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sai-national.org • Summer 2026 29 Bk Reviews STOMP OFF, LET'S GO: THE EARLY YEARS OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG by Ricky Riccardi Oxford University Press, 2025 L ouis Armstrong's undeniable influence on jazz and popular culture has been the subject of many books, essays, and articles throughout the years, so one wonders will another biography add substantially to the Armstrong body of knowledge? After reading Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong, the answer is a definitive "yes." The third installment in Armstrong biographer Ricky Riccardi's trilogy covers Armstrong's first twenty-eight years, providing insight and a wealth of detail about the trumpeter's formative years. What emerges is the most complete picture of Armstrong's development as a multi-talented musician, a devoted son and brother, and a young hustler, who started working at age six by selling newspapers on a street corner to help feed his family. Drawing on published news accounts, census records, and past interviews of Armstrong's peers, Riccardi paints a vivid picture of the rough-and-tumble New Orleans neighborhoods where young Armstrong lived and learned to take care of himself. By the age of sixteen, Armstrong had tried pimping, been stabbed, was arrested at least twice, and spent eighteen months in confinement at the Colored Waif's Home for Boys—all while gradually building his reputation as a young cornet player to watch. The storyline is informed by a wealth of primary sources, some of which have never been drawn on, including chapters from Lil Hardin Armstrong's unpublished autobiography; Armstrong's own unedited first manuscript of his 1949 autobiography, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans; an extensive unpublished 1973 interview with his sister, Beatrice "Mama Lucy" Armstrong; and previously-unknown 1950s taped Armstrong interviews by producer George Avakian. The author also weaves together dozens of different first-person accounts by musicians, mostly drawn from Tulane University's Hogan Jazz Archive, including people who played with young Armstrong at nearly every stop along his musical journey. Riccardi does an excellent job explaining the influence of the women in Armstrong's life throughout his early years. First, his mother and his grandmother, who nurtured him through frequent household moves, introduced him to singing at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Sundays, and filled the gap left by his absent father. Other notable women include his sister, Mama Lucy, who always looked out for her little brother; his first wife, Daisy Parker, and their tumultuous four-year relationship; and his second wife, Lil Hardin, who was ultimately the architect of the first major phase of Louis's career. It was Hardin who proclaimed that Armstrong will be "second trumpet to no one," after he mustered the courage to quit the highly- successful King Oliver Jazz Band. Hardin's voice is an essential element throughout the book. She got to know Armstrong better than anyone else at the time, and learned how to motivate, console, and support him when he hit rough patches. While their musical collaborations would become legendary as part of the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings that redefined the direction of jazz, by 1926, after just two years of marriage, Hardin and Armstrong had grown apart romantically. The future Mrs. Armstrong number three, Alpha Smith, became Armstrong's new paramour. As he did in his two previous Armstrong biographies, Riccardi makes liberal use of the actual recordings on which Armstrong played, starting with his 1923 Gennett Records recordings with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. This is where Armstrong's first recorded solo, on "Chimes Blues," and then his outstanding chorus on "Froggie Moore," stand out. Armstrong took every opportunity to record as he accepted sideman gigs, appearing on recordings by the top artists of the day including Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Sidney Bechet. When he returned to Chicago from New York late in 1925, Hardin secured steady work for him at the Dreamland Café, the top South Side black and tan club, as a member of her band, dubbed Mme. L. Armstrong's Dreamland Syncopators. Armstrong stretched his musical horizons by jumping daily between the Dreamland Café and the Vendome Theater to play in Erskine Tate's Orchestra. He played everything from Mendelssohn, Gershwin, Puccini, Wagner, Verdi, and Stravinsky, and loved it all. Armstrong was finally living his boyhood dream of becoming an all-around musician. Stomp Off, Let's Go abundantly documents Armstrong's early years in music and helps the reader to understand how this universally-known figure evolved. It also sheds light on Armstrong's insatiable musical curiosity. For example, when his band was on a break at the many ballrooms in Chicago and New York, the rest of the group would go to the musicians' room to drink and play cards while another band performed. Not Armstrong—he would sit on the edge of the bandstand to soak up the other bands' music, borrowing ideas he liked to blend into his musical memory. Readers may take for granted that Armstrong's vocal performances were a standard part of his performance routine, but Riccardi details the twisted path the trumpeter took before he was allowed to sing professionally. It was the manager of the Roseland Ballroom, who overhead Armstrong wordlessly improvise vocalizations over the band when he wasn't playing, who pushed him to step up to the microphone and take a vocal chorus. It was an instant hit with the audience. In that moment, an unnamed club manager helped launch one of the most recognizable voices in all of music. Similarly, a great deal of misinformation has

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