Louis Armstrong was born on this day in 1901. He was a musician from his childhood; he started playing cornet at age 7. A few years later, he had his first music lessons at the Jones Home for Colored Waifs, a juvenile institution he was sent to after firing a gun into the air on New Year’s Eve. After a year and a half, he was released and started working as a musician. He would become one of the most important artists in the jazz genre.
When he moved to Chicago in the 1920s, he became a local star. He headlined records and radio shows and wowed audiences at major jazz clubs with his combo of masterful trumpet playing (which he’d started playing surprisingly late, in 1926) and scatting. By the 1930s, “Satchmo” was a celebrity, going on to publish 19 “Top 10” records; he even knocked the Beatles off the No. 1 spot in 1964 with “Hello, Dolly!”
You can learn more about Armstrong at History.com.
