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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 |
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 show “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 |
Louis Armstrong Timeline |
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