Louis Armstrong
Harry Warnecke, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Into the cultural milieu of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, the heart of the emerging Dixieland genre, Louis Armstrong was born in 1901. Raised in poverty by a single mother in a rough New Orleans neighborhood, Armstrong grew up hearing the sounds of "spasm bands" playing music on the streets using pots, pans, and washboards. When he was six years old, a neighbor for whom Armstrong occasionally worked bought him a cornet from a local pawn shop. He dropped out of school at the age of 11 and was occasionally in trouble with the law, and was sent to the Colored Waifs’ Home for Boys. Here, however, he received his first formal lessons on the cornet and started playing around town, developing a reputation as a promising musician. His noticeably large mouth gave him the nickname “Satchelmouth.” In 1918, he took a job performing in a brass band on a Mississippi steamboat, and married his first wife, Daisy Parker.

Armstrong's first marriage was short-lived, however. By 1923, he had divorced Daisy and moved to Chicago to play with King Oliver, the leader of the Creole Jazz Band. In Chicago, he met pianist Lil Hardin and married her in 1924. There were rumors of jealousy as Armstrong soon became far more popular than Oliver himself. With his wife’s encouragement, Armstrong and Oliver parted ways (apparently on good terms) in 1924 and Armstrong put his own ensemble together. Armstrong moved to New York City in 1929 to join Fletcher Henderson, who led the most prominent black band in the country.

Armstrong gained a reputation not only as an excellent trumpet player, but was well known for his gravely voice, scat-singing, and his skill at improvisation. His charismatic personality and tales of life in New Orleans endeared him to audiences wherever he went, and Armstrong was one of the first musicians to transcend the racial segregation of the time. He avoided commenting much on the racial politics of 20th century America, and remained highly popular among black and white Americans alike.

In 1930, a British magazine editor mispronounced Armstrong’s nickname “Satchelmouth,” but Armstrong was a pretty easygoing guy, and the new name stuck. Over the next several years, “Satchmo” continued to grow in fame and popularity. His success (and infidelity) was hard on his marriage, however, and he separated from Lil in 1931. They divorced in 1938 and Armstrong remarried, but divorced again in 1942 (Armstrong himself said "I couldn't stay faithful if I tried"), and married a fourth time. This fourth marriage, to Lucille Wilson, finally provided some domestic stability.

Armstrong became so popular that he was able to sustain a solo career even as enthusiasm for big band jazz declined. In 1947, he founded an ensemble called “Louis Armstrong and His All Stars,” which toured the United States and Europe extensively throughout the 1940s and 50s, even displacing the Beatles at the top of the charts as late as 1964, and performing throughout the Soviet bloc in 1965. Armstrong died of a heart attack in New York City in 1971 at the age of 69.