Best Louis Armstrong Quotes
Louis Armstrong Quotes About Music, Life, Love, Jazz Music, Practice, Change & Success! Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong is best known for his work as a jazz musician. His influence on jazz music was considerable. In New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, Louis Daniel Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. His family was impoverished. When Louis was a child, his father abandoned the family. To support his family, his mother often turned to prostitution.
Because of his mother’s meager income, he had to drop out of school. The young Louis began singing on the streets for money to help support his family and work for a Jewish family, the Karnofskys, who treated him as a family member and appreciated his abilities musically. After firing his stepfather’s gun on New Year’s Eve in 1912, he was sent to the colored waif’s home for boys.
The young man began playing with several bands shortly after being released from the ‘Colored Waif’s Home for Boys. He became one of the most famous jazz musicians in New Orleans by the late 1910s. ‘Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy,’ his 1954 studio album, is considered one of his best. There are a lot of timeless hits on this album, like ‘St Louis Blues,’ ‘Yellow Dog Blues,’ and ‘Loveless Love.’
One of his signature songs is ‘What a Wonderful World,’ released in 1967. It was No. 1 in Austria and the UK when it came out. It reached the top 10 in other European nations, such as Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, and Norway. In 2017, his name was recognized in the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame. On July 6, 1971, he passed away in his sleep in Queens, New York.
Best Louis Armstrong Quotes
1.”If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”-Louis Armstrong
2. “All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”-Louis Armstrong
3. “The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.”-Louis Armstrong
4. “Musicians don’ t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.”-Louis Armstrong
5. “Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is.”-Louis Armstrong
6. “There’s only two ways to sum up music; either it’s good or it’s bad. If it’s good you don’t mess about it, you just enjoy it.”-Louis Armstrong
7. “You’ve got to be good or as bad as the devil. When you’re dead, you’re done.”-Louis Armstrong
8. “My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing 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.”-Louis Armstrong
9. “I warm up at home. I hit the stage, I’m ready, whether it’s rehearsal or anything.”-Louis Armstrong
10. “Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him.”-Louis Armstrong
11. “All them weird chords which don’t mean a thing…you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to.”-Louis Armstrong
12. “My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn…”-Louis Armstrong
13. “What we play is life. Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing 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.”-Louis Armstrong
14. “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.”-Louis Armstrong
15. “Don’t do nothing halfway, else you find yourself dropping more than can be picked up.”-Louis Armstrong
16. “I was determined to play my horn against all odds, and I had to sacrifice a whole lot of pleasure to do so.”-Louis Armstrong
17. “Even if I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops… I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.”-Louis Armstrong
18. “I saw the Pope too, you know. And he’s a fine little fella, you know. He was tickled to death to know that the Italian people enjoyed our music and he could speak on any subject, in all kind of languages, you know.”-Louis Armstrong
19. “I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world.”-Louis Armstrong
20. “I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don’t treat me right – shame on you.”-Louis Armstrong
21. “There is no such thing as ‘on the way out’ as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you’re in the business because you’re breathing.”-Louis Armstrong
22. “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.”-Louis Armstrong
23. “When I play, maybe ‘Back o’ Town Blues,’ I’m thinking about one of the old, low-down moments – when maybe your woman didn’t treat you right. That’s a hell of a moment when a woman tell you, ‘I got another mule in my stall’.”-Louis Armstrong
24. “What do I want to get famous for? What do I care about famous? The public does that. That ain’t me man. I just blow.”-Louis Armstrong
25. “I don’t care who I’m playing for or where I’m playing. My mind never leaves that tailgate.”-Louis Armstrong
26. “I never want to be anything more than I am; what I don’t have, I don’t need.”-Louis Armstrong
27. “The first time I left New Orleans I went to St Louis with Fate’s band on the boat and to my surprise – we were the first colored band to play with the Streckfus Steamers.”-Louis Armstrong
28. “I was at a little Italian trumpet player’s house, and his mother was a Countess, well they was makin’ that spaghetti and we was wailin’, you know.”-Louis Armstrong
29. “Making money ain’t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the 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.”-Louis Armstrong
30. “At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the “mis-de” and you just got meaner and meaner.”-Louis Armstrong
