Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 19 February 2004 — Page 9

The Muncie Times • Febraary 19, 2004 • Page 9

Satchmo rose from slums to become jazz king

By Reasons and Patrick

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One of the slums of New Orleans, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong rose to the top in the world of jazz. His trumpet and gravel voice and his inimitable style and showmanship catapulted him into the ranks of

musical immortality over a career spanning almost 60 years. During that career, Armstrong has become known as one of Americafs finest ambassadors of good will and as a major figure in the development of jazz. Grasping his trumpet in one hand, a white handkerchief in the other, and sporting a broad, toothy grin, Satchmo has stepped before audiences from Australia to the other side of the Iron Curtain, before royalty and African natives. Everywhere he has rocked the rafters with his music and with his humor and irreverence. “This one’s for you, Rex,” he once called out to Englandfs King George V as the audience gasped at his

breach of protocol. “Whaddya say King,” he yelled on another occasion when natives carried him on their shoulders to the throne of an African ruler. Armstrong and his horn have come a long way since he was bom on July 4, 1900, on the wrong side of the tracks in New Orleans. The victim of a broken home, Louis Daniel Armstrong grew up in the streets and sang for pennies with a street-comer quartet. When he was 13, Armstrong was sent to a waifls home for firing a pistol on New Yeans Eve. It was actually a turning point in his life. While there, Armstrong learned to play the comet, an instmment he

later gave up for the trumpet. Released a year later, Armstrong soon formed a band of his own. He played in unsavory places in Storeyville, a bawdy section of the city, and in 1917 was invited to join Kid Oryfs band. He played with Ory and with other pioneer jazz artists, spent a year with a band on an excursion steamer and then in 1922 moved to Chicago to join King Oliverls band. From this point on, Armstrong was on his way. During his career, Satchmo became a composer, played in more than a dozen movies and recorded more than a dozen movies and recorded more than 1,500 songs. Some,

Buffalo soldiers took on native American warriors

By Reason and Patrick Chief Victorio and a band of 100 renegade Apaches eluded pursuing troops and galloped across the New Mexico desert toward a small settlement at old Fort Tularosa. For two years, since fleeing the Fort Stanton Reservation, Victorio had outflanked and outfoxed the cavalry and had written his rebellion in the blood of whites across the entire Southwest. But Victorio's time was growing short. On May 13, 1880, as the Apache band pushed toward old Fort Tularosa, Sgt. George Jordan, Troop K, 9th U.S. Cavalry, went about bedding down his detachment of 25 Buffalo soldiers. Jordan and his men

were encamped 50 miles from Tularosa. But they were unaware of Victorio's nearness until a lone rider on a lathered horse dashed into their camp with the news. Jordan broke camp and pushed his troops to the settlement in a hurried night ride. They arrived at dawn, and Victorio attacked at dusk. It was the beginning of the end for Victorio. During the day, Jordan had erected a stockade and moved the frightened civilians inside it. Carefully stationing his troops, Jordan waited for the attack. When it came, Jordan was ready. The troopers caught the enemy in a withering fire. The Indians attacked again but

once more were driven off by a devastating fusillade. After that encounter, Victorio was kept on the run and finally pushed into Mexico by other cavalry units. He was killed by Mexican soldiers five months later. Sgt. Jordan, a year after his fight with Victorio, had another run-in with the Apaches in Carrizo Canyon in New Mexico. Again he outwitted and outfought them with a tiny force of 19 men who held their ground and repelled the attack. For his leadership in these two engagements, Jordan was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was one of 17 troopers so honored in the all-Negro 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry regiments for

service in the Indian wars. Members of the two regiments came to be known by renegade Indians as the Buffalo soldiers partly because their hair resembled the shaggy coat of the buffalo and partly because of their process as fighters. The thin line of the 9th and 10th often was the only symbol of law and order in wide expanses of the West. Besides Indiana, the two regiments also engaged bandits, murderers, cattle rustlers and Mexican revolutionaries. Their campaign took them throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and the Dakotas between 1867 and 1891. Born in Williamson County, Tenn., Sgt. Jordan was only 18 when he joined

like “Hello Dolly!” sold more than a million records. He mad his first concert tour abroad in 1932 to England, and it was there that he acquired the nickname Satchelmouth, later shortened to Satchmo. He went on frequent tours after that, visiting almost every country in Europe, as well as Africa, New Zealand, Tokyo and South Korea and making friends abroad for the United States. Armstrong saw music as the universal language, and he took great care of his battered lips so he could spread the word. “What’s the good of having music in your mind,” he once said, “If you can’t get it past your pucker?”

the 9th when it was founded in 1866. He was awarded his Medal of Honor in 1890, 10 years after his encounter with Victorio. Jordan retired from the service in 1897 after 30 years. He was 49. He spent the rest of his life on a $12 monthly pension at the U.S. Soldier's Home in Washington, D.C.

Black History