Louis Armstrong

Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be better. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying.

Louis Armstrong (4 August 1901 – 6 July 1971) was an American Jazz musician.

Quotes

• The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.
  • Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954)

• Some of you young folks been saying to me, "Hey Pops, what you mean 'What a wonderful world'? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either." Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be better. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying.
  • Spoken intro to "What a Wonderful World" (1970 version)

• The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell.
  • As quoted in The New York Times (19 September 1957)]

• Making money ain't nothing exciting to me. ... You might be able to buy a little better booze than some wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat, and when you die you're just as graveyard dead as he is.
  • Ebony magazine, November 1964

Unsourced

• At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the "mis-de" and you just got meaner and meaner..
  • A reference to the anti-marijuana laws of the 1930s

• All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.
  • In a 1956 concert recording, Big Bill Broonzy used this line by way of explaining why he was about to sing "The Glory of Love" in a venue he was sharing with Pete Seeger.

• If you gotta ask, you'll never know.
  • Armstrong's reported response to the question "What is jazz?" (Exact wording varies.)
• If you still have to ask, shame on you
  • Armstrong's response to the question what jazz is, cited by Max Jones et. al.: "Salute to Satchmo", I.P.C. Specialist & Professional Press Ltd 1970, page 25

• It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics...dope and all of that crap. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend.

• There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.

• In between sets or in intermissions during concerts, Mr. Armstrong and some of the younger musicians would head out the back entrance for some marijuana cigarrettes. While the others enjoyed some fine mexican product, Mr. Armstrong would bring out his "New Orleans Golden Leaf". The others were not impressed. This went on for some time but after a while of Mr. Armstrong smoking the others stuff with them they, in a bantering manner, asked him: -"What ever happened to your New Orleans Golden Leaf"?. To this Mr. Armstrong replied: -"Shit son, that would be like bringing a hamburger to a banquet".

Quotes about Armstrong

• He was the only musician who ever lived, who can't be replaced by someone.
  • Bing Crosby, as quoted in The Big Band Almanac (1989) by Leo Walker, p. 12

• You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played — I mean even modern. … I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat and you can't miss when you play on the beat — with feeling. That's another phrase for swing.
  • Miles Davis, to Nat Hentoff in 1958, as quoted in Milestones : The Music and Times of Miles Davis (1998) by Jack Chambers, p. 209

• He was born poor, died rich, and never hurt anyone along the way.
  • Duke Ellington, as quoted in The World of Jazz Trumpet : A Comprehensive History & Practical Philosophy (2005) by Scotty Barnhart, p. 23

External links

• Louis Armstrong Quotes