Louis Armstrong, the name that anyone who has hear of jazz knows was crowned the king of jazz. Famous musicians, composers, jazz fans and even those who were ignorant of what jazz was, were amazed to listen to the music performed by this son of one of the poorest and most destitute neighborhoods of New Orleans. The first decade of the twentieth century witnessed the birth of a new king, an artist that would take popular music to a level it had never reached before. Ellis Marsalis would say about Armstrong: "Louis Armstrong is the master of the jazz solo. He became the beacon, the light in the tower, that helped the rest of us navigate the tricky waters of jazz improvisation."
The processions funerals in the streets, the ragtime and the blues of the Delta that could in pubs, taverns and dancehalls accompanied his childhood years and inspired him. New Orleans, Chicago and New York will become the three cities that would give him their musical scene and in return, Armstrong would give the world a new way of life, a joy to make music, listen to music and dance hardly ever experienced before.
Armstrong was a genius innovator, endowed with a voice that could sound like an instrument and a talented so that he could make his hornet sound like a human voice. He rose from the lowest stratum of the New Orleans society, with a teenage mother that could hardly take care of herself and reached heights that are unimaginable even for those from the more fortunate side of the spectrum. Maybe the very fact that Armstrong was surrounded by w promiscuous world in his childhood and even broke the law, being sentenced to prison at the age of twelve contributed to his unique way of artistic expression. The world is lucky that his character would support him in becoming on of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, in spite of all the odds that were given to poor African-American from New Orleans at the beginning of the twentieth century (Peretti, p. 79).
By the end of the 1930s, after having plaid in bands in New Orleans, Chicago and New York, Louis Armstrong became an accomplished artist, a man whose love of life was transmitted to the public through music and film. His gregarious nature, his passion and his immense love for what he was doing, if he was entertaining a crowed or writing down his thoughts, the world immediately caught a glimpse of his very soul. That was a soul where thousands of African-Americans, from the past as well as millions of his American contemporaries could find their bits of reflection. Duke Ellington, another master of the jazz called him "the epitome of jazz," "an American standard, an American original." Wynton Marsalis said about him that "he left an undying testimony to the human condition in the America of his time."
Going through the such testimonies about Armstrong one begins to understand the complexity of Armstrong's nature and the huge role he plaid in promoting a life style that would have maybe remained misunderstood to the public worldwide. Music is one of the best ways for all those who are want to understand America's history, slavery, Civil rights movement. The evolution of the American musical scene starting with the "roaring twenties" and the emancipation of the African-Americans, their acceptance in a world dominated by the white and finally, the very fact that skin color is relevant only when considering esthetics in fashion in order to choose the best color combination, are marked by the African-American musicians who went on stage and pored their hearts out, like Armstrong.
Ironically, these African-Americans sometimes sang in bars and clubs that were exclusively for white audiences. It was the beginning of the change, even if they were employees paid with spare change to entertain white crowds. The souls of those white people who were listening and dancing to the swing beat could not have remained untouched.
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