LOUIE PHOTOS HIT A HIGH NOTE
Qns. museum displays rare pics of jazz legend
A trove of pictures that helped redeem the tarnished image of jazz legend Louis Armstrong is being made available to the public for the first time.
The intimate photographs of the singer and trumpet player have been digitized, and will be housed on the website of the Queens museum dedicated to Armstrong’s life and music.
Armstrong, who lived in Corona, was a revered trumpeter and singer for most of his life and career. But in his later years, he was derided by a younger generation of jazz players and fans who called him an Uncle Tom and a sellout for his trademark toothy grin and his contemporary mainstream sound.
But intimate portraits of Armstrong at home and in the studio, along with video and letters, helped change the negative perceptions.
“There’s nothing more striking than Louis Armstrong with a serious expression,” said Armstrong historian Ricky Riccardi. “Nobody could be that happy all the time.” A Daily News preview of the collection shows pictures of a pensive Armstrong along with photos of him hard at work in rehearsals. For Armstrong, the music came first, and he took it more seriously than his demeanor sometimes displayed, Riccardi said. When his black fan base turned on him, Armstrong was hurt, Riccardi said. “This was something that burned him until the day he died,” said Riccardi, the author of What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years.” “He experienced all sorts of indignities on the road. He went through hell, He saw it from all sides.” Other digitized material includes hundreds of hours of reelto-reel audio and scrapbooks dating back to the 1920s until his death in 1971.. The Louis Armstrong Museum is housed in his Corona home.