Shakespeare didn’t invent English, and Louis Armstrong didn’t invent Jazz. It’s what each man did with their respective language that sets them apart from anyone who ever wrote a word or blew a note after they came along. Jazz simply wouldn’t be the Jazz we know today without Louie Armstrong. The many reasons why are enumerated in the new biography Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout. He says there are reasons why the artist’s greatest breakthroughs happened right here in the Windy City.

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Excerpt from the book