Louis Armstrong

The trumpeter and singer is widely credited with starting modern jazz.

The first time Louis Armstrong was arrested, it was for shooting his pistol on the street. He was twelve.

It may have been the best thing that ever happened to him.

He was taken to a reform school, and his first official music teachers. He emerged knowing enough to play for New Orleans honky-tonks, marching bands, funeral parades, riverboats, any musical job he could find. Then he got the telegram: Joe “King” Oliver wanted him to play in his band in Chicago.

The best musicians passed through Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. Armstrong, playing a close second cornet under Oliver, learned. And took it further. Soon sounds were coming out of his horn which nobody had ever heard before. Musicians everywhere bent over their victrolas, listening to his records over and over.

Lil Hardin urged Armstrong to strike out on his own. He played in other Chicago bands until he got an offer from Fletcher Henderson’s successful smooth big band in New York. Then he worked in smaller bands run by Lil Hardin or himself, always recording and getting broader audiences.

Musicians were paid only flat fees for their recordings, with no sign of royalties. Recording under multiple names made financial survival possible, while avoiding delicate issues with exclusive contracts. But when your music was distinctive, it was hard to pull off. The Okeh records president once summoned Armstrong to his office, and played him a contraband recording of Drop that Sack. “Louis, who’s playing cornet on that?” "I dunno, but I won’t do it again," Armstrong replied.

Sometimes being well-known was actually dangerous. Mobsters ran high-paying clubs and gave big tips, but they also caused Armstrong to leave Chicago and New York in a hurry. The band went someplace only a bit less dangerous: a tour of the south. Mezz Mezzrow, the saxophonist, said, "When that bus pulled into Memphis the pecks all crowded around goggle-eyed, staring at the well-dressed coloured boys…and especially at the one coloured boy up front who was, God forbid, sitting there actually talking to a white woman [the manager’s wife], just like he was human."

"Why don't you shoot him in the leg?" one policeman asked his partner, as they arrested the busload of musicians. At the station, one cop threatened to kill them for "trying to run the city." After their white manager extracted them from jail, Louis dedicated one number from the band's Memphis broadcast to the Chief of Police: I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You.

Satchmo’s playing and groundbreaking singing got him tours as guest soloist with other bands. In Los Angeles, he and top drummer Vic Berton were smoking a joint in the parking lot during a break. “We’ll take the roach, boys,” a voice suddenly said. It was the police.

Armstrong begged the cops not to hit him in the chops: it would destroy his embouchure. But the police, it turned out, listened to his weekly broadcasts, and were big fans. So were his cellmates, who shouted his name as he left for his trial, where the six-month sentence newspapers had predicted was suspended.

Armstrong had become a household name. Entire books for trumpet were made of laborious transcriptions of what he freely improvised. Modern jazz was born from how he improvised.

"[Anyone] who picks up a trumpet and blows a few notes is going to play a phrase that belongs to Louis," said Billy Eckstine. "And most of them today don’t realize it."