Louis Armstrong Accomplishments

“All music is folk music, I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song” a wise quote from the one and only, Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong was one of the most important musicians throughout the early to mid 1900’s. He struggled but eventually made a name for himself at a young age and became one of the worlds most cherished jazz musicians. Being a famous black man during his time was unheard of, and so he had to protect that. At the peak of his fame the Little Rock crisis occurred, and throughout the rest of his life an entire civil rights revolution occurred. Louis Armstrong had a strict “no politics” rule when it came to interviews. He never talked about race, religion, presidents, or any other political topics, “I don’t get involved in politics,

Musicians such as the towns most famous trumpeter, Bunk Johnson, taught Armstrong new techniques to play the trumpet and allowed him to sit in during shows at the bars (Patricia Daniels). Around 1915, Louis Armstrong became friends with Joe “King” Oliver, who was a cornet player. Armstrong ran errands for “King” Oliver in exchange for cornet lessons and often filled in shows when Oliver was not able to play, this gave Armstrong a lot of the media and showing he needed. By 1918, Louis Armstrong was well-known to the New Orleans music district, he often found himself in demand as a cornet player (Patricia Daniels). In 1922, King Oliver asked him to come to Chicago and join his Creole Jazz Band, who he played with for two years. Three years after starting with King Oliver’s band, a woman who would later become his second wife, Lil Hardin, entered him into clubs under the name of “The World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”. This promoting allowed him to form a studio band called “Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five”, they would later break up and he would create “Louis and the Allstars” (Patricia Daniels). Louis Armstrong went on and continued to be successful. He made eleven movies and toured Japan and Africa with his band, “The All