The quintessential American artist Louis Armstrong was born in 1901 in New Orleans and died in 1971 in New York City, where he had lived for many years in a modest house in Queens. The house is now a museum in his honour. It is generally accepted that he was the single greatest creative artist in the history of American jazz and American popular song. He was a vocal proponent of marijuana use; he was prolific in coining expressions that entered the general lexicon; he wrote long, colourful prose pieces about his experiences; and he made hundreds of collages that expressed in images his thoughts and memories and opinions. Everything he did was an extension of his artistry. Satchmo: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong is a biography in the form of an art book. It tells the story of Armstrong?s life through his writings, scrapbooks and artworks, much of which has never been published before.
