Reissue roundup. (The Music).("Satchmo" Armstrong and his art)(Brief Article)

It would be nearly impossible to overemphasize Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong's importance in jazz--or Americana, for that matter. He was one of the most influential artists in the music's history (b. August 4,1901, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. July 6, 1971). But he was more than just a jazz musician, he was an enormously popular entertainer. Although other black jazz artists would eventually be accepted in white society, Armstrong was one of the first. He found his way into the hearts of many otherwise closed to his kind.

His career as a professional musician began as a teenager, shortly after his release from New Orleans' Colored Waifs Home, where he had spent several years for firing off a pistol on New Year's Eve (1911 or 1912). In 1917, Joe "King" Oliver, considered to be the most important comet player in the city at the time, took note of his excellent playing ability and offered Armstrong coaching on the instrument and steadier work as a musician.

For two years Oliver and Armstrong made great music together and, had it not been for the piano player in the band, they may have kept this association longer. The piano player was Lillian Hardin, who took a personal interest in the young musician, becoming the second major influence in his professional life. In 1924 Armstrong and Hardin were married; soon after she convinced him to quit Oliver's band. He and Lillian then moved to New York where he joined Fletcher Henderson's orchestra. His musical ideas, some of which were harmonies he and Oliver had developed, influenced the writing of Henderson's arranger, Don Redman. Armstrong stayed with Henderson for a little over a year. Over the next several years he recorded extensively, including the first of the famous Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions and as accompanist to the best of the blues singers, Bessie Smith among them.

By the thirties, Armstrong had replaced the cornet with the trumpet. His career had become the success that he had been hoping for. In 1932, he made his first visit to Europe where he was enthusiastically received, but by the mid-forties, big band jazz was losing its appeal with audiences, replaced by small combos playing a new kind of music called bop. Joe Glaser, his longtime manager decided it was time to revamp Armstrong's career and set out to develop a new, smaller ensemble of well-known musicians that gradually came to be known as Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars.

With the All-Stars, Armstrong began a fervid succession of world tours with rarely a night off. The first All-Stars included Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Earl Hines and Big Sid Catlett, but the group underwent numerous personnel changes over the years. The format and content of ...