Louis Armstrong buys a cornet

1916: Number 3 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of jazz musicLouis Armstrong bought his first cornet at a New Orleans pawnshop, when he was 15 years old. The instrument cost $10, and was "all bent up, holes knocked in the bell". Nevertheless it was the instrument with which he would take the first significant steps towards becoming the fons et origo of jazz improvisation: not just the first of the music's major solo voices, emerging loud and clear and unmistakably individual fro...

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