Ricky Riccardi • Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong

Ricky Riccardi’s Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong (Oxford University Press, 2025) is not only the best jazz biography that I’ve read in recent years, it is the best biography of any kind that I’ve read in recent years. It’s well-researched and it’s well-written, with each of its 29 chapters ending in a way that makes you eager to read the next one. And Riccardi has a good feel for both Armstrong the man, and for the music that he created.

There’s no more important artist in jazz history than Louis Armstrong (1901-1971). And this book—covering his life from his birth up through 1929, in 466 densely packed pages—is a must for any serious jazz fan.

This is the third book about Armstrong that Riccardi has written. (Riccardi covered the later years of Armstrong’s life in What a Wonderful World, published in 2011; he covered the middle years of Armstrong’s life in Heart Full of Rhythm, published in 2020.) And I did not want to let it go. I did not want to leave the world of this book.

Over the years, I’ve reviewed plenty of books. But I’ve never spent quite as much time with one book that I was reviewing as I have with this one. And that’s a testament to just how rewarding this biography is. I read it through once, sometimes stopping to compare what Riccardi had written about various events in Armstrong’s life with what past biographers had written. And then I read the book through again, this time stopping more often to listen carefully to recordings mentioned in the text—Armstrong with King Oliver, with Fletcher Henderson, with Ma Rainey, with Bessie Smith, and with his own bands both small and large. Riccardi got me to hear with fresh ears recordings that I’ve been savoring since long before Riccardi was born.

Riccardi can devote a couple of hundred words to describing an Armstrong record like “Beau Koo Jack” or “Tight Like That” so well that I felt compelled to stop and listen to the recording once again. I’m passionate about Armstrong and have been listening to him virtually all of my life; he’s one of my all-time favorite artists. A matted, framed 1920s photo of Armstrong’s Hot Five has graced my living-room wall for decades. When I was nine—65 years ago!—I chanced to discover a 1930s Armstrong 78 among my parents’ and grandparents’ old records in the basement; and I was hooked. I started buying Armstrong records. I enjoyed his TV appearances, too. If he appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” I’d tape-record him with our family’s Wollensak tape recorder.

I’ve long had a pretty complete collection of Armstrong’s recorded work, and I know it well. I love it. (I can remember being a junior at Princeton University, more than 50 years ago, and throwing open the windows of my Campbell Hall dorm room that spring because I wanted the whole world to hear Armstrong’s astonishing big-band recordings of “Strutting’ With Some Barbecue” and “Jubilee”—not that any of the passers-by really cared about or took notice of the recordings I was playing. But Armstrong’s music got to me so deeply, I wanted to share that music with everyone.)

Riccardi—to my amazement—has actually gotten me to appreciate Armstrong even more, and to hear things in some of his recordings that I simply hadn’t heard before. No small feat, that! I’m in Riccardi’s debt.

Are there some imperfections in the book? Of course. No book is perfect. But if, later in this piece, I mention a couple of imperfections—or points where my opinions might differ from his—don’t let it discourage you from buying the book. Taken collectively, Riccardi’s three books may be considered the definitive chronicle of Armstrong’s life. Writing these three books is a tremendous accomplishment. And I look forward to revisiting them all. So much to explore, and to think about….

When I first heard, 15 or so years ago, that some fellow named Riccardi was working on a book about Louis Armstrong, I didn’t think there was much need for another book on Armstrong. So much had been written about Armstrong over the years, I believed that his life had already been thoroughly covered. (When I was asked by Cary Wintz, in 2006, to write a chapter about Armstrong for the book Harlem Speaks, I declined because I did not think there was anything new about Armstrong that I could write; I agreed to do a requested chapter on Bessie Smith only because I felt I did have a bit of new material to contribute about her.)

On the bookshelves, here in my home, are assorted books about Armstrong by such authors as Laurence Bergreen, Gary Giddins, James Lincoln Collier, and Terry Teachout. And of course, there’s Armstrong’s own autobiography, and related books like Louis Armstrong in his Own Words, and The Louis Armstrong Companion…. Some of these works are very good and are warmly recommended (including the books by Bergreen, Giddins, and Armstrong); some are not-so-good (James Lincoln Collier’s painfully jaundiced biography). But taken together, I figured these books had Armstrong’s life pretty well documented.

And of course, with each passing year, there are fewer and fewer people left who knew Armstrong. I think of the many musicians I knew and interviewed over the years who knew Armstrong, including Joe Muranyi, Arvell Shaw, Marty Napoleon, Buck Clayton, Jimmy McPartland, Clark Terry, Doc Cheatham, Bob Haggart, Lionel Hampton, Freddie Moore, Johnny Blowers, Clyde Bernhardt, Dizzy Gillespie…. All are gone now.

I just didn’t think Ricky Riccardi—who’d never written a book before, and was starting his project so many years after Armstrong’s passing—could add much that was new.

Boy, was I wrong! And I’m very happy to be wrong.

Riccardi has drawn upon so many different sources—interviews with older musicians, contemporary press accounts, public records—to give us the most comprehensive portrait of Armstrong available yet. We hear Armstrong’s own recollections of his youth, drawn not just from assorted interviews that Armstrong gave over the years and from Armstrong’s published writings, but from Armstrong’s longer original, unedited manuscript of his autobiography.

And—invaluable material here—we also hear recollections from a little-known, wonderfully evocative interview that Armstrong’s sister gave, late in life.

And Lil Hardin Armstrong—Armstrong’s second wife—speaks to us via pages from her unfinished, never-published autobiography, which Riccardi managed to find.

Riccardi draws upon not just important early books on jazz, like Jazzmen, but even from the written notes used to prepare that book. He quotes from interviews with countless jazz musicians and their associates conducted by many different people in many different places, at so many different times. And he pulls this all together beautifully. So, he can toss into the mix comments by everyone from, say, King Oliver’s widow (interviewed by William Russell in the 1950s), to musicians who knew Armstrong in New Orleans, Chicago, or New York, interviewed in later years by Stanley Dance, Phil Schaap, and others. (Oh, it’s so nice to see Schaap’s great work as an interviewer put to such good use. He wondered what would become of his legacy after his passing.)

Riccardi quotes from Armstrong’s appearances on television talk shows like Johnny Carson’s and Mike Douglas’s, from a private taped interviews with George Avakian, from Voice of America broadcasts, from interviews on tape and on acetate discs. (As a writer, I know just how time-consuming it is to listen to such recorded interviews; Riccardi has done an incredible job.)

He’s examined census records, the divorce records of Louis Armstrong and Daisy Armstrong; and police records. He’s dug deep, from a multitude of sources, to give us as much information as he can. (In describing Peter Davis, an important early music teacher of Armstrong at the Colored Waifs’ Home for Boys, I might note—since I’m writing this review for The Syncopated Times— that among the sources Riccardi cites is Robert Mikell’s 2019 article on Davis in The Syncopated Times.) Riccardi manages to shine a bit of new light even on issues that I thought had been settled for good—like the date of Armstrong’s birth.

In this season’s Broadway musical about Louis Armstrong, A Wonderful World—which I enjoyed enough to go see it twice—the New Orleans of Armstrong’s boyhood is conjured up by having brightly costumed singers/dancers fill the stage, joyfully performing “Bourbon Street Parade.” As musical theater, it’s a terrific scene; the well-choreographed singers/dancers are irresistible. And I’m always happy to hear “Bourbon Street Parade” once again (even if it was actually written in 1961, not in Armstrong’s early-20^th-Century boyhood). If your only knowledge of Armstrong came from this Broadway musical, you’d think, “What a joyful boyhood he must have had, growing up in such a colorful, fun-loving city like that, with everyone happily singing and dancing.” But that’s just show business…. In his new book, Riccardi follows the facts wherever they take us.

Riccardi gives us the most complete picture of Armstrong’s early years to be found anywhere. Armstrong’s life was much harder and bleaker than his fans could ever have imagined. Citing police reports, Riccardi documents run-ins with the law for Armstrong’s mother, Armstrong’s sister, and for Armstrong himself. Their arrests and incarcerations on various charges are related dispassionately. Armstrong was just nine the first time he was arrested. By this time of his last youthful arrest, the police records identified him as an old offender, whose mother was a prostitute.

Armstrong’s tremendous success in life is even more impressive when one fully grasps the odds that were against him.

His family was dirt poor. The mother made some money via prostitution. (In the first draft of his autobiography, Armstrong referred to his mother as “selling fish”—clarifying his meaning by crossing that out and writing in the margin: “HUSTLING.”) Armstrong took whatever jobs he could find to bring some much-needed money into their little household. He felt a responsibility to provide for, and help raise, his sister. He eventually also took it upon himself to provide for, and help raise, a developmentally disabled cousin, Clarence Armstrong, whom he treated for the rest of his life as an adopted son. His work ethic was tremendous. He could labor all day at whatever jobs might bring him a bit of income (like hauling hard coal for 10 hours a day), and try to make a few more bucks by playing music at night. Riccardi will not only quote Armstrong’s memories of such work, he’ll quote people who knew him then, who witnessed such work.

Armstrong treated others with a tremendous generosity of spirit. He accepted people as they were, tried to see the good in them wherever possible. He always expressed his great appreciation for his early mentor, King Oliver—even if others noted that Oliver also held Armstrong back, lest Armstrong outshine him. Armstrong thought the world of his longtime manager, Joe Glaser—even if many believed that Glaser may have taken for himself much more than the standard manager’s cut to which he was entitled. Armstrong remembered appreciatively the good people at the Colored Waifs’ Home for Boys for trying so much to set him on the right path in life. (And yet Riccardi notes that Armstrong, who never had children of his own, may have been sterilized, along with other boys in that era, while at the Colored Waifs’ Home.)

All in all, it is an incredible story that Riccardi tells. I liked every part of the book. (Don’t skip a page! Even the epilogue and end notes are unusually rich with detail. And Riccardi brings even minor characters vividly to life.)

Hollywood has made important, big-budget film biographies of many notable musicians—such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Red Nichols—usually heavily fictionalizing their lives. If Hollywood ever gets around to making an important, big budget film about Louis Armstrong—and such a film is long overdue—it need not fictionalize a thing. There’s plenty of drama in Armstrong’s life, and Riccardi captures it well. His books alone would provide all needed source material for a terrific, big-budget film. Or an intriguing mini-series.

All works, however, have some flaws. I’ll mention a few imperfections—or points where my opinions might differ from Riccardi’s—that I found in Stomp Off, Let’s Go. These are offered in a constructive sprit from someone who greatly admires the work as a whole.

There are occasional moments of repetition in the book, where Riccardi will make a point convincingly enough, and then later tell us much the same thing. And we got the point he was making the first time.

Ideally, a careful copyeditor will eliminate all needless repetition in a book. But on page 231 of Stomp Off. Let’s Go, Riccardi quotes trumpeter Louie Metcalf as saying: “When I came to New York everybody was playing like Johnny [Dunn]—trumpeters, saxes, pianists and even banjoists were copying Dunn.” And then again on page242 of Stomp Off, Let’s Go—just 11 pages later—Riccardi quotes trumpeter Louie Metcalf as saying that when he came to New York “everybody was playing like Johnny [Dunn]—trumpeters, saxes, pianists, and even banjoists were copying Dunn.” The exact same quote is used on two different pages of the book. As a writer, I know how easy it is accidentally repeat a point that you’ve already made. That’s why we all need good editors. One of those quotes could, and should, be excised, if Riccardi intends to make any revisions for a future edition of the book.

And there are other sorts of minor errors that, I think, t ought to be addressed.

On page 318, the title of Al Jolson’s landmark 1927 film—the film that launched talking pictures—is given as Jazz Singer. The film’s title is actually, of course, The Jazz Singer. Getting the title of such a major motion picture wrong bothered me a bit—just as it would bother me if someone wrote that Marlon Brando once appeared in a film called Godfather (when the correct title of the film is, of course, The Godfather). It’s a minor error—but it made me wonder for a moment, when I noticed it, how familiar the author was with Jolson’s work.

And to fully understand the era, and to properly set Armstrong’s 1920s contributions in context, you really have to be familiar with Jolson’s work. Billed as “the World’s Greatest Entertainer” (and no one challenged that billing), Jolson was a tremendously important and influential artist.

In evaluating Armstrong’s 1926 recording of “Heebie Jeebies,” Riccardi writes: “Scatting aside, the pure vivacity of his vocal—including injections not commonly found in 1920s pop singing such as ‘Yes ma’am!’ and ‘Sweet mama!’—represented a seismic shift in the ways singers could approach a text and breathe new life into it.” Riccardi is trying to credit Armstrong—through his sheer vivacity and his interjections of words like “Sweet mama!”—with instituting “a seismic shift in the ways singers could approach a text and breathe new life into it.”

I love Armstrong. And his influence on American music was profound. But it was actually Jolson (who achieved stardom long before Armstrong did) who—through his pure vivacity and his interjections of words like “Sweet mama!”—instituted “a seismic shift in the ways singers could approach a text and breathe new life into it.”

From 1911—when Jolson made his Broadway debut and had his first million-seller hit—through the 1920s, Jolson was a huge force of nature in the world of entertainment. And the sheer vivacity he projected—and the way he freely interjected phrases not found in the sheet music—were important elements of his appeal. Listen to his terrific 1922 recording of “Angel Child” (a number-one hit, according to Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories, 1890-1954). It’s certainly vivacious. And part of what makes the song so infectious are Jolson’s interjections of words not found in the sheet music. Interjections like: “Oh, baby!” and “Oh, Henrietta” (an ad-libbed shout-out to an ex-wife Jolson was wooing at the time), and yes, “Sweet mama!” Shouting out “Sweet mama” was utterly characteristic of Jolson.

And if Armstrong (who had not yet begun his recording career when Jolson made his hit record of “Angel Child” in 1922) interjected “Sweet mama!” into “Heebie jeebies” in 1926, he was building upon Jolson’s foundation. (Armstrong, incidentally, thought Jolson was a master; he bought Jolson’s records. And Jolson definitely had some influence on him.) Exuberant interjections were typical of Jolson. On his 1922 recording of “I’ll Stand Beneath Your Window and Whistle”—which is even more vivacious than “Angel Child”—you’ll hear Jolson adding words like “My darling,” and “Honey, listen!” That was all part of the Jolson style. The best moments of Jolson’s recordings were often lines he interjected that were not part of the printed text. (The most memorable line in Jolson’s rendition of “My Mammy”—“Don’t ya know me? I’m your little baby”—was a Jolson interjection; it was not part of the song as written.)

Armstrong’s 1926 recording of “Heebie Jeebies” is terrific. But Armstrong, like all artists, drew from all sorts of influences that were around him. Including Al Jolson.

And Riccardi, I think, is over-estimating how much influence Armstrong’s recording of “Heebie Jeebies” had on singers back then. Today, that record is rightly considered a jazz classic. But how many people even heard it in 1926? The record company (OKeh) marketed it as a “race record”—that is, they marketed it primarily to Black audiences. And it sold well with its target audience, especially in Chicago, where Armstrong was making a name for himself. And jazz musicians in Chicago, who certainly recognized Armstrong’s brilliance, were eager to buy his recordings.

But the record was not a pop hit; its impact was limited. Joel Whitburn’s Pop Memories, 1890-1954, says the first Armstrong record that could be considered a hit was “Muskrat Ramble,” which came along a bit later in 1926. And “Muskrat Ramble,” according to Whitburn, was the only record Armstrong made in 1926 that could be considered a hit. (By that that point, according to Whitburn, Jolson had already recorded a whopping 65 hits. So his ability to have an impact on people, overall, was then much greater.)

It took time for Armstrong to break through to the general public. (And, generally speaking, it took longer for people to achieve fame in that era than it does today. Today, someone can post something online and—if it goes viral—reach countless people, in all different places, instantly. Things moved at a slower pace in the early 1920s. Trumpeter Jabbo Smith once told me that as a working musician in New York, in 1924, he wasn’t yet aware of Louis Armstrong. Armstrong may have made a name for himself in New Orleans, and then in Chicago, playing second cornet with King Oliver; but Smith was not yet familiar with him. Within a few years, of course, Smith would certainly recognize Armstrong’s greatness. But in 1924, Smith told me, he thought the greatest jazz trumpeter—his favorite among all he’d heard—was Sidney De Paris. And Armstrong was not billed on the 1923 King Oliver records that today are thought of as important examples of young Louis Armstrong’s gifts; Armstrong was simply an uncredited second cornetist. So even if people bought the first records that Armstrong made with Oliver, they didn’t necessarily know who Louis Armstrong was.)

In 1984, for an article I wrote for The Princeton Alumni Weekly, “The Sons of Bix Keep Blowing,” I reached out to six older Princeton alumni who, in the years 1926-31, had been among Bix Beiderbecke’s earliest and most ardent champions; as young jazz fans and aspiring musicians, they idolized Bix and Frank Trumbauer, avidly buying their small-group records, along with records by the Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman orchestras that they were on. (And in 1984, they were still bound together by their early appreciation for Bix and Tram.)

When I asked them how they felt about Louis Armstrong’s first records, these jazz fans—who in later years came to greatly appreciate Armstrong—-said that when they were first getting into Beiderbecke, in the mid-to-late 1920s, they were barely aware of Armstrong (if aware of him at all). They were early white jazz fans, from privileged backgrounds; they had very little exposure to “race records” while growing up. That’s simply the way things were back then, in the world they grew up in. When they first heard Armstrong’s Hot Fives, the records sounded “rough” to their ears, and took some getting used to. One recalled knowing just one person, among their jazz-loving collegiate set, who was into Armstrong’s records from the start; they remembered him simply as a guy who liked—as they initially considered it, back then—rough jazz. It took a while for their ears to adjust.

Within a few years of his recording debut as a leader, of course, Armstrong would win over mass audiences. He would be marketed by the record company as a popular artist (not just given “race records” treatment). And he would have an enormous influence upon both instrumentalists and singers. (Bing Crosby, in later years, cited both Jolson and Armstrong as important influences when he was developing his vocal style.) But it took a little time for Armstrong to become so influential.

Stomp Off, Let’s Go is a terrific book. But that doesn’t mean I agree with every assessment in the book. I think Riccardi overstates the importance and influence of Jabbo Smith. My admiration for Smith is second-to-none. But I don’t think Stomp Off, Let’s Go gets Smith’s place in the jazz world quite right. Let me explain.

On page 341 of Stomp Off, Let’s Go, Riccardi describes the emergence in the late 1920s of trumpeter Jabbo Smith as a possible rival to Armstrong. Riccardi writes: “Smith was ultimately unsuccessful in his challenge to Armstrong’s throne, but younger trumpeters such as Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie began listening more to Jabbo than to Louis is the years to come, paving the way for bebop and the sounds of modern jazz…..”

Riccardi provides no evidence to support his assertion that “younger trumpeters such as Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie began listening more to Jabbo than to Louis is the years to come.…” I’m surprised that Riccardi’s editor at Oxford University Press did not insist that he provide evidence for that claim, either within the text or within an end-note. If Riccardi has got some evidence—such as interviews to cite in which Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge said they were listening more to Jabbo Smith than to Louis Armstrong—he should include such evidence in future editions of the book. If he doesn’t have evidence to support his claim, he should modify or remove the claim.

For me, that claim just doesn’t ring true. I think it makes Jabbo Smith sound more important or influential than he actually was. Neither Dizzy Gillespie nor Roy Eldridge ever told me they listened more to Jabbo than to Louis. Nor do I recall any such assertions by them in any articles or books about Gillespie or Eldridge. Now, I certainly could have missed something or have forgotten something over the years; but if so, I’d like to see what Gillespie or Eldridge might have said that prompted Riccardi to write what he did.

Eldridge told me that the first jazz trumpeter who had an important impact on him was Red Nichols. Gillespie impressed upon me—while I was giving him a ride home from the airport one day—that he considered Louis Armstrong one of the all-time master jazz artists. He told me—as he told others I knew—that had there never had been a Louis Armstrong, there would never have been a Dizzy Gillespie. He told me that many jazz writers had described the music made by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker as being “revolutionary.” But those jazz critics had it all wrong, Gillespie insisted to me; Gillespie believed that the music he and Charlie Parker made was “evolutionary, not revolutionary”—he felt his music was a logical evolution from the great music that Louis Armstrong had created. He held Armstrong in the highest regard. Gillespie certainly appreciated Jabbo Smith’s contributions, and thought Smith deserved greater recognition than he’d received; but he never spoke of Smith as one of the all-time masters like Armstrong was. Never suggested Smith had influenced him.

I liked Jabbo Smith a lot, both personally and professionally. I enjoyed seeing him perform as a trumpeter and vocalist. (And after health problems forced him to give up playing trumpet, I sill found him to be a unique, charismatic vocalist.) I profiled him in my book Voice of the Jazz Age. And also wrote a bit about him in my book Jazz Veterans. I can still remember the shy smile that came across his face when he told me—not wanting to brag, but feeling that he simply had to speak the plain truth—that when he was at his peak, circa 1929, he felt he was the best trumpet player in the world. He was capable of executing high-speed passages that Armstrong could not equal. And he took justifiable pride in that. In Chicago, in 1928 and ’29, Smith was dazzling fellow musicians with his playing.

But he also told me—just as plainly, simply, and honestly—that his moment in the spotlight did not last long. Yes, he made some mighty impressive recordings—but those were all made in only one year (1929), and they did not sell well. Nine years would pass before he got another chance to make his own records; the four sides he recorded in 1938 did not sell well, either. And for decades after that, he received no invitations to record again. So there never were that many Jabbo Smith records for anyone to listen to. Smith gradually faded into obscurity, until his comeback late in life. But even at his peak in the late 1920s, he was never a household name (like Armstrong became); the great jazz pianist Art Hodes told me that Smith was never any more well-known than—if as well-known as—Baby Dodds or Johnny Dodds.

Riccardi writes (on page 340 of Stomp Off, Let’s Go) that there were “many battles” between Jabbo Smith and Louis Armstrong. But I’m not sure there were “many battles” between the two. Had there been “many battles” between them, we’d expect to see recollections of the “many battles” in Armstrong’s writings and interviews. But we don’t. And Smith himself told me that there was only one real battle between him and Armstrong—one night at Chicago’s Savoy Ballroom. Smith told me that Armstrong won the battle. Smith said: “I mean, you know, Louis played the ‘West End Blues.’ And he locked it up with the ‘West End Blues.’” The “West End Blues” was a tough number to follow. Smith knew he’d been licked; he had no great desire to do much “battling” with Louis Armstrong after that.

That night at Chicago’s Savoy Ballroom was, in Smith’s recollection, the only real battle between Armstrong and himself, although there were other times when they played together, more casually, in clubs. But that was the one and only night that people spoke of, at the time, as “the battle.” He suggested that, with the passage of time, some people may have exaggerated how many times he and Armstrong had really battled. As he diplomatically expressed it, some people seemed to “recall” events in his life that he did not recall.

Smith told me he never felt he exerted much of an influence on anyone else. Louis Armstrong, Smith freely acknowledged, wound up influencing countless musicians (including Smith)—and not just trumpet players. It seemed to Smith as if most everyone wanted to swing music the way Armstrong did. And Armstrong clearly wound up becoming the most influential musician of his generation.

Smith was always happy to go his own way as an artist. He didn’t worry about how much of an influence he did or did not have. But I think Smith would have been as surprised as I was by Riccardi’s assertion that younger players like Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge were listening more to him than to Louis Armstrong. If they were, Smith certainly wasn’t aware of it.

That’s my two cents, anyway. I’m glad to read a book that gives me so much to think about.

Armstrong was a giant among artists. And a unique individual. My late collaborator, jazz photographer Nancy Miller Elliott, said that of all of the many jazz musicians she knew or met, Armstrong gave off so much positive energy, that to her, being around him could feel almost like being around a saint. And that’s a high compliment.

I may quibble about occasional points in Riccardi’s books about Armstrong. But overall, I’m in awe of what he’s achieved. He’s written books that are worthy of their subject. And that’s a very high compliment.

I can’t wait to see what he chooses to write about next. Armstrong will be a tough act to follow. I wish him well!