Stomp Off, Let’s Go (Oxford University Press: 2025) by Ricky Riccardi is the story of Louis Armstrong’s early life growing up in New Orleans. To celebrate Black History Month, the New Jersey Jazz Society invited Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum, to present some highlights of Armstrong’s formative years and play examples of his music at the February 1st Jersey Jazz LIVE! event at Madison, NJ’s Community Arts Center.
It was an exhilarating presentation to a packed house. Riccardi told his audience how Armstrong survived a difficult childhood, learned to play the cornet as a resident in the Colored Waif’s Home, and was mentored by trumpeter Joe “King” Oliver and influenced by the pianist who would become his second wife, Lillian Hardin Armstrong.
Armstrong’s musical genius was exhibited through recordings, videos, and, most powerfully, when Riccardi sat down at the piano and was joined by the brilliant young trumpeter Summer Camargo to play such Armstrong classics as “West End Blues”, W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues”, and “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”.
November 2025 marked the 100th anniversary of the first recordings by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five, and that, Riccardi said, changed the shape of jazz to come. Thanks to Riccardi and the Louis Armstrong House Museum for keeping Louis Armstrong’s legacy alive!
PHOTOS BY MARGUERITE LAFOUNTAINE
