Born dirt-poor to a Storyville prostitute, he grew up in the streets, hanging out in bars and brothels, hustling to survive. At twelve he ran afoul of the law, and wound up in New Orleans’s Home for Colored Waifs, where he blew his first real horn. From then on, music was his hustle, from "tonks" and funerals in the Quarter to Chicago with "King" Oliver; then New York, the one-night stands, the world—America’s Ambassador of Jazz.

His contribution to American music is beyond measure. One story tells of a night in the early ‘20’s when he was so hot on the horn that all the other musicians stopped playing-—the first jazz solo. Another remembers the time he fumbled the lyrics of a song and invented "scat." He recorded hit songs in five decades, from "Heebie Jeebees" in 1926 to "What a Wonderful World" in 1967. No horn player since denies his fundamental influence: Miles Davis said he never played anything Armstrong hadn’t played before. Without him, there would be no jazz.

But it wasn’t just the music that made Louis Armstrong one of the most popular and beloved entertainers of the twentieth century. (For a time, his face was the most recognized face in the world.) For him, it was all about the audience, and no performer ever gave more to his fans. "I never wanted to prove nothin’, just always wanted to give a good show," he once said. "The music ain’t worth nothin’ if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, ‘cause what you’re there for is to please the people." Night after night, year after year, he played his heart out, and after every show he would "hold court" in his dressing room for "the most varied entourage in show business," according to guitarist Danny Barker.

Wherever he went, Louis held court in the dressing room, where he attracted the most varied entourage in show business. He’d be sitting down in his underwear with a towel wrapped around his lap, one around his shoulders, an’ that white handkerchief on his head, and he’d put that grease around his lips. Look like a minstrel man," said Danny Barker, the jazz guirtarist, of the spectacle. "And in the room, you see maybe two nuns. You see a streetwalker dressed all up in flaming clothes. You see a guy come out of a penitentiary. You see a blind man sitting there. You see a rabbi. You see a priest. Liable to see maybe two policemen or detectives. All of them different levels of society in the dressing room and he’s talking to all of ‘em. ‘Sister so and so, you know Slick Sam over there? This is Slick Sam, old friend of mine…’ ‘Slick Sam, meet Rabbi Goldstein over there, he’s a friend of mine, rabbi good man, religious man. Sister Margaret, do you know Rabbi Goldstein? Amelia, this is Rosie, good time Rosie, girl used to work a show with me years ago.’ The party went on into the night, right through to dawn.    Laurence Burgreen, Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life