"Louis Armstrong"s station in the history of jazz is umimpeachable. If it weren"t for him, there wouldn"t be any of us." Dizzy Gillespie, 1971
Louis Daniel Armstrong(August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971)nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music"s focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing, or vocalizing using syllables instead of actual lyrics.
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and deep, instantly recognizable voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong"s influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general.
Early Days in New Orleans
Armstrong was born in one of the poorest sections of New Orleans on Aug. 4, 1901. "He was a prodigy," says art historian and curator Marc Miller, "a hard-working kid who helped support his mother and sister by working every type of job there was, including going out on street corners at night to sing for coins." At age 7, he bought his first real horn--a cornet. When Armstrong was 11 years old, juvenile court sent him to the Jones Home for Colored Waifs for firing a pistol on New Year"s Eve. While there, he had his first formal music lessons and played in the home"s brass band. After about 18 months he was released. From then on, he largely supported himself as a musician, playing with pick-up bands and in small clubs with his mentor Joe "King" Oliver. Oliver was one of a handful of noted musicians in New Orleans--along with Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet and others--who were creating a distinctive and widely popular new band music out of blues and ragtime. Soon, sheet music publishers and record companies would make jazz a household name.
Chicago and New York
The early 1920s saw Armstrong"s popularity explode as he left New Orleans for Chicago to play with "King" Oliver"s Creole Jazz Band, and then moved on to New York, where he influenced the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra with improvisation and a new musical vocabulary.
When he returned to Chicago in 1926, he was a headliner on records and radio, and in jazz clubs, wowing audiences with the utter fearlessness and freedom of his groundbreaking trumpet solos. His "scat" singing transformed vocal tradition and musicians studied his recordings to hear what a horn could do. It has been said that Armstrong used his horn like a singer"s voice and used his voice like a musical instrument.
Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy was funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency, and by the New York State Council on the Arts. Additional support was provided by Mobil Foundation Inc. The exhibition was part of "America"s Jazz Heritage," A Partnership of the Lila Wallace-Reader"s Digest Fund and the Smithsonian Institution. Organized by the Queens Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in cooperation with the Louis Armstrong Archives at Queens College, City University of New York, the exhibition made its eighth--and final--stop at the National Portrait Gallery. The Washington showing of Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy was made possible through the generous support of Infiniti, a Division of Nissan Motor Corporation U.S.A.
Louis Armstrong出身纽奥良贫民区，很小他父亲就抛弃家庭，不知所终，但困窘的生活并不影响少年阿姆斯壮对音乐的追求，他在社会最底层长大，还曾经进过少年感化院，所幸他在感化院学会了吹短号（cornet），开始接触音乐，没几年的时间，18岁的阿姆斯壮，已经是纽奥良知名的演奏者了，成为当时最红的娃娃欧瑞Kid Ory乐团的短号手，1922年，加入奥立佛国王Joe King Oliver乐团，在前辈奥立佛的指导调教之下，阿姆斯壮进步神速，逐渐建立起他作为一位伟大独奏者的地位。
早在20年代，Louis Armstrong就已是一位知名的小号手，不过更引人注意的是他那低沉浑厚的歌声。在多个乐队与录音室专辑的磨合之后，1927年以他为名的乐队--Louis Armstrong And His Stompers 诞生，同年并首次以歌手的身份进入畅销排行榜。随后，Louis Armstrong还加入了舞台剧、百老汇及电影的音乐工作，在英国、欧洲等地区展开长期的巡回演唱活动，成功的单曲、专辑也不断地发表，即使第二次世界大战期间，依然没有停歇，并不断地创造出无数销售成功的单曲与高度评价的专题作品。
综观Louis Armstrong一生，作为一位爵士乐手的他，不仅拥有成功的乐队、受欢迎的唱片，并曾和Duke Ellington、Ella Fitzgerald等知名乐手及顶尖歌手合作，受到爵士乐界极度地推崇，甚至于其歌唱才华与极具辨识度的独特嗓音，在歌坛上亦是无人能仿效，因而跨界成为流行音乐的巨星，虽然作品众多，但一点也未减少他在音乐上的成就与表现，亦不断地被后世之人所欣赏与钟爱，并且频繁地被运用来为广告、电视及电影，铺陈营造或浪漫、或轻松、或温馨的气氛，倍增地平添剧情的吸引力与张力。
