Exhibit unveils never-displayed photos of Louis Armstrong
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A century after the teenage Louis Armstrong's first pro gig at a honky-tonk, an exhibit about the jazz singer and trumpeter's complicated relationship with his hometown is opening in a state museum in New Orleans' French Quarter.
They include photographs of notebook pages in which Armstrong tells of a racist radio announcer who refused to introduce him in 1931, during his first trip back to New Orleans since he left for Chicago's music world in 1922.
Armstrong wrote that when his manager told him about the refusal, he told the band, "Give me a big chord." That got the crowd into their seats, he wrote, and when he stepped from the bandstand onto the floor, he got a 10-minute ovation.