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.
Vie en Rose
Louis Armstrong Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose
When you kiss me, Heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see la vie en rose
When you press me to your heart
A world where roses bloom
And when you speak
Angels sing from above
Every day words
Seem to turn into love songs
Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
La vie en rose
I thought that love was just a word
They sang about in songs I heard
It took your kisses to reveal
That I was wrong, and love is real
Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose
When you kiss me, heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see la vie en rose
When you press me to your heart
I'm in a world apart
A world where roses bloom
And when you speak
Angels sing from above
Every day words
Seem to turn into love songs
Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
La vie en rose
Louis Armstrong's "La vie en rose" is a love song that praises the overwhelming feeling of falling in love. The song starts with "Hold me close and hold me fast" which signifies the desire to be close to the loved one. Armstrong sings about the intoxicating effect of love where the "magic spell" cast by the lover has made his life beautiful as a rose. He sings "When you kiss me, heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose," which conveys how the sheer happiness the magic of the kiss brings to him. In the next verse, Armstrong speaks of the power of love to take him to an entirely new world. He says that when his love presses him to her heart, he feels like he is in a world apart, where roses bloom.
The highlight of the song is how Armstrong depicts the voice of his beloved, which he compares to the heavenly sound of angels. He sings, "And when you speak, angels sing from above, every day words seem to turn into love songs." These lines emphasize the transformative power of love over the mundane aspects of life. Armstrong ends the song by requesting his beloved to "give your heart and soul" to him so that life becomes even more beautiful like "la vie en rose."
Line by Line Meaning
Hold me close and hold me fast
Embrace me tightly and securely, with a sense of urgency and need.
The magic spell you cast
The enchanting effect you have on me, the way you leave me completely spellbound.
This is la vie en rose
This is the state of complete and utter happiness, joy and contentment that I feel when I am with you.
When you kiss me, Heaven sighs
The way you kiss me is so wonderful and perfect, it makes even the angels in Heaven sigh with happiness and approval.
And though I close my eyes
Even when I close my eyes, I can still see and feel the magical happiness that surrounds us when we are together.
I see la vie en rose
I see a life of happiness and joy, of everything that is beautiful and wonderful.
When you press me to your heart
When you hold me tightly to your heart, I feel like I am in a completely different world, away from everything else.
I'm in a world apart
I am in my own special and exclusive world of love and happiness.
A world where roses bloom
A world where everything is beautiful and full of life, where there is nothing but love and happiness.
And when you speak
When you talk to me, it's as if you are the only person in the world who truly understands me.
Angels sing from above
It's as if the angels in Heaven are singing the most beautiful melody just for us.
Every day words
Simple everyday statements and phrases.
Seem to turn into love songs
But when I hear them from your lips, they have a special meaning that transforms them into the most beautiful, meaningful love songs.
Give your heart and soul to me
Share your most intimate and deepest emotions with me, trust me with your heart and soul.
And life will always be
And our life together will always be, without a doubt, full of nothing but happiness, joy and fulfillment.
La vie en rose
A life full of beauty, love and happiness. A life where everything is perfect and completely fulfilled.
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Peermusic Publishing
Written by: EDITH GASSION, DAVID MACK, LOUIS GUGLIELMI
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@ahmadal-feyad9738
Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is " la vie en rose "
When you kiss me , heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see " la vie en rose "
When you press me to your heart
I'm in a world apart
A world where roses bloom
And when you speak , angles sing from above
Everyday words seem to turn into love songs
Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
" la vie en rose "
@justhades554
Just because you like an old song doesn’t mean you were born in a wrong generation, you just like the song
@mohammeda6940
r/unpopularopinion
@50shekels
Mohammed Alterki no. It’s just common sense.
@mohammeda6940
10.000 Subs With No Videos r/woooosh
@50shekels
Mohammed Alterki ..you clearly don’t know what you’re doing “Mohammad”
@mitesh6156
Not listening this song on radio daily, people dancing to this in bars, musician covering this.. It's s wrong generation to be born anyway.
@gilli4899
My grandma loved Louis Armstrong. she passed away a little over a year ago. she would’ve been 100 years old today, 22/4/2022, if she was still here with us. she was the core of my family, a gifted artist who couldn’t fulfil her full potential because she had to work to keep her family afloat after fleeing from nazi germany as a jewish girl. I do art in her name. she used to sit in her porch 1 floor above my bedroom, and look at the sea. she loved this home, our family, drinking coke and eating biscuits. she loved jazz. we sang this song on her grave, along with “what a wonderful world” and the one that goes “heaven, i’m in heaven”. I love her and miss her so much. rest your beautiful soul, Ellen. thank you to anyone who read this far.
@rinndz00
I'm sorry to hear that
Thank you for sharing the beautiful story of your grandma
@elizabethramirez6839
😢😭🙏
@hanzo9609
Im sorry bro