Louis Armstrong

Trumpeter

1901-08-04 – 1971-07-06

American trumpeter and vocalist who was a foundational figure in jazz. His influential recordings and performances helped shape 20th-century popular music.

Quotes by Louis Armstrong

If it sounds good, it is good.
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If you have to ask what jazz is you will never know. Louis Armstrong
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Man, if you have to ask what it [jazz] is, you'll never know.
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If you have to ask what jazz is you will never know. Louis Armstrong
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If it sounds good, it is good.
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Man, if you have to ask what it [jazz] is, you'll never know.
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All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.
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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.'
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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.
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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.
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The first time I heard Jack Teagarden on the trombone, I had goose pimples all over.
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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.
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A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.
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If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
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There's only one way to sum up music: either it's good or it's bad. If it's good you don't mess about with it; you just enjoy it.
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All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.
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White folks still in the lead.
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There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
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