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New Louis Armstrong Center showcases a life in music and a love for Queens
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Precious Fondren
Published Jul 7, 2023
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By
Precious Fondren
Published Jul 7, 2023
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When people think about the iconic jazz musician Louis Armstrong, they tend to think about New Orleans, the city where he was born – and where jazz was born, too. That explains a question often posed to Ricky Riccardi, the director of research collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum, located in Corona, Queens.
“The No. 1 question we get at the Armstrong house is why is the Louis Armstrong Museum in Queens, not in New Orleans,” Riccardi said.
The answer is simple.
“By the time he died in 1971, he was a New Yorker," Riccardi said. "Those years in New Orleans were the most important years of his life. They taught him about life, about race, about music, about women, about food, about everything. But once he got out, that was it – he was not going back."
The museum opened in 2003, in the house Lucille Armstrong, the trumpeter's wife, purchased in 1943. This week, a new 14,000-square-foot expansion to the museum opens to the public, directly across the street from where the Armstrongs spent their final years.
Organizers said the Louis Armstrong Center will celebrate Armstrong’s life and role in music history with exhibitions, performances, talks and screenings. The center also hosts a 60,000-piece archival collection, explored in a permanent exhibition called “Here to Stay.”
“We are in the legacy of Louis and Lucille: They were two Black artists who owned their own home in the 1940s, who rose to mega-stardom,” said Regina Bain, the center’s executive director. “We honor that by telling their story. But we also honor that by living their values. They loved their neighborhood, they loved supporting the families and the students in their neighborhood, so we have to do the same.”
"We are in the legacy of Louis and Lucille," said Regina Bain, executive director of the Louis Armstrong House, at a ribbon-cutting event last week. "We honor that by telling their story. But we also honor that by living their values."
Bowery Image Group/Andrew Kelly
Bain said the center will help the institution improve and expand programs devoted to artistic excellence, education and community outreach. For example, the children’s concert series “Pops is Tops” only used to happen outdoors during the summer.
“That is the type of education program that we want to make sure that we can offer year round,” Bain said. "And now we'll have an indoor space that's expansive enough for us to do programming for students, for tours of students.”
The center has received a donation of trumpets, she said, which will be used for teaching students how to play.
The center will also continue the museum’s mission of preserving and sharing the life and legacy of an artist widely considered to have been the first Black superstar in American music history. Riccardi said that status developed over the years after Armstrong moved from New Orleans to Chicago, where started a band called The Hot Five.
“The records he makes between 1925 and ‘28 are arguably the most influential recordings in jazz history – and I would also say American popular music,” Riccardi said. “You can name a million great instrumentalists, and you can name a million great singers – Louis Armstrong is the only person who could find who completely changed the way people played music on their instruments, and he completely changed the way people sang.”
The recordings Armstrong made with The Hot Five were considered “race records,” made by and for African Americans.
“By 1929, his record label, OKeh, realized this guy's got something different,” Riccardi said. “They moved him off of the race-record series, and they made him a pop artist. He really becomes the first Black pop star. He goes on Broadway in 1929. And that really is where the stardom of Louis Armstrong begins.”
As Armstrong became a world-renowned figure, Riccardi said, he broke down racial barriers. He was the first African American artist to state in his touring contract that he wouldn't play a hotel unless he could stay there, among other accomplishments.
“He becomes the first African American actor to get featured billing in a Hollywood film,” Riccardi said. “He becomes the first African American to host a nationally sponsored radio show. So the ‘30s are a very fruitful time for Armstrong.”
The permanent exhibition "Here to Stay" allows center visitors to view items from Armstrong's personal archives and hear recordings of him speaking about music, race and home.
Dominick Totino
Jason Moran, an award-winning pianist, composer and visual artist, curated the “Here to Stay” exhibition. The exhibition includes photographs, sheet music and recordings in which Armstrong shares his thoughts on music, race and life.
“One of the things I'd want someone to understand about Louis Armstrong was that he took himself seriously,” Moran said. “He took his letters seriously, he took his friends seriously and he documented all of these relationships.”
Moran said without Armstrong's meticulous documentation, the exhibition could not have happened.
“And he took care of his community as well,” he said. “So when we walk out back into our world after visiting this exhibition, how do we take care of our community? Who do we take seriously? And to really cherish those relationships.”
One relationship Armstrong clearly cherished was the one he had with his neighborhood in Queens. Weeks before he died, he wrote a six-page manuscript called "Our neighborhood."
Riccardi said Armstrong also expressed his love for the borough in songs like “What a Wonderful World.”
“If you visit the Louis Armstrong House Museum, you'll hear one of these interviews in which he talks about every time he sang that song, he thought of Corona – he thought of the three generations he saw on that block,” Riccardi said. “And almost every interview he gave, when they asked him about home, you know, he would always talk about Queens.”
The Louis Armstrong Center is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. More details here.
Tagged
queens
Music
Precious Fondren
Precious is a former WNYC & Gothamist culture reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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