Louis Daniel Armstrong
Arts & Music • Historical Archive • 🇺🇸 United States • 8 views

Louis Daniel Armstrong 🇺🇸

Louis Armstrong (Known as "Satchmo / Pops / The Founding Father of Jazz")
Jazz Trumpeter, Cornetist, Singer, Innovator of Swing and Scat Singing
Born 4 August 1901 🇺🇸 New Orleans (Louisiana), United States
Passed Away 6 July 1971 Queens (New York City), United States
Lifespan 69 years old
8 views
Notice / Correction
"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. What a wonderful world. All music is folk music; I ain't never heard no horse sing a song."

Archival Overview

Founding father of jazz whose brilliant cornet/trumpet virtuosity, rhythmic swing, gravelly baritone vocals, and joyful charisma transformed jazz from collective folk improvisation into an individual soloist's art in West End Blues and What a Wonderful World.

Biographical Record

Louis Daniel Armstrong (1901–1971) was born in dire poverty in the 'Battlefield' neighborhood of New Orleans. Learning cornet at the Colored Waif's Home after firing a blank pistol on New Year's Eve, he was mentored by King Oliver. In the 1920s, his Chicago recordings with the Hot Five and Hot Seven permanently changed the course of Western music, shifting jazz's focus from collective polyphony to the breathtaking virtuosity of the solo improviser.

With his incandescent upper-register trumpet solos, infectious swing feel, and invention of nonsense scat singing (*Heebie Jeebies*), Armstrong became an unmatched global cultural ambassador. Hits like Hello, Dolly! (dislodging The Beatles from No. 1 in 1964) and the immortal hymn What a Wonderful World brought joy and racial unity across deep divides.

Key Life Milestones

28 June 1928 CE

Recording of 'West End Blues' with the Hot Five

Recorded the iconic trumpet cadenza universally recognized as the single most influential recording in early jazz history.

16 August 1967 CE

Recording of 'What a Wonderful World'

Recorded the heartfelt anthem of peace and beauty that became his enduring universal signature.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Flushing Cemetery (Section 9, Queens)
Queens (New York City), United States
GPS: 40.7514, -73.8114
View on Memory Atlas
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