Biography of Louis Armstrong

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4 August 1901 6 July 1971 Louis Daniel Armstrong, jazz trumpeter, is one of the leading exponents of this genre of music and one who gave a whole new impression to the afroamerican music. As regards his birth there is a small backstory also defines a little yellow. Armstrong has always claimed to be born on 4 July (national holiday in the United States) of 1900 but, in fact, recent studies have shown that the great trumpeter was born on 4 August of 1901. In particular, subsidized their research have to be reported from New Orleans, her hometown, and carried out by Tad Jones, who seems to have found the original certificates of baptism of "King of jazz". According to these acts, "Satchmo" (the nickname that will be awarded him: it means, roughly, "bag mouth"), had aged a year and a month, perhaps to resolve some problems related to his youthful beginnings in Chicago and New York, where he didn't want to look younger than he was. Louis Armstrong had a troubled childhood. The parents split up shortly before his birth, and the baby is entrusted to the maternal grandmother Josephine, and his mother, in all probability, it was a prostitute. His days spent hovering between exclusion and delinquency although, fortunately, a great deal of interest arose within him, an antidote capable of driving him away from dangerous detours and at the same time to "lift" from the sleazy milieu: music. Still too young to play the trumpet or to appreciate the potential and nuances, limited at that time to sing in a local group very peculiar, given that as a stage had only the streets. Impromptu practice, singing their hearts out and allow him anyway to develop an excellent intonation and a remarkable sense of improvisation, and let us not forget that in fact this is the characteristic that distinguishes the jazz Prince. But the street life is still the street life, with all the dangers and hardships that it entails. Louis, while willing, cannot quite offer an escape from that context. One day is even more surprised to shoot with a revolver stolen from one of the companions of his mother, to celebrate the end of the year. The consequence is that is transferred to a reform school for about two years, in part because the Court had recognized the mother incapacitated the growth of offspring. From this arises perhaps anxiety of love that mark his life, which will scroll before him two wives and many relationships. Also have in Juvie Louis Armstrong finds a way to make music: choir joined the Institute and later before the gang, where he started playing the drum. He also took his first lessons in cornet. The credit is all of his teacher, Peter Davis, who gives him the opportunity to study the rudiments of this sort of "substitute" of the trumpet. The band is very popular with locals and turns the streets playing melodies in vogue at the time as the famous "When the Saints Go marchin'in" which, recovered several years later, will become one of his warhorses. Released from reform school began attending pubs and clubs in the hope that the chance to play in any orchestra. In one of these nightly wanderings she meets Joe Oliver, considered the best New Orleans cornet player (formerly called "King Oliver"). Between the two is to establish a good relationship, so much so that Oliver, in the process of moving, asks Kid Ory (another famous jazz trumpet player) to be replaced by Louis. Just since November, 1918, stimulated by the work on "riverboats" (vessels which sailed the Mississippi River), Armstrong learn to decipher the scores, becoming in this way a complete musician. After a few years of this regime not really RESTful (working on the boats was very tiring), in 1922 he moved to Chicago, leaving a New Orleans that gradually "corrupted" increasingly his taste in music, up to dust off an ancient folklore and watered down. Armstrong at that time of his artistic development was instead pursuing another path, completely different, based on polyphonic musical lines and rigour, in other respects, on trying to give the soloist a hegemonic set role and integrated into the musical texture. Fortunately is hired by King Oliver in his Creole Jazz Band, "which has the ability to act as a soloist and to take the extreme virtuosity that he purchased with his instrument. In fact it is commonly understood by fans and historians, say that "Satchmo" inventiveness, rhythmic and melodic pattern, combined with an impressive sound volume and an unmistakable stamp. After a series of touring, we arrive at the 1924, particularly important year for "Satchmo". Marries, leaves the orchestra of Oliver and enters the big bands of Fletcher Henderson, a giant of jazz that had one of the best orchestras of the time, crammed with fine soloists. As proof of the quantum leap, Armstrong has the opportunity to record with Sidney Bechet, Bassie Smith and many others. Subsequently decides to pursue a solo career. Registers "Hot Fives and Hot Sevens" thus turning the jazz in one of the highest expressions of music, with its clear and bright trumpet and voice dirty drawn directly from the back of the throat. Since then it's just a succession of hits, in the shade of some critics who denounce the limits and losing Armstrong phenomenon. Louis is even accused of being an Uncle Tom because of the ambiguity toward the bloods. But precisely because of his charismatic presence helps to break down racial barriers by becoming one of the first stars of color in music. His life, in addition to live concerts and tours, is enhanced by collaborations (e.g. with Zilmer Randolph), and also begins to open up to the movies, appearing in some films; among these we remember one, "high society" (High society) of 1956, Charles Walters, with Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, where the composer introduces and concludes the first and the last scene of the movie. Become an icon (and some say even the speck of himself), Louis Armstrong was certainly in recent years had become the Ambassador of jazz in the world, but he also lent his image to a number of very questionable artistic events. At that stage of his career, the master was no longer able to take autonomous decisions but couldn't "handle" by officials without too many scruples. After this sad decline, the King of jazz died on July 6, 1971 at his home in Queens, New York.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.