How Did Louis Armstrong Influence Jazz

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Recognized as the most influential jazz musician, Louis Armstrong led jazz revolution in its early development. From New Orleans to Chicago and New York, he took different roles as a sidemen, trumpet and cornet player, vocalist, band leader, composer, musician and entertainer. Notably, his creation of solo improvisation let jazz depart from collective improvisation and become a solo art. Also, his virtuosity of playing the cornet and the skilled use of the upper register of trumpet amazed the public and greatly influenced the following jazz musicians. Meanwhile, his unique scat singing, personalized melodic embellishments of songs and the refinement of jazz swing eighth note had great impact on jazz musicians and contributed to the early development of jazz. With his Hot Five and Hot Seven, Louis Armstrong bridged collective improvisation of the older New Orleans style with the new emphasis on soloing, a breakthrough in the jazz…show more content…
Louis could roam over the entire trumpet range and would extend his upper range gradually to high e flat and eventually high f. The Mandy solo also contains one of the three or four types of phrases that are completely characteristic of and individual to Armstrong: the descending line of measure four followed by the ascending seventh interval. He separated song material into distinct categories: Tin Pan Alley songs, where blue notes were not mandatory and were probably out of phrase, and blues and New Orleans standards, where blue notes would be very much at home. Louis Armstrong also influenced scat singing. In Heebie Jeebies and Skit-Dat-De-Dat, Louis’s singing is a vocal counterpart of his playing and contains nuances, inflections, and natural ease of his trumpet playing, including even the bends and scoops, vibrato and shakes. With totally unorthodox technique, Louis’s singing is added a new school or technique of singing to Western
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