Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong »

Terry Teachout writes about literature and the arts for the New York Times, Time, National Review, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Commentary. His books include A Second Mencken Chrestomaby, a manuscript he rediscovered among Mencken's private papers. He lives in New York City.

Louis Armstrong is widely known as the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century. He was a phenomenally gifted and imaginative artist, and an entertainer so irresistibly magnetic that he knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. Offstage he was witty, introspective, and unexpectedly complex, a beloved colleague with an explosive temper whose larger-than-life personality was tougher and more sharp-edged than his worshiping fans ever knew.

Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers, including hundreds of candid after-hours recordings made by Armstrong himself, to craft a sweeping new narrative biography. Certain to be the definitive word on Armstrong for our generation, Pops paints a gripping portrait of the man, his world, and his music that will stand alongside Gary Giddins’s Bing Crosby and Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis as a classic biography of a major American musician.

The New York Times Book Review - David Margolick

…Armstrong could not have a more impassioned advocate. At times, Pops reads like a defense brief, but a very loving and knowledgeable one.

A Note on the Text

Prologue: "The Cause of Happiness" 1

1 "Bastards from the Start": Apprenticeship in New Orleans, 1901-1919 23

2 "All Those Tall Buildings": Leaving Home, 1919-1924 51

3 "A Flying Cat": Harlem and Chicago, 1924-1927 80

4 "It's Got to Be Art": With Earl Hines, 1928 109

5 "The Way a Trumpet Should Play": On the Move, 1929-1930 127

6 "Don't Let 'Em Cool Off, Boys": On the Run, 1930-1932 154

7 "I Didn't Blow the Horn": Crisis, 1932-1935 178

8 "Always Have a White Man": With Joe Glaser, 1935-1938 205

9 "The People Who Criticize": Losing Touch, 1938-1947 232

10 "Keep the Horn Percolating": Renewal, 1947-1954 267

11 "The Nice Taste We Leave": Ambassador Satch, 1954-1963 304

12 "I Don't Sigh for Nothing": At the Top, 1963-1971 342

Afterword 380

Appendix Thirty Key Recordings by Louis Armstrong 385

Source Notes 387

Select Bibliography 441

Photo Credits 449

Index 451