Short Biography of Louis Armstrong
Date of Birth: Born on August 4, 1901
Place of Birth : New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Parents: Father - William Armstrong
Mother: Mary Albert Armstrong
Background Facts, Information & Ancestry : Louis Armstrong was the grandson of slaves

1901

This timeline starts on August 4, 1901 when Louis Daniel Armstrong was born. His parents were

 named William Armstrong and Mary Albert Armstrong. He had a younger sister called

Beatrice Armstrong Collins (1886–1942),

1902

His father abandoned his family and his mother left the children with their grandmother,

Josephine Armstrong and their Uncle Isaac

1906

He moved back to live with his mother
Education: He attended the Fisk School for Boys

1907

Times were hard and his mother turned to prostitution

1912

Louis Armstrong dropped out of the Fisk School for Boys and started to earn a meagre

living singing on the streets of New Orleans with a quartet. A musician named Joe "King" Oliver taught Louis

to play the cornet.

1913

His first cornet was bought with money loaned to him by the Karnofskys who were a

Russian-Jewish immigrant family who had taken Louis into their family

1914

Armstrong was sent to Colored Waifs’ Home for general delinquency where he

continued to play cornet with the help of lessons from Professor Peter Davis

1915

Louis Armstrong was released from the Colored Waifs’ Home and returned to live

with his mother and step-father. Louis worked as a coalman during the day and at night

he played in a dance hall job at Henry Ponce’s where Black Benny became mentor.

1916

He played brass bands on the riverboats and steamboats of New Orleans

1917

Armstrong played with the King Ory band which was a hot jazz group

1918

March 19: Louis married Daisy Parker and they adopted a 3-year-old mentally

disabled boy named Clarence Armstrong who was the son of Louis's cousin Flora

who had died soon after giving birth. The marriage was short lived and soon ended in divorce

1919

He became second trumpet for the Tuxedo Brass Band which was a society band

1921

By this time Louis had learned to read music

1922

Louis Armstrong joins the influential hot jazz band called Creole Jazz Band in

Chicago playing with musicians such as his friend Bix Beiderbecke. He married, Lillian (Lil)

Hardin who was Oliver’s pianist.

1923

He lived well in Chicago where he met Hoagy Carmichael

1924

Louis Armstrong joins Fletcher Henderson band in Harlem.

1925

He formed a band called the “Hot Five” for recording purposes only and cut his first records

for Okeh. He continued playing in other bands

1929

He formed his own band called Louis Armstrong and the Stompers. He also toured with the s

how “Hot Chocolates”.

1930

In the 1930's the popularity of Jazz declined in favour of Swing. Armstrong moved to

Los Angeles and played at the New Cotton Club in LA where he first met Bing Crosby

1931

Armstrong appeared in his first movie called Ex-Flame. During this year Armstrong was convicted

of marijuana possession but received a suspended sentence. He also had problems with the mob

and first moved back to New Orleans but then left the country for Europe

1935

Armstrong and his band work with with Joe Glaser as manager. He recorded records with

the Mills Brothers, Louis Jordan, Tommy Dorsey, and Ella Fitzgerald

1936

He appeared in the movie Pennies from Heaven with Bing Crosby

1937

Louis Armstrong became the first black to host a sponsored, national radio broadcast

1938

He divorces Lillian (Lil) Hardin and married long time girlfriend Alpha

1939

WW2 begins

1942

Louis Armstrong married his fourth wife, Lucille Wilson, a singer at the Cotton Club

1943

Louis and Lucille moved into the house in Queens that has become the Armstrong Archives.

He made the movie Cabin In the Sky and The Five Pennies starring Danny Kaye

1945

WW2 ends and so does the public taste for Swing music. Louis formed a six piece group

called the All Stars

1951

June: He reached the Top Ten of the LP charts with Satchmo at Symphony Hall

1956

He played at a concert celebrating Ghana's independence which was attended by more than

100,000 Louis Armstrong fans

1957

Armstrong speaks out against racial discrimination and publicly condemned the violence

that swept Little Rock over school integration

1959

Armstrong was briefly hospitalized due to a heart attack

1968

He recorded his last hit, "What a Wonderful World"

1969

Appeared in the movie Hello Dolly with Barbra Streisand. His rendition of the song Hello Dolly

won him a Grammy for best vocal performance

1971

Louis Armstrong Died on July 6, 1971 (aged 69) at Corona, Queens, New York City, NY, U.S.

1990

Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "early influence"

2001

The city of New Orleans renamed its airport as the Louis Armstrong International Airport