Louis Armstrong

78

Louis Armstrong : biography

In 1929 Louis Armstrong finally moved to New York. The time of big-bands started and he concentrated more on dancing, popular at that time sweet music. Armstrong brought his bright individual manner of hot-jazz in this musical style and he quickly became the national star. The Satchmo’s talent reached its flourishing.

In 1930-s Louis Armstrong had a lot of tours, performed with famous big-bands of Louis Russel and Duke Ellington, then in California he performed with Leon Elkins and Les Hite, he also took part in film shooting in Hollywood. In 1931 he with his big-band visited New Orleans, then returned to New York and started to play in Harlem and Broadway. After that Louis Armstrong made several tours around Europe (before the war since 1933 he made several performances in England, then toured around Scandinavia, France and Netherlands) and Northern Africa which brought Armstrong wide popularity in USA (before he was known basically among black audience) and abroad. Between his tours he performed with orchestras of Charlie Gaines, Chick Webb, Kid Ory and the vocal quartet “Mills Brothers”, he also took part in theatre staging and sound programs, acted in films.

In 1933 Armstrong began to lead the jazz band again. Since 1935 his new manager Joe Glazer took his business part of life under control, he was a very experienced professional in his field. In 1936 Armstrong’s autobiographical book “Swing That Music” was published in New York. Then some health problems appeared: they were connected with the treatment of upper mouth injury (deformation and rupture of tissues because of excessive pressure and irregular form of mouthpiece), then he sustained an operation on vocal chords (he tried to get rid of hoarse timbre of his voice, but only afterwards Armstrong realized that it was a great value for his unique manner of performance).

In 1938 Louis Armstrong married for the fourth (and the last) time on a dancer Lucille Wilson with whom he lived peacefully and happily till the end of his life.

In 1947 his manager Joe Glazer gathered an ensemble “All Stars” for Armstrong. Originally it was an orchestra really consisted of stars – Louis Armstrong (trumpet, vocal), Earl Haines (piano), Jack Tigarden (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarnet), Bud Freeman (tenor-saxophone), Sid Catlett (percussion) and other famous masters of jazz. Afterwards musicians often changed and many unknown for that time jazzmen became very famous and popular because of their participation in this orchestra.

“All Stars” oriented on performance in Dixieland style and jazz editing of popular songs, and these songs predominated over other works in the ensemble’s repertory. In the middle of 1950-s Louis Armstrong became one of the most famous musicians and showmen of the world, he also appeared in more than fifty films. In 50-s when the United States Department of State under Eisenhower was ready to finance his journey to Russia Louis refused and said: “People would ask me what happened in my country. And what would I say? I have a beautiful life in music but I feel as any other black…” Afterwards in 60-s different variants of his tour to Soviet Union were discussed but they all remained only as projects.

In 1954 he wrote the second autobiographical book under the name “Satchmo. My life in New Orleans”.

Subsequently the artist’s popularity continued to grow because of his indefatigable and versatile creative activity. His joint works with Sidney Bechet, Bing Crosby, Say Oliver, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and many other stars of jazz were really remarkable, he also took part in jazz festivals (in 1948 in Nice, in 1956-58 in Newport, in 1959 in Monterey and Italy). He toured across European countries, Latin America, Asia and Africa. Several philharmonic jazz concerts were organized in Town-hall and Metropolitan Opera with Armstrong’s help. His recording of Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” with Ella Fitzgerald made in 1950-s became classical.

In 1959 Armstrong sustained hearty attack and since that time his health didn’t allow him to perform in full measure, but he never stopped concert performances.