Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly-recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).
Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation during the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man.
Armstrong was born and brought up in New Orleans, a culturally diverse town with a unique musical mix of creole, ragtime, marching bands, and blues. Although from an early age he was able to play music professionally, he didn't travel far from New Orleans until 1922, when he went to Chicago to join his mentor, King Oliver. Oliver's band played primitive jazz, a hotter style of ragtime, with looser rhythms and more improvisation, and Armstrong's role was mostly backing. Slow to promote himself, he was eventually persuaded by his wife Lil Hardin to leave Oliver, and In 1924 he went to New York to join the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. At the time, there were a few other artists using the rhythmic innovations of the New Orleans style, but none did it with the energy and brilliance of Armstrong, and he quickly became a sensation among New York musicians. Back in Chicago in 1925, he made his first recordings with his own group, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and these became not only popular hits but also models for the first generation of jazz musicians, trumpeters or otherwise.
Other hits followed through the twenties and thirties, as well as troubles: crooked managers, lip injuries, mob entanglements, failed big-band ventures. As jazz styles changed, though, musical purists never lost any respect for him -- although they were sometimes irritated by his hammy onstage persona. Around the late forties, with the help of a good manager, Armstrong's business affairs finally stablilized, and he began to be seen as an elder statesman of American popular entertainment, appearing in Hollywood films, touring Asia and Europe, and dislodging The Beatles from the number-one position with Hello Dolly". Today many people may know him as a singer (a good one), but as Miles Davis said: “You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him."
The 62-year-old Armstrong became the oldest act to top the US charts when "Hello Dolly" reached #1 in 1964. Four years later Satchmo also became the oldest artist to record a UK #1, when "What a Wonderful World" hit the top spot.
My Heart
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
High on a hill it calls to me
to be where little cable cars
climb halfway to the stars!
The morning fog may chill the air,
I don't care!
My love waits there in San Francisco,
above the blue and windy sea.
your golden sun will shine for me!
I left my heart in San Francisco.
High on a hill it calls to me
to be where little cable cars
climb halfway to the stars!
The morning fog may chill the air,
I don't care!
My love waits there in San Francisco,
above the blue and windy sea.
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
The lyrics of Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five's song My Heart in San Francisco express a deep love for the city of San Francisco, where the singer has left their heart. The lyrics describe the city as being on a hill, where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars. The morning fog is mentioned in the song, but the singer does not care because their love waits for them in San Francisco, above the blue and windy sea. The singer looks forward to coming home to San Francisco, where the golden sun will shine for them.
This song is a tribute to the city of San Francisco, which has become an American icon. The lyrics are simple and straightforward, but they capture the essence of the city and its beauty. The singer's love for the city is evident throughout the song, as they long to return to the place where their heart remains.
The song was written in 1954 by George Cory and Douglass Cross. It was originally written as an instrumental piece, but the lyrics were added later. The song was first recorded by Tony Bennett in 1962, and it became his signature song. Since then, the song has been covered by many artists and has become a classic.
Line by Line Meaning
I left my heart in San Francisco.
San Francisco left an indelible mark on me, a deep and abiding feeling that has taken root and can't be shaken.
High on a hill it calls to me
The city is beautiful from above and it beckons me, whispering of the wonders to be found there.
To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars!
There's something almost magical about these cable cars, slowly ascending up the steep hills, like they're reaching for the heavens themselves.
The morning fog may chill the air, I don't care!
Even the weather can't dampen my enthusiasm or love for this place, it's always worth it to me.
My love waits there in San Francisco, above the blue and windy sea.
There's someone special in my life, someone that makes it even more important to always keep San Francisco close to my heart.
When I come home to you, San Francisco, your golden sun will shine for me!
There's a sense of coming home, of being welcomed back into the embrace of the city, and it always feels like the sun shines just for me.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: DOUGLAS CROSS, GEORGE CORY
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@andrewbarrett1537
I have known and loved this music all my life, but only in the past several years, playing gigs with jazz bands and trying to study it more, have so come to appreciate it on another level. Some fans of later jazz styles put it down as “overly simplistic” or something, but they are making a mistake, in that this kind of jazz isn’t so much about advanced harmony (like let’s say the equivalent of Faure, etc) but more about MELODY and intricate COUNTERPOINT, which is hard enough to ARRANGE much less IMPROVISE. So more like Bach and other baroque era music, but swinging. One doesn’t compare Bach to Faure (or Ravel, or Schoenberg) and then bash Bach’s harmony as being too “primitive” or “simplistic” by comparison, as
1. For his time, J. S. Bach was actually WAY AHEAD OF HIS TIME with his music, just as Louis Armstrong anticipated (*CREATED) trends in jazz that would be more fully mainstream 20 years from when he started recording, although he was considered “futuristic” in the mid 20s (like Duke Ellington was).
And 2. The sheer ELEGANCE and MELODIC RIGHTNESS of the lines Mr. Bach wrote, IMO transcends time, the same as these classic quintet recordings also transcend time. You can listen to them over and over and they don’t get stale, IMO, because they are so excellently done and with such great vitality and a high level of musicianship. (Yes, one can also say that about some of the Red Nichols and Bix Beiderbecke records on here too).
I don’t even know why or what I’m defending here, as Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie were in fact a mutual admiration society, and by now, I think some of the “jazz wars” of beboppers putting down trad jazz and vice versa have subsided, and we can now happily appreciate both kinds on their merits.
@andrewbarrett1537
Having heard dozens or hundreds of other 20s jazz records, this was truly one of the very greatest 20s jazz bands. Their counterpoint and feel are just superb and musicianship unequalled for that day. I can hear how they have inspired literally dozens or hundreds of subsequent traditional jazz bands. Thank you for posting these great transfers!
@waltergray7722
This is just wonderful !! I love it.
Thank you for sharing.
@BertyBloggs
Nice to see "Lil" mentioned as the composer for once!
@olivedarb03
<3
LOVE ....this ! It thrills my heart !
@janettewalker3991
Excellent - thank you.
@andrewbarrett1537
You go to the bands on the trad jazz / classic jazz / “Dixieland” scene today and ask the musicians who influenced them the most, and although certainly they have many different influences as there have been many greats with delightfully contrasting styles, I would wager that the stars in the band are near the top of inspirations on their respective instruments for most current day performers of traditional jazz.
Even Lil Armstrong, (who has sometimes been ignorantly minimized in text by non-pianist critics such as Terry Teachout who are a little too thick to comprehend what she is actually DOING), is a real giant of jazz, and dozens of band pianists have tried to play like her with varying results, including several greats on the later trad jazz scene such as Dick Shooshan and the late great Bill Mitchell.
@asterisco9035
I completely agree with you. I suggest you to buy Ted Gioia’s “The History of Jazz”
@ArbenAbazi-xx5wd
I played staccato on high school!!
@james-flynn1938
great Austrian pressed recording I'm an Australian vewer keep up the great music
James