Louis Armstrong
1901 – 1971 · United States
Known for: Satchmo, the founding genius of jazz
“What we play is life.”
Biography
From the poorest streets of New Orleans, a boy who learned cornet in a home for troubled children grew into the man who taught the world to swing. Louis Armstrong invented the modern jazz solo, made the gravel-voiced vocal an art form, and carried American music to every continent as a genuine global ambassador.
His trumpet redefined what one instrument could say; his recording of What a Wonderful World, made when he was nearly seventy, became a hymn of hope that outlived him and every trouble he sang above. Satchmo's smile hid a lifetime of hardship and quiet defiance of segregation, and turned all of it into joy the whole planet could dance to.