Louis Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong was born on the fourth of August 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana, in a poor neighborhood the locals called "The Battlefield." Raised by his mother, Mayann, he left school after the fifth grade and worked odd jobs, hauling coal and running errands for the Karnofsky family, who helped him buy his first cornet. On New Year's Eve 1912 he was arrested and sent to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys, and it was there, under the patient instruction of Peter Davis, that the boy learned proper cornet technique and rose to lead the home's brass band.

Released in 1914, he was taken under the wing of Joe "King" Oliver, the city's foremost cornetist, whose mentorship carried him from the streets of New Orleans to Chicago. In 1922 he joined Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, and by 1925 he was recording under his own name. His Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions changed music itself, lifting jazz from collective ensemble playing into an art centered on the individual soloist. His 1928 introduction to "West End Blues" remains among the most celebrated improvisations ever recorded.

Armstrong was as gifted with his voice as with his horn. He helped pioneer scat singing, and his warm, gravelled delivery shaped generations of vocalists. In his later years, songs like "Hello, Dolly!" and "What a Wonderful World" carried him to audiences across the globe, earning him the affectionate title "Ambassador Satch." The world knew him also as Satchmo and Pops.

He died on the sixth of July 1971, in his home in Corona, Queens. From a childhood of hardship, Louis Armstrong became the founding soloist of American jazz and one of the most beloved voices the world has ever known. May his sound endure as long as there are ears to hear it.