‘What A Wonderful World’: Louis Armstrong’s Iconic Life-Affirming Ballad

Louis Armstrong: Pioneer of Jazz

On August 4, 1901, Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans. Until the age of five, Armstrong’s grandmother was his caregiver. At the age of six, he attended the Fisk School for Boys, an all black school in New Orleans. While performing odd jobs for the Karnoffsky family, Armstrong heard the early sounds of jazz from King Oliver. Armstrong and the Karnoffskys bonded over their discrimination. Armstrong faced the obvious racial discrimination, but…

‘What A Wonderful World’: Louis Armstrong’s Iconic Life-Affirming Ballad

The legendary New Orleans singer and trumpeter Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong had been making records since 1923, but in 1967 he released “What A Wonderful World,” which would become the biggest-selling song of his long and storied career. Though renowned as one of the pioneers of Dixieland-style jazz in the 1920s, Armstrong was no stranger to the pop charts in the 1960s, having topped Billboard’s Hot 100 with the Grammy-winning single, “Hello Dolly,…