The quintessential American artist Louis Armstrong was born in 1901 in New Orleans and died in 1971 in New York City, where he had lived for many years in a modest house in Queens. The house is now a museum in his honour. It is generally accepted that he was the single greatest creative artist in the history of American jazz and American popular song. He was a vocal proponent of marijuana use; he was prolific in coining expressions that entered the general lexicon; he wrote long, colourful prose pieces about his experiences; and, he made hundreds of collages that expressed in images his thoughts and memories and opinions.
Everything he did was an extension of his artistry. Satchmo: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong is a biography in the form of an art book. It tells the story of Armstrong's life through his writings, scrapbooks and artworks, much of which has never been published before.It includes many collages that Armstrong made on recording tape boxes.
These incorporate marvelous photographs of Armstrong and others in atmospheric settings that capture the archetypal scenes in the life of a jazz musician: nightclubs and fast trains, women and wild parties, rainy streets and country moons. It's a vivid trip through mid-century black America, to the beat of Armstrong's own jazzy words. The book also includes photographs of Armstrong and is framed by a text that describes his significance.
It will be welcomed not only by jazz fans, but also by art lovers, who will find in Armstrong's collages parallels to the work of established Black artists like Romare Bearden. Satchmo is written and designed by Steven Brower, whose previous book was the award-winning Woody Guthrie Artworks. It is supported by the Louis Armstrong House and Archives.
Number Of Pages: 256
Published: 1st April 2009
Dimensions (cm): 27.4 x 25.0 x 2.5
Weight (kg): 1.4
Edition Number: 1