Louis Armstrong
1901–1971
Trumpeter and singer who reshaped jazz around the soloist; his cornet answers ’s vocals on the classic 1925 recording of “St. Louis Blues.”
, out of New Orleans, did more than any single musician to turn jazz into a soloist’s art, and his influence runs straight through American popular singing. He came up in the city’s brass-band and riverboat world, then through King Oliver’s band in Chicago and Fletcher Henderson’s in New York, before the Hot Five and Hot Seven sides of the late 1920s made the improvised solo the center of the music. In 1925 he recorded “St. Louis Blues” with Bessie Smith, his cornet trading phrases with her voice in the the blues inherited. His career spanned five decades, from those early sides to “Hello, Dolly!” and “What a Wonderful World.”