Louis Armstrong Tribute at SFJAZZ - SF Weekly Profile

In a thousand years, people will still be listening to the music of jazz artist Louis Armstrong. At least, so says singer and bandleader Catherine Russell, who will perform Armstrong's music with her band for four nights at the SFJAZZ Centre, July 16-19.

"Every time I listen to Louis Armstrong, I feel better," Russell told SF Weekly. "Why is that? His music is like medicine because his whole life is in every note he plays or sings. He doesn't leave anything behind. He gives all of himself. That translates to people."

Armstrong's musical career spans the 1920s through the 1960s, and it's impossible to listen to jazz or discuss it without noting his fingerprint. As a trumpeter, singer, bandleader, composer, and collaborator, he developed, shaped, and influenced the jazz form in ways that carry on in everyone who's ever picked up an instrument and attempted to play jazz in his wake. Both Armstrong's voice and trumpet are instantly recognizable from the very first note.