Louis Armstrong's Secret Lessons From Judaism

Satchmo Nibbled on Matzo and Wore a Star of David

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Horn of Plenty: Armstrong expressed disappointment that African-Americans failed to take up Jewish

By Benjamin Ivry

Published May 05, 2014, issue of May 09, 2014. the FORWARD 

A massive, and massively detailed new biography, reminds music mavens that jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong assimilated lessons from Judaism and expressed them through music and writing during his long career.

“Louis Armstrong, Master of Modernism” by Thomas Brothers is a tribute to an unsurpassed jazz trumpeter and singer who relished Yiddishkeit. Born in 1901, Armstrong performed and recorded nearly until his death in 1971. Grateful early on for the respect, encouragement and affection he received as a boy from the Karnofskys, a Lithuanian Jewish family in his hometown of New Orleans, he later became dependent for decades on his manager Joe Glaser, a Jew with mob ties. Toward the end of his life, he repeatedly jotted down thanks to Jewish doctors who prolonged his career. At home, Armstrong snacked on matzoh as a preferred treat and wore a Star of David (accounts differ over whether it was given to him by the Karnofskys or by Glaser). The jazz photographer Herb Snitzer, who captured an image of Armstrong on a bus in 1960 with the Star of David clearly visible, commented: “[Armstrong] wore the Star his entire life.”

“I had a long time admiration for the Jewish People. Especially with their long time of courage, taking So Much Abuse for so long. I was only Seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the White Folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for. It dawned on me, how drastically. Even ‘my race’ the Negroes, the way that I saw it, they were having a little better Break than the Jewish people, with jobs a plenty around… to me we were better off than the Jewish people. But we didn’t do anything about it. We were lazy and still are.”  Please CLICK HERE to read

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197338/louis-armstrongs-secret-lessons-from-judaism/?p=all#ixzz30qSTPn9r