Louis Armstrong - New Orleans, LA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 29° 56.880 W 090° 03.863
15R E 783343 N 3316649
This sculpture is located in the lobby of the Hilton Riverside Hotel in New Orleans, LA.
Waymark Code: WMPHTT
Location: Louisiana, United States
Date Posted: 09/03/2015
Views: 2
This work depicts the famed New Orleans musician Louis Armstrong...much larger than life- standing and playing a trumpet. The work is displayed all in gold. There is no sign at the site indicating the artist, title or date.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and one of the pivotal and most influential figures in jazz music.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognisable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalising using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicised his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for black men."