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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, November 1, 1967
'Satchmo' Armstrong will come marching in Nov. 4
The saint will come marching in again on Nov. 4.
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong last appeared here nearly a decade ago on March 23, 1957, when KU narrowly lost the NCAA basketball tournament to North Carolina 54 to 53 with three overtimes.
When the disappointed team members silently entered the Kansas Union Ballroom to join a dance at 2:15 a.m., they were welcomed by Louis Armstrong and his group playing "When the Saints Come Marching In."
Armstrong, who stayed late without pay, leaned into the microphone and said, "You got beat boys, but I want to say you really played over there tonight."
The life of the Ambassador of Jazz has been like that. Jazz and Armstrong are inseparable. He'll play just because jazz is a part of his life he wants to share.
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong
Armstrong and jazz grew up together. In the back-of-town part of New Orleans, where Armstrong was born 67 years ago, jazz flourished. Louis and his friends used to wander down Perdido Street in a little gang and listen to the music filtering through the cracks in the Funky Butt Hall.
Plaved first at 13
Armstrong was always in music but he never played until he was 13 years old. He spent that year in the Negro Waif's Home for firing "an ol' 38" on New Years Eve. Louis taught himself to play the bugle and when the leader of the Home's band left, little Louis replaced him.
After he was released, Louis was without an instrument. He scrimped until he could afford to buy an old battered "quail" (cornet), a Tonk Brothers, which bung in the window of "Uncle Joe's" pawn shop.
About then little "Dipper-
mouth" as his friends called him formed his own band. There was Little Mack, Big Nose Sydney, Georgie Grey and himself. They played in the honky-tonks of the red-light district for 15 cents at night and sold coal to the prostitutes in the day. Louis gave his wages to his mother "to keep a taste in the pot." Louis never knew his father.
Plaved "levee" music
At 21 Louis was married to a girl of whom his mother disapproved. Louis found that his mother was right when his sweet Daisy turned out to be not so sweet after all.
By that time Louis was an accomplished musician. He was booked to play on the river boats that worked the Mississippi. He spread around lots of what folks then called "levee camp music."
An old friend invited Louis to play with him in Chicago. Louis almost turned around when no one was there to meet him. But
fortunately he stayed. Louis' music caught on soon and he got top billing and top money, $52 per week.
From then on there was no down. During the years since Armstrong has spread his "levee camp music" around the world. He is probably the one person most responsible for the development of America's only native art form, jazz.
Louis "just lucky"
Armstrong humbly says he was just lucky. When he met the jazzman who had started him in Chicago selling vegetables at a Georgia fruit stand, Armstrong remarked, "And in his days cats blew all the nerves in their lips—boom! They wouldn't make the notes because there's no life, no reflexes in the lips—boom. It's a pathetic thing. I don't know why it hasn't happened to me."
Today, after 54 years in the business, Satchmo still blows a horn as well as ever or maybe even better. His lips both upper and lower are deeply indented and he must keep them salved. He keeps the mouthpiece to his trumpet in his back pocket to protect it from "germs." And he finds he must use glycerine and honey occasionally "to wash out the pipes"
Ed Ames in Lawrence Singer Ed Ames will be in Lawrence this weekend to film an industrial motion picture.
SUA POETRY HOUR
When You're in Doubt—Try It Out, Kansan Classifieds.
presents
Reading Robert Frost
Dr. Edward Grier
Thursday, Nov. 2
4:30 p.m.
Music Room, Kansas Union
Free Coffee and Doughnuts
JANTZEN'S deck stitch chukka
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