Behind the Armstrong Singer’s Dealings with the famed Nightclub Owner and Oswald Killer.
Most people associate Jack Ruby with the striptease shows that unfolded nightly in the early-1960s at the Carousel Club, a second-story nightspot on Commerce Street in downtown Dallas. Over the course of his career as a nightclub owner in Big D from 1947 to 1963, he also booked country singers such as Hank Williams and Little Jimmy Dickens, big bands such as the Red Calhoun Orchestra, and Dixieland groups like the Cell Block Seven.
Raised in Chicago in the 1920s, Ruby apparently inherited the Windy City’s affinity for the sounds of the South. In August 1963, three months before he became world-famous for murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, Ruby flew to New York City where he met with Joe Glaser, the former Chicago club-owner who had become one of the biggest booking agents in show biz. Glaser later told federal investigators that Ruby spoke to him about booking Louis Armstrong at a new nightclub he hoped to open in Dallas.
Louis Armstrong
In 1959-60, Ruby had employed Houston-born vocalist Jewel Brown, who later went on to work with Armstrong’s All-Stars from 1961 to
