Importance Of Louis ArmstrongEssay Preview: Importance Of Louis ArmstrongReport this essayLouis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong was the greatest of all Jazz musicians. Armstrong defined what it was to play Jazz. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive musical mind still dominate Jazz to this day. Only Charlie Parker comes close to having as much influence on the history of Jazz as Louis Armstrong did. Like almost all early Jazz musicians, Louis was from New Orleans. He was from a very poor family and was sent to reform school when he was twelve after firing a gun in the air on New Years Eve. At the school he learned to play cornet. After being released at age fourteen, he worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart. He didnt own an instrument at this time, but continued to listen to bands at clubs like the Funky Butt Hall. Joe “King” Oliver was his favorite and the older man acted as a father to Louis, even giving him his first real cornet, and instructing him on the instrument. By 1917 he played in an Oliver inspired group at dive bars in New Orleans Storyville section. In 1919 he left New Orleans for the first time to join Fate Marables band in St. Louis. Marable led a band that played on the Strekfus Mississippi river boat lines. When the boats left from New Orleans
Armstrong also played regular gigs in Kid Orys band. Louis stayed with Marable until 1921 when he returned to New Orleans and played in Zutty Singletons. He also played in parades with the Allen Brass Band, and on the bandstand with Papa Celestins Tuxedo Orchestra , and the Silver Leaf Band. When King Oliver left the city in 1919 to go to Chicago, Louis took his place in Kid Orys band from time to time. In 1922 Louis received a telegram from his mentor Joe Oliver, asking him to join his Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens (459 East 31st Street) in Chicago. This was a dream come true for Armstrong and his amazing playing in the band soon made him a sensation among other musicians in Chicago.
The New Orleans style of music took the town by storm and soon many other bands from down south made their way north to Chicago. While playing in Olivers Creole Jazz Band, Armstrong met Lillian Hardin, a piano player and arranger for the band. In February of 1924 they were married. Lil was a very intelligent and ambitious woman who felt that Louis was wasting himself playing in Olivers band. By the end of 1924 she pressured Armstrong to reluctantly leave his mentors band. He briefly worked with Ollie Powers Harmony Syncopators before he moved to New York to play in Fletcher Hendersons Orchestra for 13 months. During that time he also did dozens of recording sessions with numerous Blues singers, including Bessie Smiths 1925 classic recording of “St. Louis Blues”. He also recorded with Clarence Williams and the Red Onion Jazz Babies.
In 1925 Armstrong moved back to Chicago and joined his wifes band at the Dreamland Cafe (3520 South State Street). He also played in Erskine Tates Vendome Orchestra and then with Carrol Dickensons Orchestra at the Sunset Cafe (313-17 East 35th Street at the corner of Calmet Street). Armstrong recorded his first Hot Five records that same year. This was the first time that Armstrong had made records under his own name. The records made by Louis Armstrongs Hot Five and Hot Seven are considered to be absolute jazz classics and speak of Armstrongs creative powers. The band never played live, but continued recording until 1928. While working at the Sunset, Louis met his future manager, Joe Glaser. Glaser managed the Sunset at that time. Armstrong continued to play in Carrol Dickensons Orchestra until 1929. He also led his own band on the same venue under the name of Louis Armstrong and his Stompers. For the next two years Armstrong played with Carroll Dickersons Savoy Orchestra and with Clarence Jones Orchestra in Chicago. By 1929 Louis was becoming a very big star. He toured with the show “Hot Chocolates” and appeared occasionally with the Luis Russell Orchestra, with Dave Peyton, and with Fletcher Henderson. Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 where he fronted a new band called Louis Armstrong and Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra. In 1931 he returned to Chicago and assembled his own band for touring purposes.
In June of that year he returned to New Orleans for the first time since he left in 1922 to join King Olivers Creole Jazz Band. Armstrong was greeted as a hero, but racism marred his return when a White radio announcer refused to mention Armstrong on the air and a free concert that Louis was going to give to the cities African-American population was cancelled at the last minute. Louis and Lil also separated in 1931. In 1932 he returned to California, before leaving for England where he was a great success. For the next three years Armstrong was almost always on the road. He crisscrossed the U.S. dozens of times and returned to Europe playing in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland and England. In 1935 he returned to the U.S. and hired Joe Glaser to be his manager. He had known Glaser when he was the manager of the Sunset Cafe in Chicago in the 1920s. Glaser was allegedly connected to the Al Capone mob, but proved to be a great manager and friend for Louis. Glaser remained Armstrongs manager
The Blues of the 1940s is an incredible story, and the same can be said for the early 1950s. This book recounts the life of Louis Armstrong by his tragic and unrepentant love affair with a rock star. This biography is also about the late and very talented American Jazz Hall of Fame inductee Charles Lummel, who was also the wife of an engineer who would eventually form the backbone of jazz rock.
The Blues of the 1940s is a story of the life and soul of a great jazz musician, especially a woman, who had long since abandoned her marriage. The family split up. In 1940, Louis Armstrong and his wife, Rose, were divorcing. After an acrimonious, romantic marriage, Louis got married and went to Los Angeles to run a jazz club, which was an obvious choice for the newly divorced. However, when his wife got injured, the pain continued to mount. Despite the pain, Louis and his wife finally took his money, and returned in 1961 to the studio. They found a rock star, John J. Bonham Jr., a successful manager who played on the famous Rock Brothers record “Crazy.” In 1962, Mr. Bonham was hired to become chairman of the Los Angeles Jazz Band.
La Belle Époque had just published an introduction to the band. After the introduction, the band was disbanded. Louis, who had moved to New Orleans during the height of the blues boom, became well-known in New Orleans, but had been forced out due to serious health problems. For years he served as conductor and organist at the Jazz House, where he had performed while working on the New Orleans “Jazz Club” for the last 15 years. Louis had left the Jazz House after a failed tryst with the group four years earlier. In 1967 he joined the band, but they were unable to keep him. L.A.-based guitarist, Steve Rondel, had told the Los Angeles Times he would not play for the Blues again, but he refused to join when he was unable to afford a house on the East Coast. He soon became a devoted guitar player, and during his time with the Blues he has become a big-time proponent of the band’s history, the history of Jazz at this time of jazz in New Orleans, Jazz Rock at the Jazz House, and more.[citation needed]
La Belle Époque also details the life and career of the late Charles Lummel, whom Louis had loved for more than seventy years. In 1961, Charles Lummel was found dead in his hotel room. He had been stabbed at the age of five. An inquest into his death will be held later in New Orleans, in an attempt to find out whether or not Charles was behind the murder. He was one of the only jazz musicians who had found fame and money while in New Orleans for the Jazz Club. After Charles was released and moved into a new city in the summer of 1968, his wife, Patricia Lummel (who was also his longtime friend and love interest), took up the mantle of manager. Charles used his wealth, his power at every turn to make sure that his wife remained involved in business, and not only kept quiet and did what they needed to do. In addition to the many important roles he had played in the recording and presentation of his music, Charles also ensured the performance of his greatest hits. In this way, he was almost like a brother and sister to his wife.[citation needed]
La Belle Époque also documents the life of Louis Armstrong. It does not make a great deal of sense if you assume that he was the owner of or had control of the entire recording studio on El Capitan Boulevard. There were many rooms in the recording studio, including the studio that he shared with his wife,