LOUIS ARMSTRONG

Armstrong (1901-1971) was from New Orleans and learned how to play the cornet while in reform school. Joe "King" Oliver acted as a father to Armstrong, giving him his first real cornet, and instructing him on the instrument. In 1922 Louis received a telegram from his mentor, asking him to join his band in Chicago. The New Orleans style of music took the town by storm, and Armstrong prospered, but in 1924 his first wife pressured Armstrong to leave his mentor's band. After recording with famous artists in New York, he moved back to Chicago and joined his wife's band. By 1929 he was becoming a very big star, touring with his own band. Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 where he fronted a band, then returned to Chicago the next year, but returned to New Orleans for the first time since he left in 1922 to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. He and his wife separated in 1931, and for much of the 1930s and the 1940s he toured the U.S. and Europe with the Louis Armstrong Orchestra until the public's taste in jazz began to wane. In 1947 his manager fired the orchestra and replaced its members with a small group that became one of the greatest and most popular bands in jazz history, called the Louis Armstrong Allstars. They toured extensively traveling to Africa, Asia, Europe and South America for the next twenty years until Louis' failing health caused them to disband. In 1963 Armstrong scored a huge international hit with his version of "Hello Dolly," a number-one single that knocked The Beatles off the top of the charts. In 1968 he recorded another number-one hit with the touchingly optimistic title "What A Wonderful World". The world's greatest jazz musician died in his sleep at his home in Queens, New York.

PEARL BAILEY

Bailey (1918-1990) was the daughter of a preacher and started her performing career at age 15 after winning an amateur contest. She worked as a touring singer-dancer with various jazz bands. Her break came with her 1946 Broadway debut in the musical St. Louis Woman, which won her the award for the most promising newcomer. Her first screen appearance came as a guest star in Variety Girl. She appeared in many musicals and by the late '60s she was awarded a Tony for her work in the title role of the all-black version of Broadway's Hello Dolly! After hosting a variety show in the early 1970s, she was named to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Pearl Bailey was a spirited performer known for her throaty voice, warm personality, and mischievousness.

Reference
Bailey, Pearl. The Raw Pearl. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968.

WILLIAM "COUNT" BASIE

Basie (1904-1984) was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, and learned to play the piano from his mother. He left for New York as a young man to study piano with members of the Harlem stride school and toured the vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers, and comedians. In 1935, Basie organized a group of nine musicians and began a long engagement at the Reno Club in Kansas City. The group's radio broadcasts in 1936 led to contracts with national booking and recording agencies, and within a year the Count Basie Orchestra had become one of the leading big bands of the swing era. In 1950, financial considerations forced Basie to disband, but two years later a reorganized band and undertook a long series of tours and recording sessions that eventually established him as an elder statesman of jazz. During the 1950s and 60s his band was established as a permanent jazz institution and training ground for young musicians, and he toured Europe and Japan. Though hampered by illness in the 1970s, Basie continued performing into the next decade, sometimes from a wheelchair.