1920s Music
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father left the family shortly after Louis was born and his mother often worked as a prostitute to make money, leaving him with his grandma. When he was eleven, he fired a gun in the air at a New Years’ Eve celebration, getting him sent to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs for being a juvenile delinquent. His love of music started there when he received music lessons for the cornet. He was released in 1914. For many years after his release, he made money by selling papers, hauling coal to the city’s red light district, and singing and dancing for coins. When he was seventeen, he started playing at dive bars in New Orleans’ Storyville. When people heard him, they asked him to join marching bands and jazz bands in the area. Louis eventually replaced Joe “King” Oliver in the Kid Orey band. During this time, his cousin died in childbirth leaving her three year old son, Clarence, all alone. Despite the fact that he had mental disabilities, Louis decided to take care of him. In the early 1920s, Louis Armstrong left New Orleans. First he played in St. Louis and then at Lincoln Gardens in Chicago, where he began playing with his idol, Joe Oliver, in his Creole Jazz Band. He was married four times. As he got older, his health began to fail but he still continued to make music. He died in his sleep on July 6, 1971 at his home in Queens, New York. This house was later restored and opened to the public as the Louis Armstrong House Museum in 2003.
By: Natalie Crow
Music has been changing for as long as history has been told, but now in our times of the 1920s, we’ve got an all new set of music coming our way, and it itself doesn’t just change, it changes us, and it changes the times that it’s in! Today we have plenty of new kinds of music such as Jazz and improvisational music-brought to us from our black friends down south-, It came along not too long ago, but now it’s getting pretty popular because of the thing you probably keep near your bed like so many other Americans do nowadays; the radio! This great new invention is broadcasting sweet sounds all over, and it is certainly helping to make music much more accessible, and as a result, much more popular! Who doesn’t like to sit back in their chair with a pipe and a newspaper while listening to some good Jazz from the good old radio? It only makes sense that we use this, because now we can listen to great music at a much cheaper price than going to a concert every time, and traveling for our music is now a thing of the past too, of course. New times are coming on fast with all this music, and some people are even making this age known as the Jazz Age instead of the Roaring Twenties. So we can thank our pals as well as the Harlem Renaissance for helping to make this music known! Now, some of you out there might not have heard this kind of music yet, and you’re sitting there scratching your head and wondering: What’s so good about this crazy new stuff? Well apparently, what so many people are liking about it is how it contrasts to that old music we would listen to, you know, Rock and Country. This is a whole new brand of music with a nice upbeat rhythm, and lots of smooth lyrics that we can all relate to. So make sure that you enjoy this music and radio while you can, because I’ve got a bad feeling about how our economy’s gonna end up in a few years!
By: Jared Carbone
The Jazz Era
1920's music was full of life and excitement. In its early years jazz was considered the devils music by diverse segments of the American public. Vigorous public debate raged between supporters and detracters. A typical exchange took place between music critic Ernest Newman who debunked jazz in a 1927 magazine article, with a reply soon forthcoming from jazz-king Louis Armstrong, showing in the image below, who argued that jazz was a genuine musical force - and we know who history shows was correct in his views. The popular dance music of the time was not jazz, but there were early forms taking shape in the evolving blues-ragtime experimental area that would soon turn into jazz. Popular Tin Pan Alley composers like Irving Berlin incorporated ragtime influence into their composition, though they rarely used the specific musical devisces that were second nature to hazz players - rhythms, the blue notes. Few things did more to popularize the idea of hot music than Berlin's hit song of 1911, "Alexander's Ragtime Band," which became a craze as far from home as Vienna.
By: Shane Dahlson
