Pops topped off the decade with an appearance on the cover of The same year, the trumpeter almost got busted again on his way back from a trip to Japan.
A nickname for Armstrong’s post-Hot Five backup band was the Vipers. In 1960, Jack Bradley met Armstrong in New York through a mutual friend.
One time, Pops winked and asked Bradley to get him a can of Prince Albert, a tobacco tin used to stash pot in the ’20s and ’30s. Many called him Satchmo, a name from his youth to describe his huge grin, as big as a satchel bag. God bless you.” The two made peace when Armstrong received birthday wishes from Eisenhower. The cats came and went, and so did all my golden-leaf. “Before I knew it,” he wrote, “I was standing on ‘The Corner’ [131st St. and 7th Ave.] pushing gage.
Cogswell’s current project is to turn Armstrong’s residence in nearby Corona into a museum.
Louis checked off a box that attributed his marijuana use to doing it “just for kicks,” and then added a comment: “If the public would just leave us alone about this stuff and go ahead and enjoy the music, this would be a better world.” Louis Blues” on Harlem’s first jukeboxes.
It was part of Louis’ daily routine, along with his favorite laxative, Swiss Kriss. He went to jail for pot in 1931 and had a brush with the law over it in 1954.
Armstrong, who died in 1971, “probably turned more people on to pot than anybody else in the world,” says his friend and photographer Jack Bradley. Louis didn’t hesitate. As history looks past the smiling facade, Armstrong is emerging as a compelling figure, irresistible to writers and musicians, loved both by jazz connoisseurs and mainstream consumers.
The piano lights it up with a flame-like ripple, the trombone tokes, hands it to the clarinet, then over to Pops’ trumpet. They would spend hours talking about jazz: nuances of a drum beat, the riff of the piano, the changes in the blues. 1 of 7 LEBANON BLAST. There’s a pause, and then Armstrong hits an upward gliss as the herb kicks in.
While awaiting trial, Armstrong was locked up for nine days in the Los Angeles city jail.
Was this review helpful to you? Those famous thick chops produced the most exciting horn sound anyone had ever heard.
“Don’t nobody come up that way when he picks up on some good grass.” That’s what we called it at that time.”
In one passage, he mused that his second autobiography, which has never been published, “might be about nothing but gage.” He wrote 1,500 words about his favorite smoke, some of which are published here for the first time. He rarely smoked with the members of his band, instead confining his partying to close friends in the dressing room.
He kept voluminous journals and recorded his thoughts on reel-to-reel audio tapes. Despite his frail condition, Louis managed to steal the 1969 movie, A year later, at 70, Armstrong was hospitalized. The survey surfaced 40 years later as part of an Armstrong memorabilia tour—“Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy”—compiled by Mark Miller for the Smithsonian Institute.
“He always looked at the humorous side of life and if he saw anybody angry he’d look the situation over and say gently, ‘Well, he hasn’t dug life yet but he’s a good cat at heart.’ ’’
Every night, jazz players wail from 10 PM to 6 AM on a tiny stage decorated by a huge black-and-white photo of Louis Armstrong. The pianist says he still lights up once in a while, as does Bradley.
“Louis preferred rolled cigarettes.” Just before World War II, the Chinese and American governments mount a joint operation to prevent the Germans and Japanese from taking over the strategic island of Mandon.
Miller said the survey was discovered amongst Glaser’s papers in the Armstrong holdings in the Library of Congress.
“Just look at the difference between you and them other cats that come uptown juiced to the gills, crackin’ out of line and passin’ out in anybody’s hallway,” Pops told Mezz. Louis had no qualms about smoking with strangers despite his recent arrest. It’s a warm, lilting blues tune that passes the melody around like a doobie.
Jack C. ArmstrongWhispering Pines - Jack Carlisle Armstrong, 78, of Whispering Pines, NC passed away peacefully at his home on Wednesday, December 19, 2018, with his wife by his side.Jack Armstrong wa
I was to become known as the Reefer King, the Link Between the Races, the Philosopher, the Mezz, Poppa Mezz, Mother Mezz, Pops’ Boy, the White Mayor of Harlem.”The vipers munched out on barbecue and listened to Armstrong records like “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “St. 11 of 12 people found this review helpful.
The collection includes copies of Armstrong’s unpublished journals, portions of which have been used in books about him. The [Decades] after his death, Louis Armstrong is as famous as he ever was, and now a bit more controversial, with his marijuana use becoming more widely reported. “He said if Bing could have it, why couldn’t he, so he wrote Ike,” Bradley maintains. Some actually thought marijuana meant a woman—Mary Jane, not pot. A photo by Charles Peterson, taken around the same time when Louis was hanging out with Mezzrow in Harlem, shows Pops with a bunch of friends.
Strung out on opium, Mezzrow blew his opportunity to manage Armstrong.