The World’s Greatest Trumpet Player

Part 2 of Louis Armstrong’s profile on NPR:

By his early thirties, Louis Armstrong had already revolutionized jazz forever. Working with his mentor “King” Oliver in Chicago, Armstrong explored and expanded the sounds of his native New Orleans. He developed his improvisational genius with Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra in New York, then returned to Chicago already billed as “The World’s Greatest Trumpet Player,” and recorded the legendary Hot Fives sessions. By the early 1930s, Armstrong had displayed unprecedented virtuosity, sculpting the jazz solo into a unique art form and invigorating the jazz world with a new rhythmic vision of swing.

Listen to the program here.