New Orleans Jazz Museum showcases the life of Louis Armstrong
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — “It All Started in Jane Alley: Louis Armstrong in New Orleans” is an exhibition on showcase at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. It begins just in time for the annual Summer Satchmo Festival, a celebration that has been going strong since 2001.
New Orleans has many a story to tell. One of the best stories is about one of the most prominent entertainers of the 20th century. In 1913, a young man was arrested for firing a gun during a New Year’s Eve in New Orleans. The pre-teen would spend the next two years at a reform school as a reprimand. Over the years, the resonance of his unique sound would transform the world, and he would become perhaps the most famous jazz musician of the age. His name was Louis Armstrong.
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Greg Lambousy is the director? of the New Orleans Jazz Museum at the MINT and says, “He soon became the leader of the band, and we look back at that time as a very informative period. The cornet that he played was verified in 1965 when the superintendent of the reform school came and recognized the notches cut on the mouthpiece.”
The exhibit will be at the museum for about six months and will be ever-changing, as they switch out artifacts on display. Some items to check out including the trumpet Armstrong played at the reform school, photographs when he was the Zulu King of Mardi Gras 1949 and correspondence letters, where Armstrong signed “red beans and ricefully yours.”
Lambousy is an aficionado of music history and reflects on the impact of jazz music saying, “after the second world war, jazz was incorporated to battle communism, and jazz was sent throughout Europe and South America. Musicians were acting as ambassadors for diplomacy and Armstrong was at the forefront of that. With his trumpet and voice, he created this world of music, entertainment and connecting people together.”
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