“You will see the restored statue of Louis Armstrong, toe and all,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced today at a ribbon cutting ceremony to reopen Armstrong Park. The damaging of the Armstrong statue in Armstrong Park was the final indignity in Ray Nagin’s hurried last act – the installation of a sculpture garden. When he officially [...]
Tag Archives: Louis Armstrong
October 2011 Letters
October 1, 2011 – 12:01 am
ARMSTRONG PARK This is in response to Jan Ramsey’s blog post “Armstrong Park—Give it Back to the City!” wherein she details how to get Armstrong Park functional and open to the public.—Ed Up until that bitch Katrina destroyed much more than houses alone, I always took friends for a walk in the park on my [...]
The Satchmo SummerFest Schedule
August 4, 2011 – 4:10 pm
Unless otherwise marked, 2011 Satchmo SummerFest shows take place at the Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Avenue near the historic French Market Unless otherwise marked, 2011 Satchmo SummerFest Seminars will take place at Maison in the Marigny, 508 Frenchmen Street (just one block from the festival grounds at the Old U.S. Mint) Thursday, August 4 [...]
SatchmoFest Needs to Be in Armstrong Park
August 3, 2011 – 10:52 pm
Back in 2000, 11 years ago, I was working with the Louisiana Office of Culture, Recreation and Tourism (known colloquially as “CRT”) to work on some projects involving Louisiana music. The then-Secretary of Louisiana CRT was Phillip Jones, who approached me about an idea for a festival during August that could help bring visitors to [...]
Ricky Riccardi, What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years (Pantheon Books)
August 1, 2011 – 12:21 am
A friend I know as intellectual and a roots music aficionado waved off Satchmo, saying the man’s main interests “were pot and Swiss Kriss.” When I told her that the late Louis Armstrong gave Eisenhower the finger, metaphorically, she lightened up a bit: “I would have given him the finger too.” For those who don’t [...]
Satchmo SummerFest: All Things Armstrong
August 1, 2011 – 12:13 am
[UPDATED] Trumpeter and New Orleans’ patron saint of froggy singers, Louis Armstrong, claimed throughout his life to be born on July 4, 1900. But birth records somewhat recently uncovered in New Orleans list the date as August 4, 1901. Some small controversy might surround whether we shouldn’t celebrate on the day Satchmo intended, but New [...]
Ricky Riccardi’s One Armstrong
August 1, 2011 – 12:03 am
Ricky Riccardi’s book What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years focuses on the largely unexamined later years of Armstrong’s career. Riccardi, 30, is an archivist at the Louis Armstrong House Museum and fell in love with Armstrong’s work 15 years ago. “My argument is that there is no such thing as [...]
Treme Wrap-Up: “Everything We Do Counts”
July 4, 2011 – 1:25 pm
[SPOILER ALERT] The second season of Treme ended Sunday with an episode written by David Simon and Anthony Bourdain that echoed last year’s season finale, but not in an air-tight, look-what-I-did way. Last season, we saw Janette having a perfect day in New Orleans; this season, she rides the streetcar with Susan Spicer and goes [...]
10 Classic New Orleans Marijuana Songs
April 20, 2011 – 4:28 pm
UPDATED As with so many pleasures of the flesh (see: cocktails, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, parades), New Orleans was a pioneer in marijuana consumption in America. As one of the country’s busiest ports in the late 1800s, it’s no surprise that Storyville, the city’s red light district, became a hotbed for “marihuana”, at least until [...]
