Hello, I'm Daryl Johnson.
And today we're gonna talk about Louis Armstrong,
and the people that made Louis
the Louis Armstrong we know today.
Louis Armstrong grew up
in the roughest and poorest part of New Orleans.
He'd be like,
♪ I'm gonna sing for some money ♪
When people would throw pennies at him,
he would pick up the pennies and throw them in his mouth
so that the big kids wouldn't take them from him.
And that's how he got his first nickname, Satchmo.
You take all the coins and put them in your mouth
like a satchel-- satch-mouth.
His mom works as an off-and-on-again prostitute
in the brothels where all the jazz music was playing,
so Louis would be like...
Hey, girl, can I listen real quick
to the band that's playing on the other side of this wall?
And so he would listen to the Kid Ori Band
and "King" Joe Oliver...
[upbeat jazz music]
Baddest cornetist in town.
Couldn't nobody touch King Oliver.
And little Louis was listening through those walls
and was like, That's what I want to do.
I want to play that music.
Whew.
Ah!
It's burning the inside of my body!
Okay, so, one day...
a Jewish coal merchant, Bernhardt Karnofsky,
saw little Louis at the brothels and said,
Hey, little kid, I can give you a job
if you work for me delivering coal to the prostitutes.
Come into our family.
We're gonna feed you
and treat you like one of our own.
Mrs. Karnofsky would sing little Jewish lullabies
to Louis as a young boy, and it'd be like,
♪ Ruga-ta ♪
No, wait.
No, that's the prayer.
The lullaby would probably be like,
♪ We're Jewish, and we love it ♪
That's, like, nice, right?
(Derek) That's perfect.
(Daryl) So, at 7 years old, he's working for the Karnofskys.
On the truck, he used to play a horn, like...
♪ Ba-ba-ba-ba ♪
We're comin'.
And they were driving past this pawnshop,
and in the window of this pawnshop
was this old, beat-up cornet,
and he was like, I want that.
Little Louis asked Karnofsky...
Do you think you can advance me the $5
to buy that cornet?
He said, Of course I can loan you the $5.
And it was a piece of junk, but it was his piece of junk.
He used to polish it. He was like...
♪ Har-mup, nar-nah-nar-nar-bup ♪
'Cause he wasn't really that good yet.
But he would say,
I'm gonna be the best cornetist in all Louisiana.
And wore a Star of David for the rest of his life
to commemorate how much
the Karnofsky family meant to him.
That was way before
all these celebrities today made it popular
to just go grab a little black kid off the street.
[laughter]
So he's out one night,
and he decides to shoot a gun into the air
to celebrate New Year's.
Police was like...
Mm-mm. You can't be a little black kid
in New Orleans shooting a gun in the air.
We gonna arrest you.
He got taken to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs.
(Derek) It sounds racist.
(Daryl) It's--I'm sure it was pretty racist.
This is-- we're, like, talking 1913.
And that's when he meets Pete Davis,
the musical "instructure"--
musical instructor.
Pete Davis taught him how to read music
and how to play technically.
And he's like, You're gonna be the "dest"--
the best damn horn player in New Orleans.
And so, a couple years later, when he gets out,
he's playing in all these, like, seedy bars.
Everybody in New Orleans is like,
Hey, that's little Louis Armstrong.
He used to make the horn talk.
Is that what they said?
It's what it sounded like.
♪ Bwop, bwah-da-bwah-da-bwop, Bwah-bwah ♪
♪ Go get you a prostitute ♪
♪ Get you some whiskey ♪
♪ Bwah-da-dup-bup-bup-bup ♪
♪ And have a good time, ha ♪
And one day, his idol, "King" Joe Oliver,
heard him play,
and he was like, Man, this kid's good.
[items clattering]
Oh, [bleep].
[laughter]
Oh, there's another one.
I told you, Sazeracs do something special.
[laughter]
(Derek) Tell me the story.
Starting the story from over the beginning.
No, no, for real, Daryl, tell me about Louis Armstrong.
Hey, let's be honest. We've been through a lot.
[laughing]
All right.
It was King Oliver who taught him how to perform.
So they used to march all around town,
in parades, marching bands,
and that's how Louis got his soul.
Papa Joe would be like...
If you heard the crowd getting into the music,
give them a little bit more, right?
So if you was like,
♪ Bah-bah-da-bah-duh-ba-bup ♪
♪ Bada-bada-bada-bah ♪
Just throw more notes.
♪ Bah-bada-bada-ba-bah-bah ♪
[mumbled melody]
♪ Bop-bop-bow ♪
[mumbled melody]
And little Louis was like...
Sure.
I'm drunk as [bleep].
I'll do whatever you want.
I'm so drunk.
What you want now?
- What was I talking about? [laughter]
We were talking about Louis Armstrong.
So, to be honest,
he was playing better than Papa Joe.
Louis became the number-one cornetist in New Orleans.
And everybody was like,
Man, this Louis Armstrong is good.
And that's when he blew up.
- Cheers. - Louis Armstrong.
- To Louis. - To Louis.
(Derek) Without that love that he was given, he might...
(Daryl) He might not be the Louis Armstrong we know today.
Always remember where you got that--
that inspiration from.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Louis.
Louis Armstrong was the greatest.
Ooh, okay, do it slow.
You want me to crack your back?
Yeah, okay, but do it slow.
[laughing]
You want to crack-- You're drunk.
I'm drunk!