Louis Armstrong › Similar Artists

Ella Fitzgerald - 74% match to Louis Armstrong

Ella Jane Fitzgerald, 25 April 1917, Newport News, Virginia, USA, d. 15 June 1996, Beverly Hills, California, USA. Following the disappearance of her father, Fitzgerald was taken to Yonkers, New York by her mother and her new man Joseph da Silva. At school she sang with a glee club and showed early promise, but preferred dancing to singing. Even so, chronic shyness militated Read more

Duke Ellington - 64% match to Louis Armstrong

Edward Kennedy Ellington, 29 April 1899, Washington, DC, USA, d. 24 May 1974, New York City, New York, USA. Ellington began playing piano as a child but, despite some local success, took up a career as a sign-painter. In his teens he continued to play piano, studied harmony, composed his first tunes and was generally active in music in Washington. Among his childhood friends Read more

Bix Beiderbecke - 45% match to Louis Armstrong

Leon Bix Beiderbecke, 10 March 1903, Davenport, Iowa, USA, d. 6 August 1931, New York City, New York, USA. One of the legends of jazz, a role he would doubtless have found wryly amusing had he lived to know of it, Bix Beiderbecke entered music when he began picking out tunes on piano and cornet at the age of 15. Inspired by records of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and by Read more

Ray Charles - 44% match to Louis Armstrong

Ray Charles Robinson, 23 September 1930, Albany, Georgia, USA, d. 10 June 2004, Beverly Hills, California, USA. Few epithets sit less comfortably than that of genius; Ray Charles held this title for over 40 years and he was a true musical genius. As a singer, composer, arranger and pianist, his prolific work deserved no other praise.Born in extreme po Read more

Sidney Bechet - 43% match to Louis Armstrong

14 May 1897, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 14 May 1959, Paris, France. A major figure in early jazz, an outstanding clarinettist, and for decades the only performer of consequence on soprano saxophone, Sidney Bechet’s career began in 1909. During the next few years he played clarinet in bands led by legendary musicians such as Buddy Petit, John Robichaux and Bunk John Read more

Fats Waller - 38% match to Louis Armstrong

Thomas Wright Waller, 21 May 1904, Waverley, New York, USA, d. 15 December 1943, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Influenced by his grandfather, a violinist, and his mother, Waller was playing piano at students’ concerts and organ in his father’s church by the time he was 10 years old. In 1918, while still in high school, he was asked to fill in for the regular organist Read more

Jelly Roll Morton - 38% match to Louis Armstrong

Ferdinand Joseph Lemott, 20 October 1890, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 10 July 1941, Los Angeles, California, USA. A gifted musician, Morton played various instruments before deciding to concentrate on piano. In the early years of the twentieth century he was a popular figure on the seamier side of New Orleans night life. He played in brothels, hustled pool and generally Read more

Billie Holiday - 36% match to Louis Armstrong

Eleanor(a) Harris, 7 April 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 17 July 1959, New York City, New York, USA. ‘Lady Day’ taught herself to sing during her early teens in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was brought up until moving to New York in 1929. Factual inaccuracies and elements of myth and exaggeration have clouded the picture of her formative years despite Read more

Miles Davis - 36% match to Louis Armstrong

Miles Dewy Davis, 25 May 1926, Alton, Illinois, USA, d. 28 September 1991, Santa Monica, California, USA. Davis was born into a comparatively wealthy middle-class family and both his mother and sister were capable musicians. He was given a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday by his dentist father, who could not have conceived that his gift would set his son on the road to be Read more

Charlie Parker - 35% match to Louis Armstrong

Charles Christopher Parker, 29 August 1920, Kansas City, Kansas, USA, d. 12 March 1955, New York City, New York, USA. Although he was born on the Kansas side of the state line, Parker was actually raised across the Kaw River in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname was originally ‘Yardbird’ due to his propensity for eating fried chicken - later this was shortened to Read more

Frank Sinatra - 35% match to Louis Armstrong

Francis Albert Sinatra, 12 December 1915, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, d. 15 May 1998, Los Angeles, California, USA. After working for a time in the office of a local newspaper, The Jersey Observer, Frank Sinatra decided to pursue a professional career as a singer. Already an admirer of Bing Crosby, he was impelled to pursue this course after attending a 1933 Crosby concert, an Read more

Benny Goodman - 33% match to Louis Armstrong

Benjamin David Goodman, 30 May 1909, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 20 June 1986, New York City, New York, USA. Born into a large, impoverished family of immigrants, Goodman experienced hard times while growing up. Encouraged by his father to learn a musical instrument, Goodman and two of his brothers took lessons; as the youngest and smallest he learned to play the clarinet. Th Read more

Count Basie - 30% match to Louis Armstrong

Coleman Hawkins - 28% match to Louis Armstrong

Coleman Randolph Hawkins, 21 November 1904, St. Joseph, Missouri, USA, d. 19 May 1969, New York City, New York, USA. Coleman Hawkins (aka ‘Bean’ and ‘Hawk’) is a colossus of the tenor saxophone, and hence of jazz. He was the first to use the instrument as a serious means of expression and continued to be open to new developments for 40 years. Starting pia Read more

Thelonious Monk - 28% match to Louis Armstrong

Thelonious Sphere Monk, 11 October 1917, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, d. 17 February 1982, Weehawken, New Jersey, USA. Monk’s family moved to New York when he was five years old. He started playing piano a year later, receiving formal tuition from the age of 11 onwards. At Stuyvesant High School he excelled at physics and maths, and also found time to play organ in Read more