Louis Armstrong: New documentary about the jazz pioneer – Watch video

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‘Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues’ is based mainly on archival material, home recordings and personal letters

Louis Armstrong made his first transatlantic voyage in July 1932, traveling from New York to Plymouth, England, on the ocean liner RMS Majestic.

It was a triumphant visit for Armstrong, who as a trumpeter and singer had already made a sensation on both sides of the ocean.

The American jazz musician’s tour and strained relationship with his manager, white gangster Johnny Collins, is one of several pivotal events featured in “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues,” a revealing new Apple TV+ documentary.

Sasha Jenkins, who specializes in hip-hop and rap, is the documentary filmmaker who traveled back in time to meet Louis Armstrong in New Orleans and New York, working hard to establish himself as one of the most important trumpet players and jazz singers of all time.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues draws primarily on archival footage, home recordings and personal letters to tell Armstrong’s story. Rapper Nas lends his voice to these letters.

The documentary sheds light on the dangers faced by African-American entertainers of the era and explores Armstrong’s multifaceted experience as a black American musician coming of age in the 20th century, enduring the worst and somehow embodying the best.

Earlier in his life, Sasha Jenkins didn’t see Armstrong as a civil rights icon. “The narrative was this guy is a sellout, he’s always smiling at the white man,” Jenkins told Realscreen. “But you learn all these things … that he was booking these fancy hotels that didn’t serve, didn’t accept black people and was like, ‘If I can’t stay, I won’t play.’ This is activism, this is change,” he emphasized.

The documentary is titled Armstrong’s cover of Fats Waller’s “Black and Blue,” which “has been called American music’s first real protest song against racial inequality,” according to Prideau’s 2020 article in The Guardian .

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