David Ostwald Bringing Trad Jazz to Birdland

Tuba player David Ostwald got hooked on Louis Armstrong and his music at age 15. “I went to Sam Goody’s (remember record stores?) to buy a new recording of the Bach Double Violin Concerto and spied in the cut-out 99-cents bin a record that had Louis 1930s on one side and Ella 1930s on the other side. I figured I’d grab it. I went home, put on the Louis side, and after “Swing That Music,” had my Louis epiphany. I can divide my life into before and after that experience.” David has led the Louis Armstrong Eternity Band, which has played every Wednesday evening at Birdland in the heart of New York’s Theater District for the past 20 years (the actual anniversary occurred in May, but due to the Covid-19 shutdown could not be celebrated on or close to the actual date.). “In 2000, the first of Louis Armstrong’s two centennials, my friend George Avakian (more below on how they became friends) convinced Birdland’s owner Gianni Valenti to have my band present a weekly show honoring Louis Armstrong,” said David in a recent phone interview from his home in New York City. “Given that Birdland is the birthplace of bebop—a rebellion against the moldy figs—it’s kind of counter-revolutionary for us to be there, right on their own turf. We are