Louis Armstrong

See all 65 pictures

Play Radio

Listen to Louis Armstrong Radio, featuring artists like Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and more…

• 
  Search on Spotify

  Yes, it scrobbles! Learn more

15,176,841 plays (1,166,465 listeners)
In your library (0 plays)

Shop now at Amazon | Send Louis Armstrong Ringtones to Cell

More options

• Download
• Amazon
• Send Ringtones to Cell
• Tonefuse Search

Add to my Library

New Orleans, United States (1901 – 1971)

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was a trumpet player, singer, and bandleader, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists in the history of jazz.

Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn’t travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver’s band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong’s role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise.

Other hits followed through the twenties and thirties, as well as troubles: crooked managers, lip injuries, mob entanglements, failed big-band ventures. As jazz styles changed, though, musical purists never lost any respect for him — although they were sometimes irritated by his hammy onstage persona.

Read more… Edit

Popular tags: jazz, blues, swing, trumpet, oldies  See more

Shouts: 577 shouts

Share this artist:

• Send
• Tweet

Top Albums

• The Essential Collection
  Louis Armstrong

  Buy

  • Download Album
  • Amazon MP3 $17.98
  • 7digital $8.99
  • iTunes Search
  • Buy Album
  • Amazon $8.45
  • eBay Search

  New

• New Orleans (Original Motion Picture Soundrack)
  Louis Armstrong

  Buy

  • Download Album
  • Amazon MP3 $6.99
  • 7digital $9.99
  • iTunes $5.99
  • Buy Album
  • Amazon $138.14
  • eBay Search

  New

• The Ultimate Collection
  Louis Armstrong

  Buy

  • Download Album
  • Amazon MP3 Search
  • 7digital Search
  • iTunes Search
  • Buy Album
  • Amazon $6.58
  • eBay Search
• All Time Greatest Hits
  Louis Armstrong

  Buy

  • Download Album
  • Amazon MP3 $9.49
  • 7digital $9.99
  • iTunes Search
  • Buy Album
  • Amazon Search
  • eBay Search

Top Tracks

• Last Week
• Last 6 months

1		What A Wonderful World			4,870
2		La Vie En Rose			2,010
3		A Kiss To Build A Dream On			1,255
4		Mack The Knife			1,095
5		We Have All The Time In The World			909
6		Blueberry Hill			722
7		Hello Dolly			716
8		Summertime			624
9		Dream a little dream of me			596
10		Basin Street Blues			533
11		Ain't Misbehavin'			528
12		When The Saints Go Marching In			494
13		Cabaret			455
14		Jeepers Creepers			447
15		C'est si bon			409

Buy all tracks at Amazon MP3

See more