Author Archives: Ricky Riccardi

This is the third part in a series of posts devoted to sharing selections of the tens of thousands of condolence letters Lucille Armstrong received after Louis passed away on July 6, 1971 (here are links to Part 1 and Part 2). We’ve shared letters from prominent politicians, entertainers and musicians already; today’s post willContinue reading ““Louis Still With Us Forever”: Lucille Armstrong’s Condolence Letters Part 3″

Last week, we began a new series of posts sharing some of the thousands of condolence letters Lucille Armstrong received after the passing of Louis on July 6, 1971. That post centered on contributions from entertainers and politicians; today’s will focus on musicians, songwriters and those in the music business. As one can imagine, musiciansContinue reading ““God, How I Loved That Man”: Lucille Armstrong’s Condolence Letters Part 2″

It’s been over a month since we began telling the story of Louis Armstrong’s final weeks in great detail (see all posts here) and after last week’s look at his funeral, one would think that we had reached the conclusion. But no, there’s one more component we’d like to examine in a series of postsContinue reading ““He Will Be Missed. But Above All, He Will Be Remembered”: Lucille Armstrong’s Condolence Letters Part 1″

The funeral of Louis Armstrong took place 50 years ago today. In our last post, we introduced Phoebe Jacobs, who showed up after Louis passed away to help Lucille Armstrong get in touch with the media and to begin planning the funeral. The first order of business was to have Louis’s body lie in stateContinue reading ““Move Over Gabriel, Because Here Comes Satchmo”: The Funeral of Louis Armstrong”

Today is the 50th anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s death (though seeing how many were paying tribute to him and sharing his music this past July 4 weekend, his legacy is alive and well!). As we have painstakingly chronicled in the past month, he went out on his own terms, making tapes, designing collages, playing theContinue reading ““A Jazz Era Ends”: The 50th Anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s Passing”

[Author’s Note: A longer version of this piece was published on this site in 2020. This updated version has removed discussions of other tapes that have recently been covered in our special 2021 series on Louis Armstrong’s final tapes. You can read the entire series here.] Louis Armstrong passed away in his sleep in theContinue reading “The Story of Louis Armstrong’s Final Tape”

In our last post, we discussed that Armstrong finished putting number “18” on a reel of “Armstrong’s Personal Recordings” but did not make a handwritten contents sheet for said reel. We also mentioned that Reel 17 contained the first half of what would eventually become Armstrong’s last tape, to be discussed here on July 5.Continue reading ““That Cat Ain’t Never Gonna Die”: Louis Armstrong’s Final Collages and Last Birthday Party”

If you’ve been with us this month (if you haven’t, you can now catch up on all of our 1971-related posts in one place), it’s been quite a roller coaster. Louis Armstrong barely emerged from the hospital in May 1971 and as soon as he began feeling a little better, started making a new seriesContinue reading ““Armstrong’s Personal Recordings”: Louis Armstrong’s Final Tapes Part 4″

As we’ve been chronicling all month, the final weeks of Louis Armstrong’s life were ones filled with both tremendous pride as he looked back at his entire musical career, but also a sense of hope that he would once again be able perform for his beloved fans. The looking back was accomplished on his “Armstrong’sContinue reading ““A Message To My Fans And Friends From All Over The World”: Louis Armstrong’s “Open Letter to Fans””

In case you’ve missed it, in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we examined the first 10 volumes of what Louis Armstrong dubbed “Armstrong’s Personal Recordings,” a series of reel-to-reel tapes comprised (mostly) of his own recordings that he assembled, listened to, cataloged and played along with in the final weeks of hisContinue reading ““Armstrong’s Personal Recordings”: Louis Armstrong’s Final Tapes Part 3″