Louis Daniel Armstrong nicknamed “Satchmo”, “Satch”, and “Pops”, was an American trumpeter, composer, vocalist, and actor who was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and different eras in the history of jazz. These Louis Armstrong quotes will motivate you.
Best Louis Armstrong Quotes
- “Seems to me, it aint the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin’ to it. And all I’m saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love baby, love. That’s the secret…” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Don’t do nothing halfway, else you find yourself dropping more than can be picked up.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Some of you young folks been saying to me, “Hey Pops, what you mean ‘What a wonderful world’? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either.” Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin’ to it. And all I’m saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love baby, love. That’s the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we’d solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “What we play is life.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don’t treat me right – shame on you.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “My whole life, my whole soul, my whole spirit is to blow that horn.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Oh, yeah.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question!” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “The best I can do is stay happy.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.” ~ Louis Armstrong”Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “If it hadn’t been for Jazz, there wouldn’t be no rock and roll.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“We all do ‘do, re, mi,’ but you have got to find the other notes yourself.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Making money ain’t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat and when you die you’re just as graveyard dead as he is.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “There are Two Secrets to Success: 1. Don’t tell ANYONE Everything you know 2.If you have to ask what Jazz is, you’ll never know.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “If ya ain’t got it in ya, ya can’t blow it out.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “There is no such thing as ‘on the way out’ as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you’re in the business because you’re breathing.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“You blows who you is.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “You’ve got to be good or as bad as the devil.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, ’cause what you’re there for is to please the people.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “It makes you feel good, man, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you’re with another tea smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“You got to love to be able to play” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people goin’ by I see friends shaking hands saying, “How do you do” They’re really saying “I love you.” I hear babies cry, I watch then grow They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know; And I think to myself, What a wonderful world; Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world. Oh yeah!” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Never play anything the same way twice.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“If you don’t understand it, don’t mess with it.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Musicians in my day had nicknames. My name was “Satchel Mouth,” like a doctor’s satchel. When I went to England this fellow was strictly English, and he was editor of the newspaper there. He shook my hand after I got off the train and said, “Hello, Satchmo.” So right away my trombone player said, “Mmm, the man thinks you have mo’ mouth than Satchel Mouth.” So I was stuck with it, and it turned out all right.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in … Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn’t faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A kiss to build a dream on.” ~ Louis Armstrong -
“At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the “mis-de” and you just got meaner and meaner.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops… I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “There’s only two ways to sum up music; either it’s good or it’s bad. If it’s good you don’t mess about it, you just enjoy it.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “When you’re dead, you’re done.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Love is talkative passion.” ~ Louis Armstrong , Louis Armstrong quotes about love
- “As a youngster in the little orphanage home in New Orleans, I was the bugler of the institution. When I got to be around 13 or 14 years old, they took me off the bugle and put me in the little brass band.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“I don’t get involved in politics. I just blow my horn.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “I’ll bet right now most of the youngsters and hot club fans who hear the name Storyville hasn’t the least idea that it consisted of some of the biggest prostitutes in the world … Standing in their doorways nightly in their fine and beautiful negligees — faintly calling to the boys as they passed their cribs.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Music is either good or bad, and it’s got to be learned. You got to have balance.” ~ Louis Armstrong , Louis Armstrong quotes about music
- “It ain’t whatcha say, it’s the way howcha say it.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “You either have it or you don’t. You play your horn just like you sing a song or a hymn. If it’s in your heart, you express yourself in the tune.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “You see, pops, that’s the kind of talk that’s ruining the music. Everyone’s trying to do something new, no one trying to learn the fundamentals first. All them young cats playing their wierd chords. And what happens? No one’s working.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“I’m a spade, you’re an ofay. Let’s play.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “You can’t take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I’ve been playing 50 years, and that’s what I’ve been doing in order to keep in that groove there.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “All them weird chords which don’t mean a thing…you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “It’s America’s classical music … this becomes our tradition … the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? … we contributed Louis Armstrong” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “When I go to the Gate, I’ll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we’ll play ‘Sleepy Time Down South’ and ‘Hello, Dolly!.’ Then he can blow a couple that he’s been playing up there all the time.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“[Bebop is] Chinese music.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night – wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though – I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy – that really fractured me!” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans. When that’s where you left your heart. The moonlight on the bayou a creole tune that fills the air. I dream about magnolias in bloom and I’m wishin’ I was there.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of like half-fast.” ~ Louis Armstrong
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“Never play a thing the same way twice.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “As many bands as you heard [in New Orleans], that’s how many bands you heard playing right. I thought I was in Heaven playing second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band — and they had some funeral marches that would just touch your heart, they were so beautiful.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “Jazz is what I play for a living.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means.” ~ Louis Armstrong
- “There’s a thing I’ve dreamed of all my life, and I’ll be damned if it don’t look like it’s about to come true-to be King of the Zulu’s parade. After that, I’ll be ready to die.” ~ Louis Armstrong
