Photo "Louis Armstrong NYWTS2" by Herman Hiller, World-Telegram staff photographer - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c18720. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louis_Armstrong_NYWTS2.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Louis_Armstrong_NYWTS2.jpg

Question marks surround both Louis Armstrong's name and date of birth. Many biographies of Louis Armstrong have claimed his middle name was Daniel, but this was denied by Armstrong himself.

Similarly, Armstrong claimed to have been born on July 4, 1900, but acquaintances and researchers have come up with rival dates; some going for 1898, whilst others have suggested August 4, 1901.

The great jazz trumpeter and singer had a variety of nicknames, the most famous being 'Satchmo'.

Having grown up in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago and joined Joseph 'King' Oliver's band in 1922, but then a couple of years later left to join Fletcher Henderson and his band.

In the late '20s Satchmo played with his own Hot Five and Hot Seven groups as well as his wife Lillian Hardin's Dreamland Syncopators.

He toured extensively and appeared in films such as 'Pennies From Heaven' and 'The Birth of the Blues' as well as starring in Broadway musicals.

Louis Armstrong died in 1971

The FBI File on Louis Armstrong first page



The FBI file, that has now been opened to the public about Louis Armstrong, is revealing - particularly in regard to his proposed tour of the USSR. Here are two segments:

Louis Armstrong came second in Variety's top icons of the 20th Century.

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