Louis Armstrong’s 1969-1971 Scrapbooks: Scrapbook 3

Way back in 2020–five years ago this month to be exact–we began a series exploring the scrapbooks Louis Armstrong compiled between 1969 and 1971. The ailing Armstrong had been in intensive care twice in less than a year and doctor’s forbade him from going back out on the road. With time to spend relaxing in his Corona, Queens home, Armstrong set up shop in his Den, making, cataloging, and designing collages for over 200 reel-to-reel tapes (each one analyzed here) and compiling a handful of scrapbooks.

We kicked off the 2020 series by examining the first two scrapbooks Armstrong created in this period. The first one was so jam-packed, it took three parts to cover it all; here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Scrapbook 2 was just as packed but we were able to share its entirety in one marathon post that you can find here.

Those two scrapbooks were filled with so many gems that the other scrapbooks kind of paled in comparison, so we turned our attention to the tapes and never returned–but we’re back today! We still have a few more of these 1969-1971 books to share but if there’s enough of a reaction, perhaps we’ll continue to dip into the Archives to share more examples of Armstrong’s scrapbooking hobby, which dates back to the mid-1920s.

Today, though, we’ll pick up with Scrapbook 3, as notated by Armstrong on the cover with a small square of the white athletic tape he used copious amounts of in , time:

This has also turned out to be a timely post. Louis celebrated his birthday on July 4, a tradition we continue to observe here at the Louis Armstrong House Museum (to see the reasons why I have major doubts about the August 4 date shown on his baptismal certificate, please read my new book, Stomp Off, Let’s Go!). With Scrapbook 3, we are firmly in the summer of 1970, right around time the time Armstrong celebrated his 70th birthday. That occasion was marked on the cover of the July 4 issue of Saturday Review, which Armstrong bathed in Scotch tape as he affixed it to the first page of the scrapbook:

The mailing label above has a Beverly Hills address so it’s quite possible Louis picked up this copy while out in California, celebrating his 70th with a major concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, emceed by Hoagy Carmichael. On the second page of the scrapbook, Armstrong taped part of the Saturday Review Table of Contents, along with a New York Daily News photo of himself and Carmichael taken at the Shrine concert:

Yes, this is one example of Armstrong’s Scotch-tape habit having an adverse effect on the clippings he was trying to preserve. Fortunately, Jack Bradley clipped the same article out and didn’t cover it in Scotch tape, so here’s his much more legible copy:

The New York Times used the same exact photo on top of an Associated Press article about the Shrine concert. Here it is in the scrapbook:

Bradley somehow missed this article, but it was easy to find it online; here’s a transcript:

Jazz, Smiles, Songs Lift Satchmo to 70
LOS ANGELES July 4 (AP)—Jazz greats by the dozens and a capacity crowd of 6,700 fans tossed a day‐early, 70th‐birthday party for Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong last night that lasted for over three hours in Shrine Auditorium here.
After he had climbed a 70step ramp to cut the first piece of a 7‐tier 12‐foot‐high birthday cake and the crowd had sung “Happy Birthday,” Satchmo was given the microphone by Hoagy Carmichael, the songwriter and master of ceremonies, with instructions to “do anything you want to.”
In his familiar gravel voice, Mr. Armstrong belted out “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” followed by “Blueberry Hill.” Then, with the crowd offering a hand clapping, standing chorus, he gave out with “Hello Dolly!” and as trombone music slid through a final run of “Dolly,” he dance stepped his way off the stage, smiling broadly.
The celebration, called a “Musical Chronology in the Career of Louis Armstrong,” drew a message of greeting from President Nixon. Also, the City of Los Angeles presented a scroll that described Satchmo as the foremost contributor in the history of jazz, and a representative of New Orleans told of plans to erect a statue of him in the French Quarter there.
During the evening, five jazz bands re‐created music of the various Armstrong periods—from the riverboat band days to the present. Ed Garland, who played bass with King Oliver in 1916, played in the riverboat band. Andrew Blankeney, who blew trumpet with King Oliver in 1925, helped to re‐create the Creole Jazz Band’s music of the early 1920’s. Sarah Vaughan sang three numbers and Mr. Carmichael sang a few.
Others who performed were Joe Darensbourg, Bob McCracken and Matty Matlock, clarinet players; Red Callender and Ray Brown, bass men; Sammy Lee and Max Murray, saxophonists; John Ewing and Tyree Glenn on trombone; Clark Terry and Doc Evans on trumpet; and Joe Bushkin at the piano, to mention a few. Claude Luter and Joe Marsala from Paris lent their clarinets to a rousing “Back Home in Indiana.”
The crowd gave Mr. Armstrong a white wicker rocking chair. He sat back in it appreciatively for a few moments but then proclaimed: “I’m not in this stage yet.” To prove it, he clowned and quipped his way through the rest of the show standing up.

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Back to the scrapbook, Armstrong filled up the next page with a color Associated Booking Corporation publicity photo most likely taken in the mid-1960s:

Then it was back to the Saturday Review to share the actual articles featured inside of the magazine. Armstrong helpfully numbers each page so we can follow in order–and thankfully didn’t use any Scotch tape so these should be readable!

Armstrong’s “page 4” doesn’t exist but we do have a scan of the next page from another copy of the issue in his collection, so for the sake of completeness, here it is:

Back to the scrapbook for “page 5”:

Again, the scrapbook no longer has “page 6,” the first part of an article by Milt Gabler, so here it is:

Then it’s back to the scrapbook for Jack Bradley’s “Trumpet Fanfare” (reminder, the unedited, uncensored audio of Bradley’s conversation with trumpeters Clark Terry, Ray Nance, and Billy Butterfield is available in this post):

The final page from the Saturday Review:

Armstrong then reached into his stash to pull out two snapshots from his historic 1956 trip to the Gold Coast of Africa, shortly before it became the independent nation of Ghana; the late Velma Middleton is featured in both images:

And now, one of the big disappointments of this scrapbook that we’re hoping maybe the internet can help out with: this is obviously a glorious color photo of Louis and Lucille in Louis’s Den–the Tandberg tape recorders are visible in the background–but Louis’s cutting and Scotch taping methods have rendered the image almost useless. I did Zoom in and it’s from a Swedish magazine, published in Sverige, dated February 13, 1970; the logo in red in the lower left corner might be the name of the magazine, but I cannot make it out. The text was also backwards to I had to flip it and zoom all the way in; Google detected the language as Finnish and offered a couple of translated lines from what I could feed into it: “For about a year, Louis Armstrong has been living in a rough home country, eating well, sleeping well. Louis had had to limit the interviews because he had politely taken the pills and listened a lot.” Clearly, something is lost in translation, but it obviously refers to his resting at home, listening to tapes, taking medicine, limiting interviews, etc. Here’s the page:

But then the next page has another killer: another murky color photo of Louis and Lucille, this time on the front steps of their home! These look like wonderful photos, so if anyone out there can recognize the magazine, the language, the issue, anything, we’d love to hunt it down if possible to add to our Archives. (Much less exciting is the blurb from Leonard Lyons about Louis recording “We Have All the Time in the World” in October 1969.)

This New York Post clipping of Louis and Lauren Bacall from June 12, 1970 also didn’t fare too well…

…but once again, Jack Bradley saves the day!

But then, stymied again: a photograph from The Voice–not The Village Voice, which is digitized and available online but rather, I’m guessing, a local Queens paper, showing Louis and Lucille at a birthday party thrown by Lamar Stubbs for his wife Irma in May 1970:

The next page in the scrapbook was blank, but there was a note from our longtime Director, the late Michael Cogswell, that it initially held a “Swiss Kriss collage.” We have a box of loose collage materials located elsewhere in our Archives, so I searched and sure enough, there was one collage devoted to Louis’s favorite laxative. Thus, I’m assuming this is it! It’s a birthday card that was sent to Louis probably for his 70th, with a picture of a toilet and a sample packet of Swiss Kriss, though I can’t make out the sender’s name–Sherry? Here ’tis:

While I had the box of loose collages, I noticed this Scotch taped newspaper article that had the same look–and was from the same period–as many others in this scrapbook. Because there were some other blank pages, I’m taking the leap of faith that this was originally affixed to Scrapbook 3:

It’s another article about Louis’s 70th birthday celebration in Los Angeles, but we don’t have another copy of this one. Fortunately, I was able to zoom in and transcribe it:

Satchmo Here For Birthday
“Ain’t nobody gonna top this. It’s the greatest.”
Unaging Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong, wearing his familiar grin and mopping his brow with a handkerchief as only he can was referring to the loud, colorful reception he received as he arrive at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday.
One of America’s greatest showmen, Armstrong will be honored on his 70th birthday July 4 with a concert at the Shrine Auditorium Friday night and a gala Independence Day celebration at the Rose Bowl.
As he stepped from the plane, accompanied by his wife, Lucille, and close family friend Vicki Joseph, Armstrong was greeted by some of the tunes he made famous, performed in the old-fashioned, Dixieland tradition by the Southern California Hot Jazz Society Marching Band.
“I haven’t felt better since adolescence,” said Satchmo, as he was showered with kisses, flowers, and birthday wishes from hundreds of fans and a straw hat-clad welcoming committee.
Following presentation of a special scroll from a representative of Mayor Sam Yorty on behalf of the city, Armstrong, mopping tears from his eyes, was led into the airport terminal reception room, following by the marching band.
There he was presented with a 500-pound birthday cake, which consisted of six interconnected tier cakes. It measured 17-feet long and four feet high and was decorated into a red, white and blue theme.

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Back to the scrapbook, this next page appears to have four postcards depicting exhibits in the original New Orleans Jazz Museum; we’ve rotated the page so you can get a better glimpse of them:

Then it’s over to Time magazine for their blurb on Louis’s 70th from their July 13, 1970 issue:

Once again, it’s illegible, so here’s the transcription from the Time website:

Even the Soviet press tuned in with a sweet note for the world of music’s unrivaled Gabriel. “The King of Jazz with a golden trumpet” was Sovietskaya Kultura’s tribute to Louis Armstrong, who reached 70 last week. Back home, many of the big names of jazz joined well-wishers at Los Angeles’ 6,500-seat Shrine Auditorium for a brassy birthday bash, and somebody baked an 11-ft., $1,500 cake. “The biggest thrill I ever had in my life being honored by these cats,” said the Satch, visibly moved.

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From Time, we head to the “summer session newspaper of the City College,” The Beaver, for a July 6, 1970 tribute written by Mark Brandys that is fortunately legible; Louis is there to notate “Part 1” and “Part 2”:

The next article answers the question, “How did I spend my Tuesday?” It’s an absolutely beautiful piece by the great John McDonough, who is still with us going strong in 2025. John wrote this tribute for the Chicago Daily News, one of the only Chicago papers to not have a digitized archive in this digital age. We also didn’t have any other copies of it in our Archives. Thus, I had to zoom all the way in and type it up, paragraph by paragraph; I’ll share the results below, but here’s how it looked in Louis’s scrapbook:

And here’s the article, published in the Chicago Daily News’s “Panorama,” July 4-5, 1970:

Louis Armstrong at 70: Revisiting his brute splendor
By John McDonough
Today is Louis Armstrong’s 70th birthday. In the ripeness of his years, he enjoys good health and happy times at his Long Island home, and from there, he sallies forth occasionally for an appearance when it suits his mood.
Looking back over Louis’ career and listening to the astonishing music he has made, it’s impossible to conjure up any lend that could equal the simple facts of his life–and the great mystery they hide.
Here was a man who grew up in the back-o’ town section of New Orleans, heard no music beyond that played by the local ensembles, continued to move in the same genre after coming to Chicago in 1922, and played the regular New Orleans rags and blues with many groups, including his own.
With his Hot Five and Hot Seven groups, he broke old forms enough to establish the pre-eminence of the soloist over the group. He was recognized as the best of the bunch, the sum of everything that had preceded him.
But Louis is not where he is today because he was the best of the old New Orleans bunch, though indeed he was. His high status in American music lies in the fact that he was the first of a whole new bunch–and that’s where the mystery lies.
Suddenly, around 1927 or ’28, Louis Armstrong–the kid who all his life had moved in the parochial musical climate of original and transplanted New Orleans forms–began producing improvisations which were the development of nothing that had come before.
No search of the New Orleans masters will produce the slightest clue to how a blues player like Louis was suddenly able to bring forth from nowhere such inspired tours de force as “Tight Like This” or “West End Blues.” No look at his contemporaries will help explain the scorching splendor of his “Shine” or the soaring lyricism of “Basin St. Blues.”
The mystery is the eternal mystery of creation, of the sudden spontaneous generation of utter originality that redefines and extends the frontiers of jazz from folk music to fine art. It is originality without ifs, ands, or buts.
The complete chronicle of this remarkable metamorphosis is now available in the United States, courtesy of French CBS Records, which has assembled and distributed through Peter’s International New York, eight long-playing volumes containing nearly every record Armstrong recorded for Columbia and Okeh during this crucial period from 1925 to 1932. “Very Special Old Phonography” it’s called, and that it is.
The first four records dwell on the developing period of 1925-28 and duplicate much of the material long available on the American Columbia series (CL 851-854).
The last four volumes of the French series (CBS 62474-62477) focus on the period from 1929 to 1932, when Armstrong dropped his small recording groups and traditional New Orleans repertoire in favor of a series of big bands playing contemporary pop songs, many of which, by the way, offered infinitely more adventurous chord structures than the endless 12-bar blues forms.
His playing suddenly leaped from the gutty blues structures of his ancestors into great soaring rhapsodies of ravishing, emotional tension. His spectacular flights of imagination embraced familiar melodies such as “Lazy River,” “Song of the Island,” “Some of these Days,” and “I Surrender Dear,” distilled their essence, and expanded them to sweeping symphonic proportions.
While no one can truly account for Armstrong’s utterly unique instincts for form and structure that is the manner in which he breaks the original tune values of notes and introduces new tonal relationships within basic melodic patterns–there is no mystery about his ability to translate concepts from an abstract impulse in his mind’s ear into shattering explosions of sound. Armstrong was the greatest trumpet virtuoso of his day.
He literally expanded the upper ranges of his instrument from high C to high F, but without sacrificing any of the purity that made his middle register playing glow with emotion. His horn was the complete servant of his musical intellect. Anything his imagination could invent, his trumpet could articulate.
The French CBS series takes us up only to March, 1932 when Louis made his last records of that era for Columbia, but it’s far enough to know what was happening for his conceptual originality was fully mature by this time.
On the songs he had played so far, Armstrong had imposed a basic framework of variation that was to remain essentially unchanged throughout his career. But his didn’t mean that his imagination was weakening.
As he absorbed new material into his repertoire, his instinct for thematic variations remained as sure as ever. There was “Sunny Side of the Street” in 1934, “Swing That Music” in 1935, “Skeleton in the Closet” in 1936, “I Get Ideas” in 1951, “Beale Street Blues” in 1954 and [unintelligible] numbers.
If his style was mature, however, his technique was still expanding as his mastery of tonguing and glissando became complete. Listen, for example, to his Victor version of “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues” (LPM 2322) in which he masterfully executes a descending slide that reverses course and swoops into an ascension that arches into the heights. Frequently he applied his mounting technical power to old favorites, often rendering his original versions–the sacred cows of some critics–academic.
Who could seriously argue the superiority of the original “Basin St. Blues” over the slashing Victor version of 1933? And only a sentimental fool would cling to the fumbling Hot Five “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue” after hearing the dazzling 1938 version on Decca (DL 79225).
When at 46 Louis abandoned the big band format and returned to a small but formidable concert group, he was at the peak of his technical powers.
A fascinating document of this period is now turning up in better record stores on a label called Connoisseur Rarities (CR 520)–a beautiful recording of a February 1947 Carnegie Hall concert in which Louis temporarily forgoes his band (which he was still carrying but very soon to give up) in favor of Edmond Hall’s Cafe Society sextet. One finds Louis’ solos following essentially the same perfectly symmetrical designs he laid down years before, but they are looser and more polished.
The charging bit of “Ain’t Misbehavin'” in 1947 has even more snap than the original 1929 version, due largely to a rhythm section that is really worthy of Armstrong, not to mention the blistering clarinet of Hall.
To criticize Armstrong as a superannuated relic because his solo on “Lazy River,” for example, never changes is to condemning Goethe because he produced only one version of “Faust.”
True, jazz is indeed a performing and all too ephemeral art. Yet it is senseless to apply separate standards to a given product of creation. Beauty is Beauty.
And don’t underestimate Armstrong’s capacity for variations within an established concert. The version of “I’m Confessin'” on the Carnegie Hall LP absolutely towers over the original, which is meager compared to the massive impact of this one.
Louis’ remarkable ability to surpass himself remained with him long after most musicians find it impossible even to equal their high marks. John S. Wilson of the New York Times once dismissed as “fruitless” a series of astonishing re-creations Louis made in 1956 and 1957 for a four-LP “autobiography” collection (Decca DXN-155)
But not only does Armstrong’s trumpet sparkle with as much pristine tingle as ever, but in some cases he actually demolishes such original recordings as “King of the Zulus,” “Georgia On My Mind,” and “When You’re Smiling.” This collection is about the best post-war Armstrong in the Decca catalog.
As the whole Armstrong picture emerges (Decca will be releasing chronologically everything he ever did for the company, including alternate takes, over the next two years), much appears routine and even tasteless.
Certainly the early bands played clumsily, capable of little more than pumping out the chords against which Louis composed his brilliant architectures. But his best work was sufficient to inspire a generation of musicians and hold an ever-widening mass audience for nearly a half century.
It is not out of nostalgia that we return to these records of more than 40 years ago. We are amused at best when we listen to the quint old records of Paul Whiteman, who, it is said, “made a lady out of jazz.” But we still feel the brute splendor of Armstrong–the great American original–who truly made a man of it.

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Isn’t that a fantastic piece? Such well-balanced portraits of Armstrong in every era were rare in those times (Dan Morgenstern being exception) so I’m glad Louis got to read McDonough’s words.

Staying in Chicago, the next unreadable article is by Carol Kramer and is from the Chicago Tribune of July 12, 1970, covering the Newport Jazz Festival’s memorable tribute to Louis that took place on July 10:

Fortunately, this article is available on Newspapers.com, so here’s a more legible version:

Love that line there at the end, “At home in Corona, I go up on the boulevard and you’d think I was the Pied Piper.”

Scrapbook 3 concludes with one more 70th birthday tribute, this one written by longtime Boston Globe critic George Frazier. We’ll share the pages first and the transcription will follow:

A Long Time Coming For Louis Armstrong
By George Frazier
There is something very, very special about the man, something transcending tastes and race and music, something neither time nor slurs nor sickness can change. And standing in the center of the stage tonight, he will receive the one thing that has never been granted him, the one thing no government has ever been able to give him and that his own people have denied him.
Of all his awards, this one is the most meaningful, the most difficult to achieve, and all the more so in a time of racial animosity and ethnic division such as this. For once it is not too late to honor a man while he is still among the living, and tonight in Newport, R.I., it becomes official – part of the public record, so to speak.
Although his 70th birthday actually took place on July 4, recognition had to wait until this evening, the opening night of the Newport Jazz Festival, before it would be ex cathedra. And it is fitting that it should be so, for the Fourth of July just past was not the property of all Americans, but belonged instead to a few people in high places, a group of graceless politicians who talked of honoring American and rallying behind its standard as if they were delivering a pep talk before the big game. Their pleas for unity served to divide, and the only real spectacle the day provided was that of the President hiding behind a preacher and a punster. But tonight’s birthday celebrates not the conquest of part over people, but a man who has really and truly brought us together, a man who, at least for a few magic moments, has enabled us time and time again to overcome ourselves and our fears and hatreds.
Tonight, Louis Armstrong receives recognition for a lifetime spent making us all just a little happier, just a little better than we are. His music needs no apologia from anyone. Out of New Orleans, Louis was practically present at the creation of the art form we call jazz. Certainly, he was one of the midwives. A sideman with the incomparable King Oliver in the beginning, he knew all the great ones and grew up with all the traditions of jazz surrounding him. Jelly Roll Morton, Bunk Johnson, Buddy Bolden, Kid Ory, Sidney Bechet, Storyville, Mahogany Hall – all were part of his heritage.
Though jazz has undergone transformation after transformation, he has remained relatively unchanged through these and other times of flux, and there were those who held it against him. Oddly, it was the same people who talked loudly of black heritage and pride who were only too willing to excoriate Louis for being true to his roots, for being the man he is. Louis still signs his letters ‘Red beans and ricely yours,” his stage mannerisms are the same as they always were, and he still sings in his old familiar style, although he no longer plays trumpet much anymore. Just recently he talked of how much he had enjoyed playing for funerals – an old New Orleans custom in which the musicians play somberly going to the graveyard and joyously on the return trip – and added that he hoped people would have fun blowing over him. Some people already had.
For some, Louis Armstrong had been written off and left for dead a long time ago. The always-present smile, the State Department tours, the unfailing good humor, such things made him seem an anachronism left over from an earlier era at best irrelevant and at worst a handkerchief head, good nigger acceptable to white folks because he presented no threat to the Established Order, just another darkie shufflin’ for Massa. Back in a time almost out of mind, Billie Holiday, a great jazz singer whose “Strange Fruit” was one of the first protest songs, noted affectionately that Louis might be an Uncle Tom, but “he Toms from the heart.” It has taken these many years for less-enlightened souls to recognize the man’s obvious sincerity. It is as unfortunate as it was avoidable, for a little reflection would have enabled even the most militant black to dispel any doubts the reasons behind Louis Armstrong’s appeal to white America. If it were only the result of Louis’s amiable, unthreatening ways, his “harmlessness,” then how to account for his enormous popularity in countries where there is no racial problem? How to account for the 100,000 people who came to hear him when he appeared in Ghana? Or the 40,000 who met him in Stockholm (the newspaper Aftonbladet put out a special eight-page section in his honor)? In Rome he was greeted by the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band and taken to the bandleader’s home for a spaghetti dinner cooked by his mother, a countess.
Obviously, Louis Armstrong’s popularity has very little to do with his race. It has an awful lot to do with his integrity, his humor, and his wit – playing at a London concert attended by King George V, Louis dedicated a song with, “This one’s for you, Rex.”
And almost everyone, it seems, has lot sight of his stature as an artist. Only Duke Ellington has had anything like the influence Louis has exercised over American – indeed world – music. Louis would seem to prove the contention of Albert Murray, the excellent Negro critic and author of “The Omi-Americans,” that the American Negro, far from being culturally deprived, has contributed more to American culture than anyone else.
Certainly, Louis Armstrong has affected this country tremendously. Without him, there would have been jazz, but it would never have been the same. Not only, for example, is Ray Charles indebted to him for his singing style, but so also is Bing Crosby, who never made it big until he used Armstrong’s scat singing technique.
Tonight, at George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival, he will be standing there, handkerchief in hand, a little thinner, a little less hair, but still the best. And with him, paying their respects to the Master and lending their imprimatur to the evening, will be everyone from the Eureka Jazz Band to Dizzy Gillespie. Even Miles Davis, the voice of a new generation, dropped by to wish him Happy Birthday last week. It’s been a long time coming. 

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What a blessing that Armstrong had survived those stints in intensive care–where his mood grew very dark, as reflected in some of the writings he did in the hospital–did live to receive the outpouring of love that greeted his 70th birthday–love that is still very much here to stay in 2025.

Thanks for taking this trip with us through Scrapbook 3–we’ll close with the back cover. Happy Fourth of July–and Happy Birthday, Louis Armstrong!