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By the end of his teens, Armstrong had grown up fast. Armstrong's popularity continued to grow in Chicago throughout the decade, as he began playing other venues, including the Sunset Café and the Savoy Ballroom. Armstrong accepted, and he was soon taking Chicago by storm with both his remarkably fiery playing and the dazzling two-cornet breaks that he shared with Oliver. She pushed her husband to cut ties with his mentor and join Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, the top African American dance band in New York City at the time.
While performing with Tate in , Armstrong finally switched from the cornet to the trumpet. Today, these are generally regarded as the most important and influential recordings in jazz history; on these records, Armstrong's virtuoso brilliance helped transform jazz from an ensemble music to a soloist's art. Armstrong had a great influence on Henderson and his arranger, Don Redman, both of whom began integrating Armstrong's swinging vocabulary into their arrangements—transforming Henderson's band into what is generally regarded as the first jazz big band.
There, he received musical instruction on the cornet and fell in love with music.
His stop-time solos on numbers like "Cornet Chop Suey" and "Potato Head Blues" changed jazz history, featuring daring rhythmic choices, swinging phrasing and incredible high notes. They also encouraged him to sing and often invited him into their home for meals. Armstrong had a difficult childhood: His father was a factory worker and abandoned the family soon after Louis's birth.
Satchmo: The Life of Louis Armstrong
However, Armstrong's southern background didn't mesh well with the more urban, Northern mentality of Henderson's other musicians, who sometimes gave Armstrong a hard time over his wardrobe and the way he talked. Armstrong joined Henderson in the fall of and immediately made his presence felt with a series of solos that introduced the concept of swing music to the band. Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, , in New Orleans, Louisiana, in a neighborhood so poor that it was nicknamed "The Battlefield.
In , he married Daisy Parker, a prostitute, commencing a stormy union marked by many arguments and acts of violence. Meanwhile, Armstrong's reputation as a musician continued to grow: In , he replaced Oliver in Kid Ory's band, then the most popular band in New Orleans. Beginning in , Armstrong spent his summers playing on riverboats with a band led by Fate Marable. On New Year's Eve in , Armstrong fired his stepfather's gun in the air during a New Year's Eve celebration and was arrested on the spot.
One of the greatest cornet players in town, Joe "King" Oliver, began acting as a mentor to the young Armstrong, showing him pointers on the horn and occasionally using him as a sub. He made his first recordings with Oliver on April 5, ; that day, he earned his first recorded solo on "Chimes Blues. He also began singing on these recordings, popularizing wordless "scat singing" with his hugely popular vocal on 's "Heebie Jeebies.
Louis Armstrong - Wikipedia
He was soon able to stop working manual labor jobs and began concentrating full-time on his cornet, playing parties, dances, funeral marches and at local "honky-tonks"—a name for small bars that typically host musical acts. Henderson also forbade Armstrong from singing, fearing that his rough way of vocalizing would be too coarse for the sophisticated audiences at the Roseland Ballroom. During this time, Armstrong adopted a three-year-old boy named Clarence.
Armstrong soon began dating the female pianist in the band, Lillian Hardin. After they married in , Hardin made it clear that she felt Oliver was holding Armstrong back.
His mother, who often turned to prostitution, frequently left him with his maternal grandmother. Unhappy, Armstrong left Henderson in to return to Chicago, where he began playing with his wife's band at the Dreamland Café. Clarence, who had become mentally disabled from a head injury he had suffered at an early age, was taken care of by Armstrong his entire life. A local Jewish family, the Karnofskys, gave young Armstrong a job collecting junk and delivering coal.
Armstrong's charismatic stage presence impressed not only the jazz world but all of popular music. While in New York, Armstrong cut dozens of records as a sideman, creating inspirational jazz with other greats such as Sidney Bechet, and backing numerous blues singers including Bessie Smith. Armstrong was obligated to leave school in the fifth grade to begin working.
Though Armstrong was content to remain in New Orleans, in the summer of , he received a call from Oliver to come to Chicago and join his Creole Jazz Band on second cornet. An all-star virtuoso, he came to prominence in the s, influencing countless musicians with both his daring trumpet style and unique vocals. He was then sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys. It was on the riverboat that Armstrong honed his music reading skills and eventually had his first encounters with other jazz legends, including Bix Beiderbecke and Jack Teagarden.
The Hot Five and Hot Seven were strictly recording groups; Armstrong performed nightly during this period with Erskine Tate's orchestra at the Vendome Theater, often playing music for silent movies. A young pianist from Pittsburgh, Earl Hines, assimilated Armstrong's ideas into his piano playing. In , the home released him, and he immediately began dreaming of a life making music.
Together, Armstrong and Hines formed a potent team and made some of the greatest recordings in jazz history in , including their virtuoso duet, "Weather Bird," and "West End Blues. While he still had to work odd jobs selling newspapers and hauling coal to the city's famed red-light district, Armstrong began earning a reputation as a fine blues player.
The boy's mother, Armstrong's cousin, had died in childbirth.