Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings

Rating:
Summary: Armstrong hits a high C on his typewriter.
Review: If you like jazz, Armstrong, "Potato Head Blues," or life itself, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Quite revealing
Review: Satch fans will find a whole lot more to our hero than we knew before. For one thing,his 1954 bio was severely edited and we get some of the raw stuff here. Satch wrote as eloquently (and uniquely) as he sang. He does not hold back on his views of race (see "Louis Armstrong and the Jewish Family" (1970) which may shock some people and outrage others, as is true with almost everything else here. He holds forth on his love of "Swiss Kriss" and its after effects and delivers a heartfelt letter to a fan in Vietnam closing with the lyrics of "You'll Never Walk Alone."

Would be nice if the complete unedited documents were here in a multivolume series,but this will suffice. Swiss Krissly yours.