As a very young girl in 1968 I was at the World's Fair in San Antonio, Texas. Louis Armstrong gave a concert - it was joyful. The minute he stepped on stage the crowd was hooked! There was a love radiating toward him & you could actually feel it in the air. Amazing to experience & remember so clearly all these years later. He even sang "What a Wonderful World".
nice piece, but I would make two corrections - yes, Armstrong in many ways was the initial source for American popular music but to say he was "the most important American musical creator of the 20th century" is to isolate him from other geniuses who were just as important - Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, and probably a few others (I would also add Elvis Presley, but I don't want to start a storm). As for Armstrong's importance as a vocalist, this is not a less-known aspect. That recognition was central to the early work of Bing Crosby, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and many others.
As a very young girl in 1968 I was at the World's Fair in San Antonio, Texas. Louis Armstrong gave a concert - it was joyful. The minute he stepped on stage the crowd was hooked! There was a love radiating toward him & you could actually feel it in the air. Amazing to experience & remember so clearly all these years later. He even sang "What a Wonderful World".
nice piece, but I would make two corrections - yes, Armstrong in many ways was the initial source for American popular music but to say he was "the most important American musical creator of the 20th century" is to isolate him from other geniuses who were just as important - Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, and probably a few others (I would also add Elvis Presley, but I don't want to start a storm). As for Armstrong's importance as a vocalist, this is not a less-known aspect. That recognition was central to the early work of Bing Crosby, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and many others.