Louis Armstrong is a name synonymous with New Orleans, even though the world-renowned musician and entertainer spent most of his adult life far from the city where it all began. His gravelly, unmistakable voice once summed up his philosophy simply: “I never want to be any more than I am,” he once said. “And what I don’t have, I don’t need it.” It was a philosophy shaped by a childhood that began in 1901 in his great-grandmother’s modest home on Jane Alley, long since replaced by a police station and city court.
Armstrong’s childhood was marked by a pivotal moment when, at 12, he was arrested for firing a pistol into the air on New Year’s Eve. Armstrong was sent to the Colored Waif’s Home. There, he picked up a cornet and learned to play an instrument that would carry him from the streets of New Orleans to stages around the world.
a scratched mouthpiece launches a life of music
Armstrong confirmed that the battered cornet was his early instrument. “It had notches that he had put in the mouthpiece to help him get a grip on the mouthpiece,” explains New Orleans Jazz Museum Director Greg Lambousy. The museum, housed in the old U.S. Mint in the French Quarter, contains a collection of Armstrong letters, photographs, music and memorabilia.
Armstrong’s early career unfolded in local clubs and on Mississippi River paddle wheelers before he left New Orleans for good. Chicago and Hollywood followed, and in 1943 he and his fourth wife, Lucille, bought an $8,000 house in Queens, New York.
“He thought it was a mansion,” says Ricky Riccardi, who manages the Armstrong House Museum. “It’s really not a mansion…a typical working-class home.” Yet Armstrong lived there until his death in 1971; Lucille remained for 12 more years. When she died, the couple’s home — its furnishings, manuscripts, photographs and Armstrong’s extensive recordings — was donated to the public.
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Visiting the Armstrong home today feels as if the couple has just stepped out. The bedroom, Louis’s mirror-lined bathroom with gold trimmings, the kitchen, the dining room, the piano-filled living room and his beloved den remain exactly as they left them. The rooms are filled with their voices: hundreds of reel-to-reel tapes capturing candid conversations. “Talking about music, talking about racism, talking about drugs, talking about politics,” Riccardi says. “He would just let the tape recorder run.”
In his den, Armstrong can be heard telling friends about his record collection. “I’ve got the Beatles, I’ve got everybody,” he says with amusement. The tapes reveal a man who was, as Riccardi describes, “the friendliest, warmest human being you can imagine.”
Armstrong loved his Queens neighborhood, teaching children to play the horn from his front steps and watching them from his window. And he never stopped honoring the city where it all began. “We’re going to take a little trip to my hometown of New Orleans,” he would tell audiences night after night. A world-renowned entertainer to millions, in his own home Louis Armstrong was simply a husband, a friend, and a man who cherished what he called “a normal life…which I appreciate very much.”
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The New Orleans Jazz Museum, located in the old U.S. Mint at 400 Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans, has a permanent exhibition on Lous Armstrong – It All Started in Jane Alley. The museum is open seven days a week from 9am – 4pm. Click here for the museum’s website. The Armstrong House Museum is located 34-49 107th Street, Corona, NY, and is open Thursday – Saturday from 11am – 4pm and offers guided tours. Click here for the Armstrong House Museum website.
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