10th Annual Satchmo Summerfest | New Orleans, LA

Satchmo SummerFest – the premier American Jazz Festival dedicated to the life, music and legacy of New Orleans’ native son, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong – returns for its tenth celebration, August 5 through August 8 at the Louisiana State Museum’s Old U.S. Mint. The festival is free and open to the public. Three stages of music on the grounds of the Mint and one stage at the French Market will include traditional jazz, contemporary jazz, brass bands, and the children’s stage, with family activities.

Musical performers include…Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers, Mark Braud and the New Orleans Jazz Giants, Yoshio Toyama and the Dixie Saints, Rebirth Brass Band, Tim Laughlin’s New Orleans All Stars, Wanda Rouzan and A Taste of New Orleans, Soul Rebels, New Orleans Helsinki Connection featuring Leroy Jones, Jazz vocalist Leah Chase, Treme Brass Band and more!

This free community event will also feature free dance lessons and an array of educational and entertaining children’s activities, including a Satchmo collage making project, a second-line umbrella creation station sponsored by the New Orleans Jazz Celebration, an activity station sponsored by Krewe of Muses, coconut decorating sponsored by the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club “Junior Zulus,” and more.

For a complete schedule of events check out the event’s offical web site.

Promotional Video

About Satchmo Summerfest

Satchmo SummerFest started out to be a one-time salute in 2001 to commemorate his 100th anniversary and reaffirm his vital role in the development of American musical culture. However, the festival that year succeeded so well that the city and the festival’s sponsor, French Quarter Festivals, Inc., decided to make it an annual event. Over the years, Satchmo SummerFest has evolved into what one visiting music writer called “a mini-JazzFest.” With three days of outdoor concerts, music history seminars, jazz exhibits, a jazz mass, a second-line parade and plenty of local food delicacies and drinks, the festival has become a travelers’, as well as a local, favorite. Nearly all of the participating musicians are New Orleans-based. A Satchmo art contest and exhibit at the Crescent City Brewhouse attracts some of the city’s most talented artists to create works in a Satchmo motif. There’s even a fun-filled “Satchmo Strut” down Frenchmen Street, taking in most of the nightclubs in the city’s preeminent live music district.

About Louis Armstrong

ne of the most dynamic personalities of the 20th century, Armstrong almost single-handedly transformed jazz into the popular musical art form it is today. With his trademark solos, his gravelly voice and numerous other stylistic innovations, he became a recording industry superstar and a movie star, as well, playing himself and his horn with a broad, infectious grin. He was a goodwill ambassador for his country for much of his adult life, traveling widely and introducing American jazz to the world. Although he spent most of his adult life elsewhere and is buried in New York City, Satchmo never forgot his native city. And his native city never forgot him.

Louis had many nicknames as a child, all of which referred to the size of his mouth: “Gatemouth,” “Dippermouth,” and “Satchelmouth.” During a visit to Great Britain, Louis was met by Percy Brooks, the editor of Melody Maker magazine, who greeted him by saying, “Hello, Satchmo!” (He inadvertently contracted “Satchelmouth” into “Satchmo.”) Louis loved the new name and adopted it for his own. It provides the title to Louis’s second autobiography, is inscribed on at least two of Louis’s trumpets, and is on Louis’s stationery.