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Short Biography of Louis Armstrong
Date of Birth: Born on August 4, 1901
Place of Birth : New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Parents: Father - William Armstrong
Mother:
Mary Albert Armstrong
Background Facts, Information & Ancestry :
Louis Armstrong was the grandson of slaves
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1901 |
This timeline starts on August
4, 1901 when Louis Daniel Armstrong was born. His
parents were named William Armstrong and Mary Albert
Armstrong. He had a younger sister called Beatrice
Armstrong Collins (1886–1942),
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1902 |
His father abandoned his
family and his mother left the children with their
grandmother, Josephine Armstrong and their Uncle
Isaac
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1906 |
He moved back to live with his
mother
Education: He attended the Fisk School for Boys
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1907 |
Times were hard and his mother
turned to prostitution |
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1912 |
Louis Armstrong dropped out of
the Fisk School for Boys and started to earn a
meagre living singing on the streets of New Orleans
with a quartet. A musician named Joe "King" Oliver
taught Louis to play the cornet.
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1913 |
His first cornet was bought
with money loaned to him by the Karnofskys who were
a Russian-Jewish immigrant family who had taken
Louis into their family
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1914 |
Armstrong was sent to Colored
Waifs’ Home for general delinquency where he
continued to play cornet with the help of lessons
from Professor Peter Davis
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1915 |
Louis Armstrong was released
from the Colored Waifs’ Home and returned to live
with his mother and step-father. Louis worked as a
coalman during the day and at night he played in a
dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny
became mentor.
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1916 |
He played brass bands on the
riverboats and steamboats of New Orleans |
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1917 |
Armstrong played with the King
Ory band which was a hot jazz group |
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1918 |
March 19: Louis married Daisy
Parker and they adopted a 3-year-old mentally
disabled boy named Clarence Armstrong who was the
son of Louis's cousin Flora who had died soon after
giving birth. The marriage was short lived and soon
ended in divorce
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1919 |
He became second trumpet for
the Tuxedo Brass Band which was a society band |
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1921 |
By this time Louis had learned
to read music |
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1922 |
Louis Armstrong joins the
influential hot jazz band called Creole Jazz Band in
Chicago playing with musicians such as his friend
Bix Beiderbecke. He married, Lillian (Lil) Hardin
who was Oliver’s pianist.
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1923 |
He lived well in Chicago where
he met Hoagy Carmichael |
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1924 |
Louis Armstrong joins Fletcher
Henderson band in Harlem. |
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1925 |
He formed a band called the
“Hot Five” for recording purposes only and cut his
first records for Okeh. He continued playing in
other bands
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1929 |
He formed his own band called
Louis Armstrong and the Stompers. He also toured
with the show “Hot Chocolates”.
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1930 |
In the 1930's the popularity
of Jazz declined in favour of Swing. Armstrong moved
to Los Angeles and played at the New Cotton Club in
LA where he first met Bing Crosby
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1931 |
Armstrong appeared in his
first movie called Ex-Flame. During this year
Armstrong was convicted of marijuana possession but
received a suspended sentence. He also had problems
with the mob and first moved back to New Orleans but
then left the country for Europe
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1935 |
Armstrong and his band work
with with Joe Glaser as manager. He recorded records
with the Mills Brothers, Louis Jordan, Tommy Dorsey,
and Ella Fitzgerald
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1936 |
He appeared in the movie
Pennies from Heaven with Bing Crosby |
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1937 |
Louis Armstrong became the
first black to host a sponsored, national radio
broadcast |
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1938 |
He divorces Lillian (Lil)
Hardin and married long time girlfriend Alpha |
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1939 |
WW2 begins |
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1942 |
Louis Armstrong married his
fourth wife, Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton
Club |
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1943 |
Louis and Lucille moved into
the house in Queens that has become the Armstrong
Archives. He made the movie Cabin In the Sky and The
Five Pennies starring Danny Kaye
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1945 |
WW2 ends and so does the
public taste for Swing music. Louis formed a six
piece group called the All Stars
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1951 |
June: He reached the Top Ten
of the LP charts with Satchmo at Symphony Hall
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1956 |
He played at aconcert
celebrating Ghana's independence which was attended
by more than 100,000 Louis Armstrong fans
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1957 |
Armstrong speaks out against
racial discrimination and publicly condemned the
violence that swept Little Rock over school
integration
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1959 |
Armstrong was briefly
hospitalized due to a heart attack |
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1968 |
He recorded his last hit,
"What a Wonderful World" |
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1969 |
Appeared in the movie Hello
Dolly with Barbra Streisand. His rendition of the
song Hello Dolly won him a Grammy for best vocal
performance
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1971 |
Louis Armstrong Died on July
6, 1971 (aged 69) at Corona, Queens, New York City,
NY, U.S. |
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1990 |
Armstrong was inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "early
influence" |
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2001 |
The city of New Orleans
renamed its airport as the Louis Armstrong
International Airport |
