Louis+Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was born on July 4, 1900 and he died on July 6 1971. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1913,when he was 13, he shot a kid with blanks on New Year’s Eve. He got arrested and was thrown into jail. He stayed in jail for 2 years. There he learned to play the cornet. Within one year he was the head of the jail band. In 1925,after he got out of jail, he started his own band. He was married 3 times.

Mr.Louis was involved in a lot of bands and musical groups. He made Jazz Very popular in the Harlem renaissance. Made

Biography in Context, 2010, Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, 1992  -2nd block  Daniel Louis Armstrong, or Satchmo as he was later nicknamed, was an American jazz composer and singer, as well as an actor and humanitarian during the Harlem Renaissance. Louis was born on July 4, 1900, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His family was very poor and his parents split up when Louis was an infant. He lived with his grandmother until he was 8, and then his mother. When Louis was 13, he fired a pistol loaded with blanks at another boy. He was sent to the Colored Waifs' Home. It was there he first learned about music, by playing the coronet. After Louis got out of the home, he borrowed money from a friend to buy a coronet. Louis became known for his talent around the neighborhood and started filling in for members of local bands. He soon started playing with King Oliver and moved to Chicago. Louis became very famous, working with Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald, and creating scat. Scat is a type of singing that involves syllables instead of words. However up until the 1930's he was in debt because of corrupt managers and a greedy ex-wife, Lillian Hardin. After hiring a new manager, Joe Glaser, his fortunes picked up. Louis got married again, to a woman named Lucille. In 1964, his record "Hello Dolly!" beat out the Beatles for #1 on the chart. Throughout the rest of Louis' life, he was a US ambassador to other countries. Louis died in 1971 in Long Island.

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Works Cited: Web, jazzscript.co.uk

"Louis Armstrong", African American Biography (Volume 1), 1994, Print.

"Louis Armstrong", Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, Gale, Gale Biography In Context, Web, February 16 2011.

"Jazz Giant Louis Armstrong Was Born August 4,1900", The Progressive Movement, The Library of Congress, Web, February 19 2011

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