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  • Published: 29 December 2004
  • ISBN: 9780448433684
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $12.99

Who Was Louis Armstrong?



If not for a stint in reform school, young Louis Armstrong might never have become a musician. It was a teacher at the Colored Waifs Home who gave him a cornet, promoted him to band leader, and saw talent in the tough kid from the even tougher New Orleans neighborhood called Storyville. But it was Louis Armstrong's own passion and genius that pushed jazz into new and exciting realms with his amazing, improvisational trumpet playing. His seventy-year life spanned a critical time in American music as well as black history.

  • Published: 29 December 2004
  • ISBN: 9780448433684
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 112
  • RRP: $12.99

About the author

Yona Zeldis McDonough

Yona McDonough holds degrees from Vassar College and Columbia University. She is the editor and a contributor to The Barbie Chronicles: A Living Doll Turns Forty - a collection of essays by writers including Jane Smiley, Anna Quindlen, Carol Shields and Erica Jong - as well as All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader.

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