August 4: Late Jazz Legend Louis Daniel Armstrong Birthday

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby – love. That’s the secret.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music’s history.”
~William Ruhlmann (allmusic.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

When The Saints Go Marching In:

From Wikipedia:

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an “inventive” cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music’s focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong’s influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to “cross over,” whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.
– From http://www.satchmo.com

Louis Armstrong – Berlin 1965  (56 min):

The Grammy Hall of Fame:

• Chimes Blues (1923 – Armstrong’s first recorded cornet solo)
• Heebie Jeebies (1926 – Armstrong’s first recorded scat vocal)
• Mack The Knife (1955 single; Louis Armstrong & the All-Stars)
• St. Louis Blues (1925 single; Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong)
• West End Blues (1928 single; Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five)
• What A Wonderful World (1967 single; Louis Armstrong)
• Porgy and Bess (1958 album; Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald)
• Hello, Dolly! (1964 single; Louis Armstrong)
• All of Me (1932 single; Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra)
• Blue Yodel #9 (1930 single; Jimmie Rodgers featuring Louis Armstrong)
• St. Louis Blues (1929 single; Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra)
• Weather Bird (1928 single; Louis Armstrong & Earl Hines)
• Star Dust (1931 single; Louis Armstrong)

W/ his hot 5 – Heebie Jeebies:

Louis Armstrong – Live 59′ FULL (53 min):

-Egil