New York with his band for an engagement at Connie's Inn in Harlem in May 1929. He also took a series of small parts in motion pictures, beginning with Pennies from Heaven in December 1936, and he continued to record for Decca, resulting in the Top Ten hits "Public Melody Number One" (August 1937), "When the Saints Go Marching In" (April 1939), and "You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)" (April 1946), the last a duet with Ella Fitzgerald. The lights dim, and the velvet curtains slide open. Why Louis Armstrong was important? A jazz pioneer, Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music's history. It was on the riverboat that Armstrong honed his music reading skills and eventually had his first encounters with other jazz legends, including Bix Beiderbecke and Jack Teagarden. His career spanned many decades, from the 1920s to his death in 1971, and many different eras in jazz. Between 1952 and 1955, Armstrong shed 100 pounds. Only Charlie Parker comes close to having as much influence on the history of Jazz as Louis Armstrong did. Armstrong had access to guns and decided to borrow a .38 that one of his stepfathers stored in a trunk in the Armstrong home (67). Louis Armstrong was important in the 1920's because he put a whole new meaning to jazz. Coupled with his astonishing performing skills and charismatic stage presence, Armstrong took the world by storm and popularized jazz as we know it today. Many great performers have come out of the jazz industry, but the most widely known is Louis Satchmo Armstrong. Louis Armstrong, also known as the king of jazz was born on Augest 4th, 1901, in New Orleans Louisiana; he died July 6, 1971 in Corona Queens New York. The new style that he created gave a voice-like quality to his horn. Armstrong returned home in May 1971, and though he soon resumed playing again and promised to perform in public once more, he died in his sleep on July 6, 1971, at his home in Queens, New York. As if it were not enough that Armstrong would rewire instrumental music for the rest of the century, his singing did the same for vocal music. Why Is Louis Armstrong Important. A year later, he was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Louis Armstrong used to give away laxatives as gifts. While he still had to work odd jobs selling newspapers and hauling coal to the city's famed red-light district, Armstrong began earning a reputation as a fine blues player. (She was the second of his four wives.) He was abandoned by his father, a boiler stoker, shortly after his birth and was raised by his paternal grandmother. 1 slot in May 1964, and knocking the Beatles off the top at the height of Beatlemania. Why was Louis Armstrong so important? He was also a gifted singer, and his The material may show why Armstrong was not just a giant of jazz music, but a civil rights leader as well. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. Millions of people, starting in the 1930s until today, have agreed with Louis Armstrongs famous words and have been huge fans of the famous musician. He wrote songs such as The Pearls, Millenburg Joys, Mr. At the start of Armstrongs career, he married Daisy Parker. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive musical mind still dominate Jazz to this day. The record was released in 1964 and quickly climbed to the top of the pop music charts, hitting the No. Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. He was born into poverty on August 4, 1901 in the streets of Back o Town (Meckna). Different from most of his recordings of the era, the song features no trumpet and places Armstrong's gravelly voice in the middle of a bed of strings and angelic voices. The first important trend in New York Jazz was Hot Jazz that was an incendiary style introduced by Louis Armstrong (Winfield 170). For live dates, he appeared with the orchestras led by Erskine Tate and Carroll Dickerson. Doctors advised him not to play but Armstrong continued to practice every day in his Corona, Queens home, where he had lived with his fourth wife, Lucille, since 1943. If the gun was not so easily accessible, his firing it and being arrested could have been prevented. Aristotle did not consider children as morally responsible as adults because they have not had sufficient time to move beyond their backgrounds and upbringing. (1964), the latter knocking the Beatles off the top of the pop charts at the height of Beatlemania. With the decline of swing music in the post-World War II years, Armstrong broke up his big band and put together a small group dubbed His All-Stars, which made its debut in Los Angeles on August 13, 1947. Jazz was born there and I remember when it was no crime for cats of any color to get together and blow. Nine years later, after this ban had finally lifted, he again took the stage in New Orleans on October 31, 1965. Armstrong felt that being subservient to white people, was an unfortunately necessary evil in order for him to live successfully and happily. Their marriage was not a happy one, however, and they divorced in 1942. WebWhy Is Louis Armstrong Important. Dancers loved Hendersons music making Louis Armstrong a celebrity so when he left his old band, this would be a step up. In 1988, music historian Thaddeus Tad Jones located a baptismal record at New Orleanss Sacred Heart of Jesus Church. But Armstrong also became an enduring figure in popular music due to his distinctively phrased baritone singing and engaging personality, which were on display in a series of vocal recordings and film roles. Released from the Waifs Home in 1914, Armstrong set his sights on becoming a professional musician. Born in 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana, Armstrong had a difficult childhood. He subsequently passed, so the duo contacted Armstrong in August 1967. Contracted to OKeh Records, he began to make a series of recordings with studio-only groups called the Hot Fives or the Hot Sevens. By the end of the decade, the popularity of the Hot Fives and Sevens was enough to send Armstrong back to New York, where he appeared in the popular Broadway revue, Hot Chocolates. He soon began touring and never really stopped until his death in 1971. On New Year's Eve in 1912, Armstrong fired his stepfather's gun in the air during a New Year's Eve celebration and was arrested on the spot. The song for which Pops is most widely remembered, What a Wonderful World, was almost never his song at all. The Armstrongs moved into the home, where they would live for the rest of their lives, in 1943. The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic, American actress, singer, director, producer. He was then sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys. That same year, he became the first African American to get featured billing in a major Hollywood movie with his turn in Pennies from Heaven, starring Bing Crosby. There was a cheerful impatience in his playing, an optimistic confidence that led him to risk going over the top (Shipton 157). However, conditions changed when he was requested to record the title number of a broadway show that went on to become a hit. Louis was the illegitimate son of William Armstrong and Mary Est Mayann Albert. You feel butterflies in your stomach as you take your seat. He started as a soloist for Henderson after marrying Lil Hardin. Louis Armstrongs significance and most famous songs In 1936, he became the first African American jazz musician to write an autobiography. He was a master of the trumpet and a pioneer of jazz. He was an all-star virtuoso, and came to prominence in the 1920s playing cornet and trumpet with an excitingly new and improvisational style. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. However, a heart attack two days after the Waldorf gig sidelined him for two months. William Armstrong, his father, was a factory worker who abandoned the family soon after the boy's birth. A year in New York with Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra proved unsatisfying so Armstrong returned to Chicago in 1925 and began making records under his own name for the first time. Mozart, in his own traditional ways, the right away he did the first three of his 22 performances at that opera. In 16967, Armstrong recorded his most renowned tune, What a Wonderful Word that surprisingly featured no trumpet. For the first time, Armstrong was really able to demonstrate his unique voice during those recording sessions. The movie he appeared in was Pennies from Heaven (1936). It won him a Grammy for best vocal performance. This gift, coupled with Louis Armstrongs already present affinity for the musical sounds of the local New Orleans street bands and brass players that lingered around, helped to brew the perfect storm that would create one of the most prolific players of the 20th century. When Armstrong was eleven years old, he got in trouble for shooting a gun on New Years Eve to ring in the new year, 1912. In addition Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes., On the 26th day of December in 1788 there was a very great success. Louis Armstrong is one of the most important jazz figures. During his time there, he learned how to play the bugle cornet, an instrument that is similar to the trumpet. Armstrong could make an audience cheer, but Roy Eldridge, made those top and bottom notes feel like a natural part of what the horn should do (Friedwald 21). WebLouis Armstrong. WebThrough the internet and books we find out why Louis Armstrong is such a great person to learn about. His notoriety for being the best jazz player of his time was secured as Armstrong's arrangement of swing and melodic development opened out and changed Henderson's band and in addition jazz overall. Midway through the recording session, he accidentally dropped them and scatted to fill the ensuing silence. He was released on June 16, 1914, and did manual labor while trying to establish himself as a musician.