Louis Armstrong – One of The Greatest Jazz Musicians of All Time

This paper will be on Louis Armstrong’s family, birth, personal life, culture, the society that he lived in, but above all I will be discussing Louis Armstrong’s music style and musical accomplishments. Along with this, I will talk about these inspirations and influences that helped him shape and craft his musical innovations. Louis Armstrong. He is well known for his very unique gravelly voice and his imaginative ideas with playing the trumpet and cornet. Louis was a master of New Orleans Jazz. This style of jazz is composed of a trumpet or cornet with the cornet laying down the melodic lead. Often time the harmony comes from the trombone with the countermelodies coming from a clarinet. Today he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time so let's find out how this musical legend got his fame.

Louis Armstrong was born on the day of August 4 the year of 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He grew up with his mother Mayann who raised him in a place that was so perilous it was called 'The Battlefield.' His family was very poor and they barely had enough just to get by. He just had fifth-grade schooling, he shortly after dropped out to start working and make some money. One of his first jobs was with a Jewish Family. This enabled Armstrong to make enough cash to buy his first cornet which he held very close to him. When Louis was 11 years of Age he was arrested and sent to colored boy’s home for troubled kids. It was here that Louis Armstrong really learned how to play his Cornet while under the instruction of a man named Peter Davis. We can see that this man obviously had a life-changing impact on Louis and this inspired Louis to become a professional musician when he departed the boy’s home. And that’s exactly what he set out to do when he was released from the boy’s home in 1914. Louis had discovered an artist that was the city's top cornetist, Joe 'King' Oliver. Joe Oliver saw the ability and the potential in Louis so he at that point set out to tutor Armstrong to make him the best. Louis before long became one best and requested cornetists in the area. He also took up a gig performing on Mississippi riverboats.

In the year of 1922, a man named Joesph Nathan Oliver (also known as King Oliver) set out to find Louis Armstrong and to ask him to come to join his band in the windy city of Chicago. Armstrong and Joesph became a great duo because of their two-cornet music and not shortly after in 1923 they started producing records. By then, Louis began to date the pianist in the band and her name was Lillian Hardin. Less then a year later Armstrong wedded Hardin who encouraged Louis to set out on his own and try to make it himself. Armstrong's ad-libbed performances changed jazz from an outfit based music into a soloist's craft, while his expressive vocals consolidated inventive explosions of scat singing and a hidden swing feel. He before long started visiting and never truly halted until his passing in 1971. The 1930s additionally discovered Armstrong accomplishing extraordinary ubiquity on radio, in films, and with his accounts. He performed in Europe without precedent for a year in 1932 and shortly came back in 1933. He returned do to a lip injury that he had gotten performing in Europe. Louis has appeared in 9+ films including, Hello, Dolly!, High Society, Cabin in the Sky, The Glenn Miller Story and many more.

In 1947, the disappearing ubiquity of the huge groups constrained Armstrong to start fronting a little gathering, Louis Armstrong and his all-stars. Staff changed throughout the years however this remained Armstrong's fundamental performing vehicle for the remainder of his vocation. He had a string of pop hits starting in 1949 and began making customary abroad visits, where his notoriety was so incredible, he was named 'Ambassador Satch.' Back in America, Louis had been a silent but influential Civil Rights pioneer. During the 1950s, even while he had made contributions to the civil rights movement he critics of him was once in a while reprimanded for his dramatic persona and called an 'Uncle Tom' yet he hushed critics by standing up to the government’s treatment of the 'Little Rock Nine' in 1957. Armstrong kept touring the world and making records with tunes like 'Blueberry Hill' in 1949, 'Mack the Knife' in1955 and 'Hi, Dolly! In 1964'. Thes songs would bump the Beatles off the charts even during the highest point of the pop outlines at the climax of Beatlemania. This goes to show just how popular and influential Louis Armstrong must have been if he was out charting the Beatles who were outrageously popular.

Sadly on July 6, 1971, Louis Armstrong passed away in his sleep due to a heart attack. However, this did not come as a surprise because throughout Louis’s life he had been through countless hospitals for heart and kidney troubles. That being said Louis had preformed what he loved all the way up until his death. In Conclusion despite Louis’s hardships in life and the society that he lived in, he was still was able to produce revolutionary music that no one has ever heard before. He was an extremely important influence on today's music culture and even today's world. In his life, he did good beyond his musical accomplishments by also being a pioneer in the civil rights movement with joining people together regardless of race or class. This is another reason why Louis will always be remembered.