126 Facts About Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was among the most influential figures in jazz.

Louis Armstrong's career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz.

Around 1922, Louis Armstrong followed his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to Chicago to play in Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

Louis Armstrong earned a reputation at "cutting contests", and his fame reached band leader Fletcher Henderson.

Louis Armstrong moved to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band soloist and recording artist.

Louis Armstrong was one of the first popular African-American entertainers to "cross over" to wide popularity with white and international audiences.

Louis Armstrong is believed to have been born in New Orleans on August 4,1901, but the date has been heavily debated.

Louis Armstrong himself often claimed he was born on July 4,1900.

Louis Armstrong was raised by his grandmother until the age of five, when he was returned to his mother.

Louis Armstrong spent his youth in poverty in a rough neighborhood known as The Battlefield, on the southern section of Rampart Street.

At the age of six, Louis Armstrong started attending the Fisk School for Boys, a school that accepted black children in the racially segregated school system of New Orleans.

Louis Armstrong lived with his mother and sister during this time and worked for the Karnoffskys, a family of Lithuanian Jews, at their home.

Louis Armstrong helped their sons Morris and Alex collect "rags and bones" and deliver coal.

Louis Armstrong tried playing a tin horn to attract customers to distinguish them from other hawkers.

Later, as an adult, Louis Armstrong wore a Star of David given to him by his Jewish manager, Joe Glaser, until the end of his life, in part in memory of this family who had raised him.

Louis Armstrong's mother moved into a one-room house on Perdido Street with Armstrong, Lucy, and her common-law husband, Tom Lee, next door to her brother Ike and his two sons.

Louis Armstrong joined a quartet of boys who sang in the streets for money.

Borrowing his stepfather's gun without permission, Louis Armstrong fired a blank into the air and was arrested on December 31,1912.

Louis Armstrong spent the night at New Orleans Juvenile Court and was sentenced the next day to detention at the Colored Waif's Home.

Louis Armstrong developed his cornet skills by playing in the band.

On June 14,1914, Louis Armstrong was released into the custody of his father and his new stepmother, Gertrude.

Louis Armstrong lived in this household with two stepbrothers for several months.

Louis Armstrong had to share a bed in her small home with his mother and sister.

Louis Armstrong found a job at a dance hall owned by Henry Ponce, who had connections to organized crime.

Louis Armstrong met the six-foot tall drummer Black Benny, who became Armstrong's guide and bodyguard.

Louis Armstrong briefly studied shipping management at the local community college but was forced to quit after being unable to afford the fees.

Louis Armstrong listened to the early sounds of jazz from bands that played in brothels and dance halls, such as Pete Lala's, where King Oliver performed.

Early in his career, Louis Armstrong played in brass bands and riverboats in New Orleans, in the late 1910s.

Louis Armstrong traveled with the band of Fate Marable, which toured on the steamboat Sidney with the Streckfus Steamers line up and down the Mississippi River.

Louis Armstrong described his time with Marable as "going to the University" since it gave him a wider experience working with written arrangements.

Louis Armstrong became the second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band.

Louis Armstrong became one of the first jazz musicians to be featured on extended trumpet solos, injecting his own personality and style.

In 1922, Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago at the invitation of King Oliver, although Louis Armstrong would return to New Orleans periodically for the rest of his life.

Louis Armstrong lived luxuriously in his apartment with his first private bath.

Excited to be in Chicago, Louis Armstrong began his career-long pastime of writing letters to friends in New Orleans.

Louis Armstrong had to stand 15 feet from Oliver in a far corner of the room to remedy this.

Lil Hardin, whom Louis Armstrong would marry in 1924, urged Louis Armstrong to seek more prominent billing and develop his style apart from the influence of Oliver.

At her suggestion, Louis Armstrong began playing classical music in church concerts to broaden his skills and dressing more stylishly to offset his girth.

Shortly afterward, Louis Armstrong was invited to go to New York City to play with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the top African-American band of the time.

Louis Armstrong switched to the trumpet to blend in better with the other musicians in his section.

Louis Armstrong adapted to Henderson's tightly controlled style, playing the trumpet and experimenting with the trombone.

Louis Armstrong's act included singing and telling tales of New Orleans characters, especially preachers.

In 1925, Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago largely at the insistence of Lil, who wanted to expand his career and income.

The word "muggles" was a slang term for marijuana, something Louis Armstrong often used during his life.

Louis Armstrong played with Erskine Tate's Little Symphony, mostly at the Vendome Theatre.

Later that year, Louis Armstrong organized a series of new Hot Five sessions, which resulted in nine more records.

Louis Armstrong made a huge impact during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance.

Hughes admired Louis Armstrong and acknowledged him as one of the most recognized musicians of the era.

The sound of jazz, along with musicians such as Louis Armstrong, helped shape Hughes as a writer.

Louis Armstrong's popularity brought together many black and white audiences.

Louis Armstrong returned to New York in 1929, where he played in the pit orchestra for the musical Hot Chocolates, an all-black revue written by Andy Razaf and pianist Fats Waller.

Louis Armstrong started to work at Connie's Inn in Harlem, chief rival to the Cotton Club, a venue for elaborately staged floor shows, and a front for gangster Dutch Schultz.

Louis Armstrong had considerable success with vocal recordings, including versions of songs composed by his old friend Hoagy Carmichael.

Louis Armstrong's radical re-working of Sidney Arodin and Carmichael's "Lazy River", recorded in 1931, encapsulated his groundbreaking approach to melody and phrasing.

Louis Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 to seek new opportunities.

Louis Armstrong played at the New Cotton Club in Los Angeles with Lionel Hampton on drums.

Louis Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence.

Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago in late 1931 and played in bands more in the Guy Lombardo vein, and he recorded more standards.

Louis Armstrong sponsored a local baseball team called Armstrong's Secret Nine and had a cigar named after him.

Louis Armstrong hired Joe Glaser as his new manager, a tough mob-connected wheeler-dealer who began straightening out his legal mess, mob troubles, and debts.

Louis Armstrong began to experience problems with his fingers and lips, aggravated by his unorthodox playing style.

Louis Armstrong appeared in movies again, including Crosby's 1936 hit Pennies from Heaven.

In 1937, Louis Armstrong substituted for Rudy Vallee on the CBS radio network and became the first African American to host a sponsored national broadcast.

Louis Armstrong was featured as a guest artist with Lionel Hampton's band at the famed second Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, produced by Leon Hefflin Sr.

Louis Armstrong was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine on February 21,1949.

Over 30 years, Louis Armstrong played more than 300 performances a year, making many recordings and appearing in more than 30 films.

Louis Armstrong continued an intense international touring schedule, but suffered a heart attack in 1959 while in Italy and had to rest.

Louis Armstrong toured well into his 60s, even visiting part of the Communist Bloc in 1965.

Louis Armstrong toured Africa, Europe, and Asia under the sponsorship of the US State Department with great success, earning the nickname "Ambassador Satch" and inspiring Dave Brubeck to compose his jazz musical The Real Ambassadors.

Louis Armstrong's travels included performances in Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria.

Louis Armstrong did not perform publicly in 1969 and spent most of the year recuperating at home.

Louis Armstrong embarked on another world tour, but a heart attack forced him to take a break for two months.

Louis Armstrong made his last recorded trumpet performances on his 1968 album Disney Songs the Satchmo Way.

That said, Louis Armstrong was registered as "Lewie" for the 1920 US Census.

Louis Armstrong returned to Gretna on several occasions to visit her.

Louis Armstrong found the courage to look for her home to see her away from work.

Clarence Louis Armstrong was mentally disabled as a result of a head injury at an early age.

Louis Armstrong spent the rest of his life taking care of him.

On February 4,1924, Louis Armstrong married Lil Hardin Louis Armstrong, King Oliver's pianist.

Louis Armstrong had divorced her first husband a few years earlier.

Louis Armstrong then married Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club in New York, in October 1942.

Louis Armstrong's autobiography vexed some biographers and historians because Armstrong had a habit of telling tales, particularly about his early childhood when he was less scrutinized, and his embellishments lack consistency.

Louis Armstrong was beloved by an American public that usually offered little access beyond their public celebrity to even the most significant African American performers, and Armstrong was able to live a private life of access and privilege afforded to few other African Americans during that era.

Louis Armstrong generally remained politically neutral, which sometimes alienated him from black community members who expected him to use his prominence within white America to become more outspoken during the civil rights movement.

However, Louis Armstrong criticized President Eisenhower for not acting forcefully on civil rights.

The trumpet is notoriously hard on the lips, and Louis Armstrong suffered from lip damage over most of his life.

However, Louis Armstrong did not get around to that until his final years, by which point his health was failing, and the doctors considered surgery too risky.

In 1959, Louis Armstrong was hospitalized for pneumonia while on tour in Italy.

Louis Armstrong scooped the coins off the street and stuck them into his mouth to prevent bigger children from stealing them.

Early on, Louis Armstrong was known as "Dipper", short for "Dippermouth", a reference to the piece Dippermouth Blues and something of a riff on his unusual embouchure.

Louis Armstrong wore the Star of David in honor of the Karnoffsky family who took him in as a child and lent him money to buy his first cornet.

Louis Armstrong was baptized a Catholic in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans, and he met Pope Pius XII and Pope Paul VI.

Louis Armstrong used laxatives to control his weight, a practice he advocated both to acquaintances and in the diet plans he published under the title Lose Weight the Satchmo Way.

Louis Armstrong appeared in humorous risque cards that he had printed to send to friends.

Louis Armstrong was a heavy marijuana smoker for much of his life and spent nine days in jail in 1930 after being arrested outside a club for drug possession.

The most lauded recordings on which Louis Armstrong plays trumpet include the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, as well as those of the Red Onion Jazz Babies.

The solo that Louis Armstrong plays during the song "Potato Head Blues" has long been considered his best solo of that series.

Louis Armstrong was virtually the first to create significant variations based on the chord harmonies of the songs instead of merely on the melodies.

Louis Armstrong's playing technique, honed by constant practice, extended the range, tone, and capabilities of the trumpet.

Louis Armstrong was one of the first artists to use recordings of his performances to improve himself.

Louis Armstrong had a large collection of recordings, including reel-to-reel tapes, which he took on the road with him in a trunk during his later career.

Louis Armstrong enjoyed listening to his own recordings, and comparing his performances musically.

Louis Armstrong did, thinking the track would be discarded, but that was the version that was pressed to disc, sold, and became an unexpected hit.

Long before this, Louis Armstrong was playing around with his vocals, shortening and lengthening phrases, interjecting improvisations, and using his voice as creatively as his trumpet.

Crosby admired and copied Louis Armstrong, as is evident on many of his early recordings, notably "Just One More Chance".

In 1968, Louis Armstrong scored one last popular hit in the UK with "What a Wonderful World", which topped the British charts for a month.

Louis Armstrong appeared on the October 28,1970, Johnny Cash Show, where he sang Nat King Cole's hit "Ramblin' Rose" and joined Cash to re-create his performance backing Jimmie Rodgers on "Blue Yodel No 9".

Louis Armstrong enjoyed many types of music, from blues to the arrangements of Guy Lombardo, to Latin American folksongs, to classical symphonies and opera.

Louis Armstrong incorporated influences from all these sources into his performances, sometimes to the bewilderment of fans who wanted him to stay in convenient narrow categories.

Louis Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence.

Louis Armstrong appeared in more than a dozen Hollywood films, usually playing a bandleader or musician.

Louis Armstrong appears throughout the film, sings the title song, and performs the duet "Now You Has Jazz" with Crosby.

In 1947, Louis Armstrong played himself in the movie New Orleans opposite Billie Holiday, which chronicled the demise of the Storyville district and the ensuing exodus of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago.

Louis Armstrong had a part in the film alongside James Stewart in The Glenn Miller Story.

In 1937, Louis Armstrong was the first African American to host a nationally broadcast radio show.

Louis Armstrong was heard on such radio programs as The Story of Swing and This Is Jazz, and he made television appearances, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

In 1949, Louis Armstrong's life was dramatized by scriptwriter Richard Durham in the Chicago WMAQ radio series Destination Freedom.

Against his doctor's advice, Louis Armstrong played a two-week engagement in March 1971 at the Waldorf-Astoria's Empire Room.

Still hoping to get back on the road, Louis Armstrong died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6,1971.

Louis Armstrong was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death.

Louis Armstrong was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City.

Louis Armstrong was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972 by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

In 1999, Louis Armstrong was nominated for inclusion in the American Film Institute's 100 Years.

Louis Armstrong was and will continue to be the embodiment of jazz.

The entrance to the airport's former terminal building houses a statue depicting Louis Armstrong playing his cornet.

The house where Louis Armstrong lived for almost 28 years was declared a National Historic Landmark and opened to the public for guided tours in 2003.