Importance of Louis Armstrong - 1568 Words

Louis Armstrong Louis 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,†¦show more content†¦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 until his death in 1969. Glaser took care of the business end of things, leaving Armstrong free to concentrate on his music. He also hired the Luis Russell Orchestra as Louis backup band with Russell as the musical director. This was like going home for Armstrong, because Russells Orchestra was made up ofShow MoreRelatedLouis Armstrong And Duke Ellington804 Words   |  4 Pagesthe success of the jazz genre as a whole. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are two composters that single handily contributed to the evolution of jazz. Both Louis and Armstrong performed for over fifty years. With this amount of time performing they both touch many eras in jazz. Although Duke was very influential during this time period I like Louie timeline more. Most likely because we are both from New Orleans and I feel closer to him. Before Armstrong had a great influenced on jazz music thereRead MoreKing Of Jazz : Louis Armstrong1617 Words   |  7 PagesJazz History 30 March. 2015 King of Jazz - Louis Armstrong At the mention jazz music, that person will first think of is likely to be a great figure with a clown image, nicknamed Satchmo. The man was Louis Armstrong. He is a husky singer, often with a trumpet in his hand. He played dramatic works of simple structure in Orleans jazz style and with the accompaniment of Dick jazz music. Each of the books on jazz music will mention his name. Louis Armstrong was to jazz music what Bach is to classicalRead MoreKing Of Jazz : Louis Armstrong1617 Words   |  7 PagesJazz History 30 March. 2015 King of Jazz - Louis Armstrong At the mention jazz music, that person will first think of is likely to be a great figure with a clown image, nicknamed Satchmo. The man was Louis Armstrong. He is a husky singer, often with a trumpet in his hand. He played dramatic works of simple structure in Orleans jazz style and with the accompaniment of Dick jazz music. Each of the books on jazz music will mention his name. Louis Armstrong was to jazz music what Bach is to classicalRead MoreThe Legacy Of Jazz And The Civil Rights Movement1432 Words   |  6 Pagesgenerally given more credit in criticism of society because of its upfront blatancy for example in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Jazz could also be out front in its criticism, for example Charles Mingus was a voistrous opposer of segregation. Jazz and literature, both artistic mediums, were also subtle in their criticisms. A parallel to draw would be Louis Armstrong employing irony to subtly offer his point and George Orwell’s Animal Fa rm which uses allusions to not outright expressRead MoreThe Harlem Renaissance and Its Effect on the American Dream1541 Words   |  6 Pageshad already â€Å"set up shop† there. One of the places in which they did so was Harlem’s Cotton Club. This cabaret was famous for launching the careers of jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. However, the club was owned by whites, and its primary audience was whites. Still, the importance of the club is untestable. It was the way for upper class White Americans to experience what the African American culture was like at the time. A select group of prestigious African AmericansRead MoreAmerica s Struggle For The High937 Words   |  4 PagesArkansas during the 1950’s. Reed portrays life in the 1950’s through the eyes of the famous trumpet player, Louis Armstrong. â€Å"The C Above C Above High C,† goes well beyond the topic of racism and desegregation; providing an insightful look in to other forms of discrimination and political corruption. Although racism was a significant issue, sexism and gender discrimination is of equal importance, and created many problems for women during the 1950’s. Gloria is introduced in Act one, a black womanRead MoreJazz And Its Influence On African American Communities1141 Words   |  5 Pagesmore and more popular, the genre became identified by several defining qualities. To begin with, swing and syncopation play a major role in jazz. In fact, Duke Ellington’s song â€Å"It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)† emphasizes the importance of swing in jazz. Swing is a rhythmic style produced from the subdivision of a quarter note into a triplet. This rhythmic style of swing is the quality of jazz that excites listeners and makes them want to dance along or keep the beat by snappingRead MoreThe Best Type Of Musical Performance For Developing Musicians964 Words   |  4 Pagesthat there’s a gray area, as no one knows exactly how much practice qualifies a musician. That being said, in the middle of that gradient there’s a type of musical performance called busking. It’s a rather fam iliar term, but few stop and assess its importance. Busking is the best type of musical performance for developing musicians because it is played publicly, it can make decent money, and it is crucial to developing a professional repertoire. There are two different types of performances that a musicianRead MoreAmerica s Original Music Form : The Influence Of Jazz2552 Words   |  11 PagesAfrican percussion instruments; many likening the occurrence to the meeting between the powerful elements of weather. â€Å"Possibly, the earliest noted use of African rhythms coupled with European classical music was La Bomboula-Danse Negre composed by Louis Moreau Gottschalk in 1847.† (Birthplace of Jazz). The musicians of New Orleans, inspired by the lively tune, commandeered the music and combined it with the tunes drilled in their memories from churches and barrooms. In the process these ingeniousRead MoreMusic Improvisation : Jazz Improvisation2014 Words   |  9 PagesSmith and Louis Armstrong made a lot of call-and-response interactions, but the amount of these interactions was not divided up by the two musicians equally . Instead of collaborating together, what they presented are demonstrated elements of competition. Both of them wanted to play a solo as well as an improvisation at the same time, because they both wanted to be heard and noticed. Therefore, it was not hard to understand that Bessie Smith did not like Louis Armstrong, because Louis Armstrong didn’t