Quotes by Louis Armstrong - Page 2

Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Good
Matter
World
Life Music World
Life Good Music
Itself
Without
Good Music
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At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the "mis-de" and you just got meaner and meaner.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Firsts
Lost
Marijuana
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All them weird chords which don't mean a thing...you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Jazz
Mean
Remember
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I was determined to play my horn against all odds, and I had to sacrifice a whole lot of pleasure to do so.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Determined
Odds
Pleasure
Sacrifice
Whole
Against
Horn
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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.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Jazz
Two
Way
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There are Two Secrets to Success: 1. Don't tell ANYONE Everything you know 2.If you have to ask what Jazz is, you'll never know.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Jazz
Secret
Two
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Give me a kiss to build a dream on And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss Sweetheart, I ask no more than this A kiss to build a dream on.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Dream
Giving
Kissing
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You either have it or you don't. You play your horn just like you sing a song or a hymn. If it's in your heart, you express yourself in the tune.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Heart
Hymns
Song
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Well, I tell you... the first chorus, I plays the melody. The second chorus, I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus, I routines.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Chorus
Melody
Round
Plays
Second
Third
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Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Eye
Heart
New Orleans
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I had a chance to play with the best musicians that were coming through because I was pretty good myself or else they wouldn't have tolerated with me.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Chance
Musician
Play
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Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops... I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Blow
Everyday
Two
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There is no such thing as 'on the way out' as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you're in the business because you're breathing.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Breathing
Fashion
Long
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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.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Life
Music
Practice
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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.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Music
Long Ago
Memories
Night
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It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Dope
Marijuana
Weed
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There's a thing I've dreamed of all my life, and I'll be damned if it don't look like it's about to come true-to be King of the Zulu's parade. After that, I'll be ready to die.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Kings
Looks
Parades
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It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... we contributed Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
America
Country
World
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When I go to the Gate, I'll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we'll play 'Sleepy Time Down South' and 'Hello, Dolly!.' Then he can blow a couple that he's been playing up there all the time.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Music
Blow
Couple
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It makes you feel good, man, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you're with another tea smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Men
Feel Good
Good Man
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'Cat?' 'Cat' can be anybody from the guy in the gutter to a lawyer, doctor, the biggest man to the lowest man, but if he's in there with a good heart and enjoy the same music together, he's a cat.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Cat
Enjoy
Good Heart
Guy
Lawyer
Lowest
Together
Good Music Heart
Anybody
Biggest
Doctor
Gutter
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Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret...
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Baby
Giving
Secret
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As a youngster in the little orphanage home in New Orleans, I was the bugler of the institution. When I got to be around 13 or 14 years old, they took me off the bugle and put me in the little brass band.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Home
Brass Bands
New Orleans
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Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans. When that's where you left your heart. The moonlight on the bayou a creole tune that fills the air. I dream about magnolias in bloom and I'm wishin' I was there.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Dream
Heart
Mean
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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.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Cat
Littles
Sick
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I do believe that my whole success goes back to that time I was arrested as a wayward boy at the age of thirteen. Because then I had to quit running around and began to learn something. Most of all, I began to learn music.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Running
Age
Thirteen
Whole
Success Time Music
Boy
Around
Began
Goes
Learn
Quit
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When I play, maybe 'Back o' Town Blues,' I'm thinking about one of the old, low-down moments - when maybe your woman didn't treat you right. That's a hell of a moment when a woman tell you, 'I got another mule in my stall.'
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Hell
Moments
Blues
Maybe
Mule
Stall
Treat
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When I was young and very green, I worte that tune, Sister Kate, and someone said that's fine, let me publish it for you. I'll give you fifty dollars. I didn't know nothing about papers, and business, and I sold it outright.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Dollars
Giving
Tunes
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My life has always been my music, it's always come first, but the music ain't worth nothing if you can't lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, 'cause what you're there for is to please the people.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Music
Firsts
People
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You see, pops, that's the kind of talk that's ruining the music. Everyone's trying to do something new, no one trying to learn the fundamentals first. All them young cats playing their wierd chords. And what happens? No one's working.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Cat
Fundamentals
Trying
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You can't take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I've been playing 50 years, and that's what I've been doing in order to keep in that groove there.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Blow
Mean
Two
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I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Nature
Blessed
Dark
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Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians: they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Five
Jazz
Pioneering
Played
Ear
Memory
Musicians
Swing
Trained
Whose
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As many bands as you heard [in New Orleans], that's how many bands you heard playing right. I thought I was in Heaven playing second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band -- and they had some funeral marches that would just touch your heart, they were so beautiful.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Beautiful
Heart
New Orleans
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I had a long time admiration for the Jewish people. Especially with their long time of courage, taking so much abuse for so long. I was only seven years old, but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Courage
Abuse
Admiration
Folks
Long Time
Poor
Seven
Treatment
White
Time Family Long
Jewish
Easily
Handing
Jewish People
Taking
Worked
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When the other kids started calling me nicknames, I knew everything was all right. I have a pretty big mouth, so they hit on that and began calling me Gatemouth or Satchelmouth, and that Satchelmouth has stuck to me all my life, except that now it's been made into 'Satchmo' - 'Satchmo' Armstrong.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Armstrong
Calling
Nicknames
Stuck
Life Me My Life
All My Life
Hit
Began
Big Mouth
Except
Mouth
Other Kids
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A lot of the musicians asked me if when I hit my high-Cs on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. Some [thought] I had invented some kind of gadget so I could play high register. They weren't satisfied until they handed me a trumpet that they had with them and had me swing it. Then they cheered.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Musician
Play
Swings
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I'll bet right now most of the youngsters and hot club fans who hear the name Storyville hasn't the least idea that it consisted of some of the biggest prostitutes in the world ... Standing in their doorways nightly in their fine and beautiful negligees -- faintly calling to the boys as they passed their cribs.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Beautiful
Boys
Names
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We never did try to get together and to show the younger Negroes such as myself, to try and even to show that he has ambitions - and with just a little encouragement, I could have really done something worthwhile. But instead, we did nothing but let the young upstarts know that they were young and simple, and that was that.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Encouragement
Ambition
Get Together
Simple
Worthwhile
Younger
Instead
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I gathered that those two Big-shot Boys, Joe + Fletcher, just was afraid to let me sing, thinking maybe I'd sort of ruin their reputations with their musical public. They not knowing that I had been singing all of my life. In churches, etc. I had one of the finest All Boys Quartets that ever walked the streets of New Orleans.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Etc
Finest
Musical
New Orleans
Not Knowing
Singing
Streets
Life Thinking Me
Churches
Gathered
Joe
Orleans
Reputations
Ruin
Sing
Walked
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The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in ... Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Crazy
Cutting
Fighting
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When this ugly gangster told Joe Glaser that he must take the name of Armstrong down, off of the marquee, and it was an 'order from Al Capone,' Mr. Glaser looked this cat straight in the face and told him these words: 'I think that Louis Armstrong is the world's greatest, and this is my place, and I defy anybody to take his name down from there.'
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Armstrong
Capone
Cat
Marquee
Order
Ugly
Words
Louis
Al
Face
Greatest
Anybody
Gangster
Mr
Defy
Off
Joe
Straight
Looked
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The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people goin' by I see friends shaking hands saying, "How do you do" They're really saying "I love you." I hear babies cry, I watch then grow They'll learn much more than I'll ever know; And I think to myself, What a wonderful world; Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world. Oh yeah!
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Appreciation
Smile
Baby
Cheer
Gratitude
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Musicians in my day had nicknames. My name was "Satchel Mouth," like a doctor's satchel. When I went to England this fellow was strictly English, and he was editor of the newspaper there. He shook my hand after I got off the train and said, "Hello, Satchmo." So right away my trombone player said, "Mmm, the man thinks you have mo' mouth than Satchel Mouth." So I was stuck with it, and it turned out all right.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Men
Player
Thinking
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I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me!
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
Night
Real
Stars
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Some of you young folks been saying to me, "Hey Pops, what you mean 'What a wonderful world'? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either." Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser.
Louis Armstrong / Trumpeter
War
Baby
Mean
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Louis Armstrong Quotes - Page 2

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