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Louis Armstrong's Nickname

Louis's nickname was dipper because of one of his jobs. And his jobs were getting coal and putting them in a dumpster behind a pancake house and getting banana bunches.

And that was someones report on Louis Armstrong A.K.A Dipper —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.53.125.173 (talk) 02:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much wrong on everything there. It seems "Dippermouth" (shortened to "Dipper") and "Satchelmouth" (shortened to "Satch'mo'") and similar nicknames were simply references to Louie "G The OG" Armstrong's having a large mouth. Nicknames were fairly common in the time and place where Amstrong grew up (and seem to still be more common in New Orleans than in some other places). New Orleans was the main port recieving bananas (not "bana"), unloading them from boats from Latin America to be shipped mostly by train to other parts of the USA, not loading them on to boats. Unlike other musicians such as George Lewis, Armstrong was not a stevador. He did drive a coal wagon.

Infrogmation (talk) 13:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

chart position

Upon its re-release following the movie "Good Morning Vietnam", "What a Wonderful World" reached #32 in February 1988, according to satchmo.com. I could not verify this on billboard.com because it is a pay site, but tsort.info also verified this. Kennyholl (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)kennyhollKennyholl (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Discography

This article is dying for some improvement in the discography department. WesUGAdawg (talk) 01:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Needs improvement

I have added {{refimprove}} and {{tone}} tags to this article because I found the amount of fancruft here quite staggering. The articles of legends such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks don't contain nearly as much sheer adoration. Several sections contain just a few sentences of empty, generic praise of Armstrong with no citations whatsoever, notably the "Children" and "Charities" sections. Even the lead section is bogged down in peacock-ish adjectives. This memorialising reads more like what would would find in an obituary, not an encyclopaedia. Please, let's make an article that is actually worthy of such a musical great, not some cheesy collection of praise. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 21:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

  • Fair point. From a quick rescan of James Lincoln Collier's biography, I don't see anything on these specific topics. Nor are they really relevant to his importance. So I'm going to be bold and delete these paragraphs/sections; if anyone later finds sourced text indicating their relevance to Armstrong, they can add them back in. AllyD (talk) 10:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)


Dippermouth and Scat

Regarding the nickname, the only alleged origin I've heard of regards Joe Oliver's onstage habit of drinking sugar water from a bucket and ladel. Perhaps, being Oliver's protege, Armstrong inherited the name.

Under Legacy, it states "Though Armstrong is widely recognized as a pioneer of scat singing, Ethel Waters precedes his scatting on record in the 1930s according to Gary Giddins and others."

This is out of line with the Heebie Jeebies page:""Heebie Jeebies" is a composition written by Boyd Atkins and achieved fame when it was recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1926. The recording on Okeh Records by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five includes a famous chorus in which Louis does scat singing." LinoPop (talk) 14:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Cyberwilliams, 28 June 2011

In the section on Armstrong's personal habits, an essential and infamous part of his regime is not listed: the daily use of marijuana. Louis was an avid proponent of marijuana for himself and for his band. Multiple songs allude to /celebrate the use of marijuana. His avidity for marijuana is easy to document. Here's a place to start: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/03/reviews/970803.03teachot.html

Cyberwilliams (talk) 00:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, actually it is mentioned. Dlabtot (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Already done This is already in the article including the fact that his songs reference it. Jnorton7558 (talk) 08:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Discography again...

I can't believe there isn't a discography for such a seminal artist. I'll put together a rudimentary one. Gareth E Kegg (talk) 18:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Hot Five/Hot Seven Sessions

A list of songs would be helpful for the hot five/hot seven sessions. Bts.smith (talk) 17:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I started it, but it will take a couple of days for me to finish it. Bts.smith (talk) 05:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 March 2012

Watch toby byron's "SATCHMO" video. Buy it in stores today


Jboy970 (talk) 02:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 03:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Article should include details of Mr Armstrong's four marriages.

Alpha Smith (11 October 1938 - 1942) (divorced) Lil Armstrong (4 February 1924 - 1938) (divorced) Daisy Parker (19 March 1918 - 18 December 1923) (divorced) Lucille Wilson (12 October 1942 - 6 July 1971) (his death) Source(s):imdb.com [1]

87.114.189.91 (talk) 11:32, 8 April 2012 (UTC)moreteavicar

...And What of Marty Glazer, Anyway ?

This article is a sham. Marty Glazer was a gangter who forced Mr. armstrong to make a deal for the latter's protection from the Mafia. glazer demaned HALF of Louis' earnings, and under segregation had control of the direction of his career, and money. As there is no Wiki page on Mr. Glazer, it's safe to surmise that a significant chapter of Louis' life has been deep-sixed! --68.199.137.125 (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)Veryverser

Armstrong's long time manager was Joe Glaser. Armstrong's own writing reveal how attached Armstrong was to Glaser, who he considered to have made him rich and whatever mob connections Glaser had kept Armstrong safe from other mobsters in the entertainment industry. Do read Armstrong's autobios if you haven't yet. (Some interesting stories about mobsters bossing him around and pulling guns on him before he hooked up with Glaser!) (I presume Joe Glaser is who you were referring to; of course if you'd read this article you would have found he is already mentioned in the article. If Joe Glaser isn't who you were thinking of, tell us who "Marty Glazer" was.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 23:43, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Note - The IP user is an indefinitely blocked user, who seems to enjoy trolling talk pages like this one with ridiculous questions. Do not take them seriously: they don't. Doc talk 08:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Unsourced

It says " While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America." and has no refs so needs to be removed.--Deathlaser :  Chat  11:13, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Discography

Still no discography! Here's a good place for someone to start- http://michaelminn.net/armstrong/index.php?albums Bts.smith (talk) 04:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

What a Wonderful World = 1967

What a Wonderful World was first released in 1967, not 1968.

(http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts/singles-chart-search Artist: Louis Armstrong, Date: All Weeks, Submit)

It needs to be changed in the Awards and Honors>Grammy Hall of Fame section. Also, in the Music>Hits and Later Career section, I would delete the part that says it didn't chart at all in America, as it charted on the Adult Contemporary chart (see above link) and the Bubbling Under chart (according to the song's article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Wonderful_World). I'd leave the date there as 1968, as that's when it became a big hit.

94.171.186.40 (talk) 15:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 1 December 2012

My request relates to the subsection "Writings" in the Louis Armstrong article. Armstrong was a prolific writer who published two autobiographies during his lifetime (the somewhat ghostwritten Swing That Music in 1936 and the completely self-written but edited Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans in 1954). He also wrote many essays for managzines such as Ebony and Esquire as well as thousands of letters to family, friends, reporters, and fans. A bunch of his previously unpublished writings appeared in a collection edited by Thomas Brothers under the title of Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: selected Writings, in 1999. For more than a decade now, scholars of American jazz and African American literature have analyzed Armstrong's writing style as well as the ways in which he used autobiography to shape his public image. I believe that these issues need to be addressed in the wiki article, and I would be happy to write up a whole paragraph about them. I am an American Studies scholar whose monograph Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz was published by the University of Michigan Press this spring; the book is definitely the appropriate source to credit the information I mentioned above. I hope this request is helpful. MickTomStone (talk) 08:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like an appropriate theme to introduce. If you wish for assistance in writing a paragraph or a section about Armstrong's writings then ping me here or at User talk:Binksternet. Cheers! Binksternet (talk) 17:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. While the idea is well intentioned, edit requests are intended for certain requested changes, not ideas. If you write a paragraph, you can make another request. Vacationnine 06:39, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 December 2012

The passage I would like to change is the subsection Writings.

Armstrong’s gregariousness extended to writing. On the road, he wrote constantly, sharing favorite themes of his life with correspondents around the world. He avidly typed or wrote on whatever stationery was at hand, recording instant takes on music, sex, food, childhood memories, his heavy "medicinal" marijuana use—and even his bowel movements, which he gleefully described.[51] He had a fondness for lewd jokes and dirty limericks as well, which he included in many of his letters to fans, colleagues, and friends, and many of which he wrote down in an unpublished Joke Book.[5] But his writing activities went beyond the humorous. From the 1930s onwards, he wrote a substantial number of autobiographical narratives that told the story of his youth and upbringing in New Orleans, his participation in the creation of jazz, and his professional career as as musician, entertainer, and actor. The first of these autobiographies was titled Swing That Music and was published in 1936. It was largely ghostwritten but contained the basic facts of his early life. In 1954, he published his second autobiography, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, which was intended as the first segment of a two-part work. The second part never appeared, but parts of the manuscript and many other examples of Armstrong's writing, from a variety of manuscripts and letters to essays for magazines like Esquire, were published posthumously.[6] Armstrong was both a prolific and an unusual writer. His written voice is characterized by a conversational tone that draws heavily on idioms, expressions, and strctures of the African American vernacular.[7] Especially remarkable is his idiosyncratic of apostrophes, ellipses, unusual capitalization, and underscores, which give his writings a spontaneous and provisional feel that may be related to his musical aestehtics.[8] MickTomStone (talk) 08:03, 2 December 2012 (UTC) 16:33, 8 December 2012 (UTC)MickTomStone (talk)

Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. Vacationnine 16:51, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

No mention of High Society?

I'm surprised to see there's no mention of the film High Society which includes some memorable numbers by Satchmo. Certainly the High Society Calypso and the number That's Jazz with Bing Crosby merit being mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.235.255.90 (talk) 06:56, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Your "surprise" is based on a false assumption that could have been avoided by reading the article before posting. Please take time to read the article to see what is mentioned in it before assuming things are not. Thanks. -- Infrogmation (talk) 20:35, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Mary "Mayann" Albert - date of death - 1927 instead of 1942

According to Louis Armstrong's biographer Laurence Bergreen, Mayann died at the year of 1927.

This can also be confirmed here: http://books.google.com.br/books?id=fdxDDe-fb8sC&pg=RA1-PA20&lpg=RA1-PA20&dq=%22That+was+the+year+of+1927+when+she+died%22&source=bl&ots=ae0BcehxVU&sig=5c7BS1qh08S_9A4tZ66oXrpuTd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qfFdUsCbM8KnkQfFl4GQBA&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22That%20was%20the%20year%20of%201927%20when%20she%20died%22&f=false

Laurence Bergreen's bio of Armstrong: http://www.amazon.com/Louis-Armstrong-An-Extravagant-Life/dp/0767901568

 Done — Reatlas (talk) 09:47, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Birthdate

Doubtless this has no validity - although I hope one day to find an original text with which to check - but in a quotation from the diary of Edward Robb Ellis for 23 July 1935, Ellis recounts his talking with Armstrong after a gig and being told he was born on 4 July 1890. This quotation is from 'The Assassin's Cloak' (Edinburgh, Scotland: Canongate, 2000), a compilation of entries from various diaries of the famous. Harfarhs (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

The pic on the Wikipedia page of Louis's visit to Finland

The heading under the pic on the Wikipedia page of Louis's visit to Finland is incorrect when it refers to "musicians from Finland". The musicians in the pic are Barney Bigard on clarinet and Jack Teagarden on trombone.

John Park--Johnpark (talk) 13:36, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for the note! Binksternet (talk) 16:26, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 January 2014

In the intro, please remove the hyphen from "whose skin-color was." The article on the subject is Human skin color, not Human skin-color. 149.160.172.39 (talk) 15:16, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Done. I also removed a hyphen from "skin-tone" later in the article. --Anon126 (talk - contribs) 06:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Subsections in "Career"?

Hello - I have a recommendation for this page. The "Career" section currently only has one subsection, despite being pretty long (as it should be, of course). As a random reader coming to the article, I would have found it far easier to retrieve information about Armstrong if it was split into more sections. A "wall of text" like that can be quite daunting. I think it would be best if someone who has worked on the page, or at least who is very knowledgeable, chooses where the divisions should be and names the headings, which is why I haven't done it myself...I hope there's someone interested in doing that, IMO it would be a big improvement to the article. Cheers! --Loeba (talk) 09:39, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Is There ...

any hint in literature, exactly how he practised the cornet?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1205:34CE:E4A0:11EF:F6B1:6E3:1227 (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Discography

Surely a comprehensive discography is needed for one of the most famous musicians of all time. A simple list would do to start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.121.237 (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Bogus autograph

The article shows two supposed autographs of Armstrong, which have very little in common, so at lest one is likely a fake. Which one resembles verified autographs, or did he change his signature drastically? Edison (talk) 02:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

File:Louis Armstrong2.jpg to appear as POTD

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Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer. Born into poverty in New Orleans, he developed his trumpet- and cornet-playing skills in a variety of locations, including dance halls and a juvenile detention center. In the 1920s, he gained prominence playing in Chicago and New York, where he was recognized for his inventive playing style and gravelly vocals. He remained active his entire life, performing in hundreds of gigs a year, appearing in multiple films and television shows, and releasing his greatest hit, "Hello, Dolly!", in 1964.Photograph: Herman Hiller; restoration: Lise Broer
Archive – More featured pictures...

Not encyclopedic

"Louis Armstrong's stage personality matched his cornet and trumpet playing". --Here to sway (talk) 13:01, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

pronunciation of Louis

http://web.archive.org/web/20070310121225/http://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/smartfaq/smartfaq.cgi?answer=1137535794 --Espoo (talk) 11:07, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

One may realize that it is common practice in English to make pet names by using the ending -y or -ie. In especially American English it is common to mispronounce Louis as 'Lewis', which is actually the real English -actually Anglo-Norman French- variant of this ancient Germanic name. The correct French pronunciation of his name certainly must have had the ring of a pet name to our eternal king of Jazz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amand Keultjes (talk • contribs) 07:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

In addition to the proponents of "Lou-ee" currently noted in the article -- a seemingly dismissable motley of "broadcast announcers, fans, and acquaintances", but also his widow, who is, surely, an extremely high authority on the subject -- the Francophone pronunciation seems to have been fairly universal among his contemporary jazzmen whenever they were not referring to him as "pops", if the many interviews I have seen over the years are any guide. It seems to me that people from the Marsalis generation and beyond are the only ones who object, and there appears to have been no controversy until that "Lou-isss" came hissing out of his recording of "Hello, Dolly" in 1964. Maybe he really had developed a definite preference for the voiced-s pronunciation by then, or maybe that was just another instance of playing around with words and their pronunciation, something he clearly loved to do -- his rendition of "those lonely hours" as "those lonely hhhours" in a recording of "When Your Lover Has Gone" made in the 1930s comes particularly to mind at the moment. 66.249.172.18 (talk) 14:48, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Discography correction needed

The "Original albums" subsection header states that "The year and label information is for the first vinyl release, unless otherwise noted." The first entry underneath it, for Satchmo at Symphony Hall, lists the year as 1947. That is, indeed, the year of the concert, but the vinyl LP format was not introduced until mid-1948. If an "album" of the concert was released in 1947, it can only have been a record album in the original sense of the word: sleeves bound together in book form to house a set of short-playing 78 rpm shellac discs. The year of the first vinyl LP release, as far as a bit of superficial googling can determine, is 1951. Additionally, it appears that it (and, presumably, earlier issues on shellac, if any) was on the Decca label, so the presence of "GRP" in the "Label" column is a puzzlement. 66.249.172.18 (talk) 13:46, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

That info was from the public domain data in MusicBrainz, which is unreliable and quite incomplete. I started to compile a proper discography based on better sources, but the job is daunting to say the least (especially given that I don't own the best source, the book by Jos Willems). I've gone ahead and updated the info based on the album's Discogs entry (equally suspect, but the best I can do at the moment). - dcljr (talk) 02:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
The fix looks good to me. Thanks for that, and kudos for your discographical efforts in general. IMO Wikipedia is a logical repository for discographies: the ones online elsewhere are liable to become obnoxiously commercialized (if they weren't already) or suddenly disappear, and getting any errors or omissions in them corrected can be a daunting task. 66.81.242.203 (talk) 09:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Louis Armstrong discography

Support split - Discography section is lengthy, and should be split to a new article entitled Louis Armstrong discography. --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:28, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

If there are no dissenters to this in a week or so, I'll be bold and make the split. Of course, if anyone opposes in the meantime, I'll hold off doing so. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:34, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Done. As one of the world's best known entertainers there is no real reason why he doesn't have a discography page, particularly given the the number of discog pages we have from people with a fraction of his output. - SchroCat (talk) 09:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Armstrong Birthdate

Famous Birthdays said that Louis Armstrong was born in 1900. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Man's Hat (talk • contribs) 14:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

See note 1. – SchroCat (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

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Further reading

Surprised that an addition I made to the "Further reading" section was reverted. What I added was the 248-page catalog for a major exhibition about Louis Armstrong that included scholarly essays and was supported by a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The publication included hundreds of illustrations, with nearly half coming from the Louis Armstrong archives. This was a joint publication by the Queens Museum (New York City) and Washington University Press, with a print run of ten thousand. Fort Greene 2010 (talk) 16:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi Fort Greene 2010:
Check the revision history at [1].Oldsanfelipe (talk) 05:15, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Birth name

The Archive shows a brief discussion around a decade ago about Armstrong's birth name. More recently,Louis Daniel Armstrong has been added to the top of the article and Infobox. Any evidence for this? James Lincoln Collier's biography strongly stated a contrary position: "...Armstrong himself said that Daniel was never part of his name, and that he was not even sure how he acquired it. He never used any name but Louis Armstrong." (p21). AllyD (talk) 15:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi AllyD:
Good question. I have just started following this article within the last few weeks since lately I have been reading some early jazz history. With the traffic this page must get, I am a little surprised nobody responded to you. Tad Jones, a music historian, found baptismal records for a Louis Daniel Armstrong, who was born on August 4, 1901. The same record for this Louis Daniel Armstrong listed his parents as William Armstrong and Mary Albert. Jones made this discovery in 1988, but some Armstrong biographies were written before then, and I am still new to this subject, so I cannot give you a literature survey. If this seems like too much explanation, please bear in mind that it is easy to confuse persons with similar names.
With a little time, I can produce a clean citation. cheers. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 04:29, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
I found a citation for the baptismal record that marks his birth name as Louis David Armstrong. In the lead sentence, should we omit David, since he did not generally acknowledge it or use it? Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:26, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Interesting, and leaving the position no more definite! (To all of this could be added that Lil Hardin (born 1898) thought him slightly her elder and Zutty Singleton (also born 1898) thought he was ages with Armstrong - the sort of thing you tend to know about your for the peers when young.) Personally I would omit names which a subject didn't themselves use in their own adult life documents, but equally wouldn't revert anyone's addition of a name which is supported by one or other source. AllyD (talk) 19:53, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the guidance. I will take your suggestion and use Louis Armstrong as his name in the lead sentence. I posted the citation, so removing it should be uncontroversial. The infobox includes his birth name, so that covers both bases. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 21:38, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
AllyD:
In re your comment, "Lil Hardin (born 1898) thought [Louis] slightly her elder...." I am still reading Bergreen, who writes, "(Lil was three-and-a-half years older than Louis, a fact she strove to conceal throughout her life.)," (p.179). So according to Bergreen, Lil was not claiming that Louis was born before 1898; rather, she was telling Louis that she was born after 1901. Those are the tricky thing about biographies: there are so many people with different recollections and making competing claims. As you said before, it's complicated! cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 21:10, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Good article status or better

What needs the most work?

1. Is it accurate? 2. Are there parts of the article with too much detail? 3. Are there some gaps in the narrative? 4. What parts need to be better organized?

thanks, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:17, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Oldsanfelipe, are you offering to improve it? 1. I don't know; the only way to find out is to check the sources. Of course, this is a prerequisite for GA. 2. Yes; superfluous detail should be cut. Some is more journalistic than encyclopedic: eg "On New Year's Day, he appeared before Judge Andrew Wilson in a downtown New Orleans court, who presided over a hearing lasting about fifteen minutes." None of this content matters. 3. Probably, but I haven't looked closely enough. 4. Structuring by decade is a bit artificial: are there no cut-off points in his life/career? Putting his marital life in Family after Lil appears prominently in the career section is strange. Lip problems could also be subsumed into Career. Colleagues and followers and Hits and later career can also go into Career. Literature, radio, films and TV is also about his... career (decide on whether to have it all in Career, or have Music career separate from Other bits of career). I usually have Early life, followed by Later life and career as section headings; that would allow the bizarrely tagged on Death section to be put in a sensible place too. I add 5. Sourcing. Whole paragraphs are unsourced and probably date back to the days when people added text from their own knowledge instead of from reliable sources. This would need to be dealt with. (Ping me if you're looking for me to follow something up later, as I don't follow this page.) EddieHugh (talk) 22:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi @EddieHugh::
Thanks for your response. I have already rewritten and expanded the Early Life section. I provided inline citations, deleted many redundant statements, and rearranged the narrative to follow a timeline. I deleted a few things as well: some material for tone. I deleted a claim that he grew up in Storyville, which is untrue, and provided a counterclaim and a citation.
All text that I added is properly sourced. I also attempted to verify existing sourced statements. There are only three statements I was not able to verify in this section. If you feel like jumping in and making it tighter, that would be very helpful.
I probably won't do anything more until sometime in January. I have access to some good books on Armstrong, so I can continue to work on providing citations and putting the narrative in order for the Career section. Finding citations for other people's work is time-consuming. There can be five elements of a statement, but only four verified by the source. The fifth element can be true, but unverified. I try to find another source.
As I learn more details about his career, perhaps a better way to characterize it will emerge. I am inclined to move all of the material from Literature, radio, films, and TV into a linear narrative within the Career section. cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 23:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Ok. Just flag up unsourced things with a 'citation needed' tag. It can look messy, but it lets everyone know what needs to be done. In preparing for a GA review, it can be better just to cut things that are causing a problem (sourcing, narrative flow, or other), instead of trying to keep everything. I might look through it again and add tags / cut some detail, but let me know if I can help with something. EddieHugh (talk) 12:18, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
@EddieHugh:
Right now, "everyone" appears to be the two of us. If you are inclined toward copy editing, please pare the Early Life section. There are several important points which should be preserved: his unstable living situation, his association with the Karnoffskys, his incarceration, his marriage to Daisy, and his first gigs. Perhaps there is too much detail related to some of these points.
Armstrong's first steady job as a musician was on the riverboats, so maybe the Streckfus job should be moved to the Career section with a subsection titled "Excursion boats." Maybe the next subsection in Career should be "Hot Fives and Hot Sevens," to replace "1920s. cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 14:23, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
It's jazz; I suppose we can't expect a large crowd. This gives you/us the chance to get things done instead of getting bogged down in trying to keep all others happy. I've done a mild copy edit on Early life. Some comments: I did a little bit per edit, so you can undo if required; "Karnoffsky" or "Karnofsky"? "Mary Albert" becomes "Mayann" later on. EddieHugh (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
@EddieHugh: I have been offline most of the day. The section looks much better. There are a few small things I would revert, which I will explain in the edit summaries. I have made a few other edits, most notably deleting a troublesome quote and creating standard spelling and naming.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 23:49, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
  • This substantial renovation is perhaps an opportunity to consider another piece of standardisation. There are a lot of repeating references to particular pages in a smaller number of books. That is already creating "sprawl" in the references section. Might it be better to adopt use of reference pages (see WP:IBID) so that, for example all the references to Bergreen's book are tied to one named item in the reflist with text such as ...from collective improvisation to solo performance.[5]:1 Around 1922...? That is my personal preference in articles, though I can also see that such page refs could be regarded as too obtrusive. AllyD (talk) 08:25, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
AllyD:
I am not sure that I understand your proposal. Would you mind linking to an article which uses this style of citation? cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 13:32, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry I was so dense. That looks like the standard for most articles. I noticed footnote 12 was invoked about six times, but it referred just to p. 147 of the book. The Bergreen references used in Louis Armstrong are from all over the book. But I take your point that we should try to consolidate the references as much as possible. For example, I can see how I missed opportunities in Streckfus Steamers#References to consolidate several citations from Kenny, Jazz on the River which fall within pages 15–23. I would gladly accept help in identifying more efficient ways to cite material.
I'm not sure how much I will be online over the next few days. I would like to thank you and @EddieHugh: for your assistance. I have enough experience as an editor to be bold and helpful, but I still make too many mistakes and I appreciate the opportunity to improve. happy holidays, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
All positive contributions are welcome! Everyone's learning. AllyD suggests the rp system; I've seen others express a preference for sfn. The former is perhaps easier for writers but messier for readers; the latter, reportedly, is more common. EddieHugh (talk) 15:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
AllyD, I was distracted a few days ago, and as a result, I did not give your proposal the attention it deserved. Looking at the Don Cherry article this morning, I now understand how this other citation system works. With the mouseover on the inline citation link, I can see the book reference and the page citation to its right simultaneously. Thus the reader does not even need to click through to follow the reference. That's very cool. Please count me in for using this citation system. cheers, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 11:25, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Armstrong in 1953

Do we need both photos of Armstrong in 1953? They are pretty similar and apparently were taken at the same time. Kendall-K1 (talk) 22:04, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Lede section

I have reverted an edit twice today, making for the third reversion of the article today. I am certain that the lede needs work as well as the rest of the article. I think the deletion of an entire paragraph was a non-constructive edit, though I believe it was offered in good faith. On the other hand, two claims offered for the edit were both demonstrably false. sincerely, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

That paragraph was added 11 November by Oldsanfelipe (talk · contribs). Incorrectly, I believe. It makes the lead too long, and does not contain anything that contributes to Armstrong's notability. I would be in favor of removing it. The only part I would keep is "Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans". Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:51, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi Kendall-K1:
Thanks for taking the discussion to the talk page. Notability is not the only standard for inclusion in the lead. According to the MOS, "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." I would argue that his early life establishes context. Perhaps the early bio is too long and should be pared to the bone, as you argue. But notability is not the only standard for the lede, as evidenced by the quote above from the MOS. Second, statements in the lead do not require inline citations if they are uncontroversial and are sourced in the body of the article. Another thing to keep in mind of the last paragraph of the lead, which contains several statements not supported elsewhere in the article. For now, I am not deleting material from this last paragraph because I am first trying to find reliable sources for these claims. Third, (and I don't recall if this is MOS or guideline), the rule of thumb for the length of the lead is three or four paragraphs for articles exceeding 30,000 bytes. Of course, this does not make for a justification of the current content of the lead, it's just a rebuttal to the claim that the lead is too long.
The body of the article is what needs the most work. For example, the article includes many unsourced claims, and perhaps some false or unverifiable claims. I look forward to changing this. sincerely, Oldsanfelipe (talk) 18:55, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
  • My view is that DanJazzy's deletion of that second paragraph would have been a worthwhile improvement to the article. The content of that paragraph is appropriate context for the "Early Life" section (where it is repeated and expanded), but is not in itself relevant to Armstrong's encyclopaedic notability, which is what should be being summarised in the lead section. The article is in a bit of an interim stage, with a substantial edit getting under way, but for now Kendall-K1's proposal seems appropriate. AllyD (talk) 19:11, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
There is clearly a consensus here for a reasonable interpretation of the subject matter. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 22:27, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree with Kendall-K1's entirely accurate assessment and recommendation for rewording the lede.--DanJazzy (talk) 20:36, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

I have not forgotten that DanJazzy does not distinguish between a summary and a verbatim account.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
I, too, agree with Kendall-K1, so much so that I implemented the suggested solution. The guideline at WP:LEAD should not be used as the reason for putting too much early biography into the lead section. If Armstrong had been a famous child musician, then some of that would be appropriate, to explain why he was famous as a child. But he did not gain fame until adulthood. Binksternet (talk) 20:55, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
"The guideline at WP:LEAD should not be used...." Except the passage I quoted was from MOS:LEAD. Oldsanfelipe (talk) 22:30, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
  1. ^ imdb.com
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