Louis Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. #

17 Quotes

  • I don’t need words – it’s all in the phrasing. ∞

  • When you’re dead, you’re done. ∞

  • If they act to hip, you know they can’t play shit! ∞

  • Man, all music is folk music. You ain’t never heard no horse sing a song, have you? ∞

  • Hot can be cool, and cool can be hot, and each can be both. But hot or cool, man, jazz is jazz. ∞

  • Jazz is what I play for a living. ∞

  • [Bebop is] Chinese music. ∞

  • Man, if you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know. ∞

  • If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it. ∞

  • Never play anything the same way twice. ∞

  • Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it. ∞

  • To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question! ∞

  • What we play is life. ∞

  • There’s only two ways to sum up music; either it’s good or it’s bad. If it’s good you don’t mess about it, you just enjoy it. ∞

  • The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago. ∞

  • Making money ain’t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat and when you die you’re just as graveyard dead as he is. ∞

  • I’m a spade, you’re an ofay. Let’s play. ∞

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