Louis Armstrong Influences

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Louis Armstrong, without a doubt, influenced the genre of music we all know as jazz. “Armstrong, to a greater extent than any other early jazz musician, transformed a regional folk music into an international art form through the virtuosity of his playing as the first great jazz soloist” (Oxford). From his not-so-easy childhood to his massive success, I will inform you about this musician’s life, career, and the legacy he leaves behind.
Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Soon after his birth, his father, William Armstrong, left. With his father leaving, Louis’ mother, Maryann, decided it would be best if he went to go live with his grandmother, Josephine. While Armstrong was living with his grandmother, …show more content…

Joe sent Louis “on the road fronting a big band at increasingly profitable venues and had him in the recording studio constantly” (Oxford). The equal split of Armstrong’s earnings between him and Glaser made them both become millionaires.
Glaser also was able to get Louis start making appearances on the big screen. In 1936, “he became the first African-American to get featured billing in a major Hollywood movie with his turn in Pennies from Heaven, starring Bing Crosby” (Biography.com). He also starred in such movies as Artists and Models, Every Day’s a Holiday, and Going Places. “Armstrong made 22 American feature films, six foreign feature films, eight documentaries or concerts, three movie shorts, two cartoons, and four soundies for coin-operated viewing machines” (Oxford).
Armstrong’s career drastically changed, due to “the decline of the big-band era in the mid-forties combined with his appearance in the film New Orleans” (Oxford). The producer of New Orleans, Leonard Feather, “arranged for Armstrong to appear with Edmond Hall’s New Orleans revivalist band at Carnegie Hall” (Oxford). This brought about the “now-famous Town Hall concert … with a select group of performers impulsively billed as the All Stars” (Oxford). Louis continued to play with this group, called Louis Armstrong’s All Stars, up until his

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