Book Look: Satchmo, by Louis Armstrong

This was fascinating, both as an autobiography and as uniquely filtered socio-economic essay of New Orleans circa 1900-1921, encompassing the 21 years that Louis Armstrong spent growing up in the city.

The first thing you notice is that this doesn't appear to have been edited in any way - not for grammar, not for consistency, and certainly not for "political correctness." Louis tells his story in his own words, stream of conscious-style, through the lens of the morals and ethics he learned growing up in the seediest neighborhoods of New Orleans. His casual acceptance of such things as institutionalized racism (cops who would knock blacks in the head with their "licorice sticks" if they were foolish enough to talk back), domestic violence (which went both ways - in Louis's world, the women were as dangerous as the men), prostitution (his mother and his first wife were working girls; he himself "ran" a girl for a while), and abject poverty (scavenging through trash for food and things to sell) are as important a part of the story as the events he is retelling.

The story also provides some fascinating insights into New Orleans culture at the time, from the institutionalized vice of Storyville (deliberately maintained by the city as a profit center) to the seedy honky-tonks that serviced levee workers, pimps, and whores; from the railroad tracks where his mom harvested herbs to combat TB and lockjaw (tetanus being a constant presence in a neighborhood where no one could afford shoes), to the turpentine factories that ripped away the linings of workers' lungs; from the "Colored Waifs Home" where Louis was incarcerated (no trial, no conviction - just an indefinite sentence until such time as his family could manage to round up a white person to vouch for him), to the endless stream of funerals, picnics, balls, and street parades that gave birth to a generation of brilliant jazz musicians.

Seriously, if you're interested in learning more about the life of Louis Armstrong, this should be included in your "must read" pile. While this self-serving autobiography almost surely sugar-coats or omits all manner of traumas, you won't want to miss out on this opportunity to hear Louis tell his story in his own words, though his own chosen filters.