Louis Armstrong

Born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901, Armstrong followed his mentor Joe "King" Oliver to Chicago around 1922, joining Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and making his name at cutting contests before Fletcher Henderson brought him to New York. By the 1920s his inventive trumpet work had shifted jazz's center of gravity from collective improvisation to solo performance, and by the 1950s he was everywhere - radio, television, film - a joyful presence who rarely spoke publicly about race but took a stand during the Little Rock Crisis. He recorded with Ella Fitzgerald, appeared in films from Cabin in the Sky to Hello, Dolly!, and won the Grammy for Best Male Vocal Performance in 1965. He died July 6, 1971, having crossed over to white and international audiences at a time when that feat was nearly impossible, his "Melancholy Blues" now drifting past the edge of the solar system on the Voyager Golden Record.