Jazz Great Louis Armstrong: A Backstage Look at the Legendary Trumpeter given by Michael Cogswell, author of, “The Offstage Story of Satchmo” and Director of the “Queens College Louis Armstrong House & Archives.”

On Tuesday, November 10th, at 7 p.m., the Sant Bani School will host a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life of the great jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. Music historian Michael Cogswell of Queens College, NY, will present a lively, multi-media look at the life of one of America’s most fascinating icons. In addition to Cogswell’s presentation, Sant Bani School is excited to introduce Boston artist and Sanbornton native, Gerard Wiggins, and his portfolio of cityscapes that will be on display. The public is welcome, admission is free to all, and RSVPs are encouraged but not required.

Cogswell will speak at Sant Bani School about his own journey that started in 1991 when he was hired by Queens College to arrange, preserve, and catalogue Louis Armstrong’s vast personal collection of reel-to-reel tapes, scrapbooks, photographs, gold records and awards, and papers that were discovered in Armstrong’s home. Three years later the Louis Armstrong Archives opened to the public in May of 1994. Cogswell then began a seven year, $1.6 million dollar project to open the Louis Armstrong House, a national landmark, as an historic house museum. The Louis Armstrong House opened to the public in October 2003. Cogswell has made presentations about Louis Armstrong in cities across the United States and in Europe.

Cogswell has said, “Louis was a very public person. His letters even to fans and casual backstage acquaintances are very candid, very open. He was very open in interviews. Unfortunately he would always get asked the same questions again and again, you know, ‘How did you start playing trumpet?’ and things like that. But when good interviewers asked him penetrating questions he gave terrific answers. Louis was always very open with everybody, and there was nothing to hide. Louis was open about his music and his marriages and his marijuana use, so there was really very little that I felt was private, you know, that Louis would not want to have known. Who you saw onstage on the Ed Sullivan Show, smiling and laughing and making music and cracking jokes, that’s who he was offstage too.”

When Armstrong passed away in 1971, Cogswell had just graduated from high school and was just making his first gigs as a professional saxophonist. He never met Armstrong, but says, “I do feel like I’m meeting him now from my years spent working with his manuscripts and tapes and trumpets and so forth, and then also my years spent working in his house and interpreting his house to others. So it’s just the way that it has played out.”
The public flocked to the modest frame house at 34-56 107th Street in Corona, Queens, which Armstrong called home for decades. “We hosted receptions in the basement of the house, but it could only hold up to 40 people,” says Cogswell. “We stopped doing them because more people would show up than we could accommodate.”

Cogswell is now preparing for construction of the museum’s Visitors Center, a $15 million project across the street from the Armstrong House Museum. The new building will include a performance space for lectures, concerts, and film screenings; multi-media exhibits; a museum store; and space for the Armstrong archives, currently housed in Rosenthal Library.
The Cogswell lecture and Wiggins’ exhibit are part of a series of cultural events hosted by the school and open to the public.

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