phalenopsis1 Louis Armstrong St. James Infirmary from The Best of Jazz Classics
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Louis Armstrong & Friends
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Louis Armstrong & Friends
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Irving Mills
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“Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed “Satchmo”, “Satch”, and “Pops”, was born and raised in New Orleans. His parents were Mary Albert and William Armstrong. Mary Albert was from Boutte, Louisiana, and gave birth at home when she was about sixteen. Louis Armstrong was raised by his grandmother until the age of five when he was returned to his mother. At six he attended the Fisk School for Boys, a school that accepted black children in the racially segregated system of New Orleans.”From the age of 7 he lived with the Karnoffskys, a family of Lithuanian Jews. Mrs Karnoffsky used to sing lullabies for him at night before bed in Yiddish and Russian. The Karnoffskys treated him like family and they fed and nurtured him. In his memoir Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907, he described his discovery that this family was also subject to discrimination by “other white folks” who felt that they were better than Jews: “I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for.” To distinguish the Karnoffskys from other hawkers, he tried playing a tin horn to attract customers. Morris Karnoffsky gave Armstrong an advance toward the purchase of a cornet from a pawn shop. Fluent in Yiddish, Armstrong wore a Star of David until the end of his life in memory of this family who had raised him.”He was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. Around 1922, he followed his mentor, Joe “King” Oliver, to play in the Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. There he reconnected with his friend Bix Beiderbecke, and spent time with Hoagy Carmichael and Lil Hardin. Fletcher Henderson persuaded Armstrong to come to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band soloist and recording artist. Hardin became Armstrong’s second wife and they returned to live in Chicago. After years of touring, he settled in Queens, and by the 1950s, he was a national musical icon, assisted by his appearances on radio and in film and television.”With his instantly recognizable rich, gravelly voice, Armstrong was an influential singer and skillful improviser, also skilled at scat singing. He was one of the first popular African-American entertainers to “cross over” to wide popularity with white (and international) audiences. He rarely publicly politicized his race, to the dismay of fellow African Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock crisis. He was able to access the upper echelons of American society at a time when this was difficult for black men.”He appeared in films such as High Society (1956) alongside Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra, and Hello, Dolly! (1969) starring Barbra Streisand. He received many accolades including three Grammy Award nominations and a win for his vocal performance of Hello, Dolly! in 1964. In 2017, he was posthumously inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.”Against his doctor’s advice, Armstrong played a two-week engagement in March 1971 at the Waldorf-Astoria‘s Empire Room, after which he was hospitalized for a heart attack. He was released from the hospital in May, and quickly resumed practicing his trumpet playing. Still hoping to get back on the road, he died of a heart attack in his sleep on July 6, 1971, a month before his 70th birthday. He was residing in Corona, Queens, New York City, at the time of his death. He was interred in Flushing Cemetery, Flushing, in Queens, New York City. His honorary pallbearers included Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Harry James, Frank Sinatra, Ed Sullivan, Earl Wilson, Alan King, Johnny Carson and David Frost. Peggy Lee sang “The Lord’s Prayer” at the services while Al Hibbler sang “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and Fred Robbins, a long-time friend, gave the eulogy.” (wikipedia (edited)
(Contributed by Alan Blackman)