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Nostalgia January 2013

Aid for Age

Remembering Satchmo the Satchelmouth

By Tait Trussell

Satchmo became known not only as a trumpet player and singer but also as a bandleader, film star and comedian. Not bad for a kid raised in poverty whose father left home and whose mother turned to prostitution. He was brought up by his grandmother.

Critics said that he didn’t sing in notes, but in growls.

For sure, Louis Armstrong possessed a distinctive voice. But there was warmth and beauty to it. Just as there was to his improvisational style when tooting the trumpet.

Maybe you’re too young to have been a Satchmo fan. Louis got tagged with that nickname because some fellow musicians called him satchelmouth, for the size of his mouth. He proudly adopted Satchmo as his middle name.

As a young journalist, I had the good fortune to visit with Satchmo. My buddy and fellow editor on our magazine, Vernon Louviere, was president of the National Press Club in Washington at the time.

Vernon was from New Orleans, where Louis Armstrong made musical history. Satchmo and Vernon had been friends in New Orleans. So, Satchmo was invited to speak at the Press Club.

That night, several of us were overwhelmed with a typical New Orleans dinner with Satchmo. He told stories of his early days in a Creole jazz band. As a trumpet virtuoso, his exciting style not only defined him but also the Swing era of jazz, as well.

Louis was charged as a juvenile delinquent at age 11 when he fired a gun at a New Year’s Eve celebration. He was sentenced to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs. While there, he learned to play the cornet and fell in love with music.

When the Home released him, young Louis sold newspapers, hauled coal to the city’s red light district and sang and danced for coins. At age 17, he began playing the trumpet in bars in the Storyville Section of New Orleans.

Satchmo traveled throughout the country bringing his charismatic style of singing and trumpet playing to the nation. He was certainly one of the most influential artists in jazz history. As musical tastes in jazz began to switch to Dixieland and bebop, Satchmo mixed the varieties of music.

He scored immense international success with his distinctive renditions of such classics as “Hello Dolly” and “What a Wonderful World.”

Satchmo became known not only as a trumpet player and singer but also as a bandleader, film star and comedian. Not bad for a kid raised in poverty whose father left home and whose mother turned to prostitution. He was brought up by his grandmother.

A new play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, opened not long ago at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., then in Philadelphia’s Wilma Theatre. John Douglas Thompson plays the part of Armstrong. But there will never be another Satchmo. And I’ll never forget that evening with the master of jazz.

If you go online to Louis Armstrong, you can hear him sing and play his trumpet.

 

Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.

Meet Tait