Louis Armstrong

USA, 1919–1971

American trumpeter and singer (1901-1971). His Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings of 1925-1928 established the extended improvised solo as the centre of jazz performance, and his singing was equally widely copied.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Louis Armstrong and 18 artists Louis Armstrong influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Louis Armstrong?

• Buddy Bolden — Armstrong named Buddy Bolden the first jazz musician he ever heard as a child in New Orleans.
• King Oliver — Oliver was Armstrong's mentor; Armstrong joined his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago in 1922 and modelled his early style directly on Oliver.
• Bunk Johnson — Armstrong named Bunk Johnson among the elders he learned from — the older New Orleans cornetist whose melodic phrasing bridged the Bolden era to Armstrong's own.

Which artists did Louis Armstrong influence?

• Duke Ellington — Ellington called Armstrong 'the most original musician' and learned freedom of solo improvisation from him.
• Coleman Hawkins — Armstrong showed Hawkins how to build a solo improvisation with architectural logic and lyrical freedom.
• Bing Crosby — Louis Armstrong was Crosby's musical role model and lifelong friend — Crosby brought Armstrong's jazz phrasing and swing into popular singing.
• Django Reinhardt — Armstrong's improvisational freedom and jazz phrasing were foundational for Django; they admired each other and Django absorbed Armstrong's recordings intensely.
• Artie Shaw — Shaw's love of jazz crystallised on hearing Louis Armstrong's Hot Five records in 1927 — Armstrong's melodic, swinging invention was foundational to his playing.
• Lionel Hampton — Louis Armstrong's swinging melodic invention was a foundational influence on Hampton, who recorded with Armstrong early on and carried that hot-jazz feel to the vibraphone.
• The Boswell Sisters — Armstrong's jazz phrasing and rhythmic freedom shaped the Boswell Sisters' innovative vocal arrangements.
• Ella Fitzgerald — Louis Armstrong's jazz recordings were among Ella's earliest listening, and his pioneering scat improvisation was the model she took up and made her own.
• Billie Holiday — Holiday named her two sources herself: 'I always wanted Bessie's big sound and Pop's feeling' — Armstrong's horn phrasing became her vocal time.
• Cab Calloway — Calloway's scat descends from Armstrong's — he took over from Armstrong at Harlem's Cotton Club circuit and acknowledged the lineage.
• Bix Beiderbecke — Beiderbecke absorbed Armstrong's recordings as they appeared — the lyrical cornet line that shaped his own.
• Bobby Darin — It was Louis Armstrong's recording of 'Mack the Knife' that Darin modelled his own hit version on.
• Roy Eldridge — Eldridge worked Armstrong's solos out by ear as a young man, the starting point he then pushed past.
• Clark Terry — Armstrong was Terry's chief model on the instrument.
• Leonid Utesov — Utesov built his 'Tea-Jazz' on the American hot jazz he heard touring Europe in the late 1920s — the Armstrong-era sound he adapted to Russian song and stage.
• Bob Wills — The New Orleans jazz of Louis Armstrong was a core ingredient of western swing's 'chili-pot' — the improvised, swinging horn-and-rhythm feel Wills brought to a country string band.
• Boris Vian — The other model for Vian's playing — he took up the trumpet in 1937 and joined the Hot Club de France the same year.
• Gil Evans — Part of the radio education Evans described: 'Louis Armstrong came on all the time, and so did Duke.'