Satchmo SummerFest has live music, scholarly talks and more | Events

Lil Hardin Armstrong was famous before she met and married Louis Armstrong. She was an accomplished pianist in King Oliver’s band before Satchmo moved to Chicago.

She became the pianist for some of the Hot Five recordings that helped establish Armstrong’s influence on jazz. Lil is often called the “architect” of his early career, and with the recent discovery of her records and materials, there’s a much fuller picture of her influence and her life in her words.

“We didn’t know the extent of the story,” says Adriana Carrillo Silva, the director of guest experience at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York. “She’s so candid. She tells it like it’s nothing. She lived it. She was there. She was Louis Armstong’s best friend for life.”

Silva is returning to the Satchmo SummerFest to talk about Lil’s life and work and play her recordings. The annual celebration of Armstrong (scheduled near his birthday) brings live music to three stages, panel discussions on topics related to Armstrong and more. The festival runs Aug. 1-2 at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, and admission is free.

Silva has previously given talks at Satchmo Fest, including one about what was revealed by an original draft of Armstrong’s autobiography of his young life, “Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans.”

She was doing research at Tulane University’s Hogan Jazz Archives when she became interested in Lil Armstrong. There had been a lot of references to Lil writing an autobiography, but there was no proof of it, Silva says. But two big donations to Armstrong House from personal collections changed that. When New York jazz writer Chris Albertson died in 2019, his materials included a few drafts of chapters of the never completed book.

Then last year, another, larger batch of materials was donated. It contained what appear to be chapter drafts recorded on reel-to-reel tapes. There also were scrapbooks, financial records from her bands and all sorts of memorabilia.

For Silva, it filled in many details about Lil’s life in her words and voice.

Lil Hardin grew up in Memphis and was a child virtuoso on piano. Her father died when she was young, but her mother had the resources to buy Lil a piano and lessons. Lil went to Fisk University but dropped out to be a professional musician in Chicago, which she tried to hide from her mother.

In an age when most women performers were singers or dancers, Lil was a pianist, respected by male musicians.

“She was one of the boys,” Silva says.

Although she liked New Orleans musicians and their sounds, Lil wasn’t terribly impressed by Armstrong at first, including laughing at the way he wore clothes that were too small for him. But Armstrong knew about her, and in a letter to Oliver, he asked him to pass on a greeting to her before he arrived in Chicago.

Musically, Lil and Armstrong were quite compatible, and she was on Hot Five recordings along with other New Orleans players including Kid Ory and Johnny Dodds.

Though the Armstrongs’ marriage unraveled before they officially divorced, she played quite a role in his life.

“It was evident she was so important in giving Louis the confidence to be Louis Armstrong,” Silva says. “She changed history. She had an intuition to know that jazz had to shift into a soloist art form. She pushed Louis to be a pioneer in it. You have to listen to the tapes to know for sure. I am so moved by her.”

Silva also notes that Lil got better and better as a musician as the years went by. She wrote “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue,” and performers including Ray Charles and the Ink Spots recorded her songs.

“She has records in the ’40s that are sublime,” Silva says. “We slept on it.”

At Satchmo Fest, Silva will talk about Lil’s autobiographical materials and look at music she did with the Hot Five and with other bands. She’ll also play recordings.

“I want people to hear her,” she says.

Silva is from Colombia and wrote about culture and music, especially jazz, for the Bogata newspaper El Espectador. She moved to New York in 2010 and continues to do research while managing visitor programs at the Armstrong House.

Louis Armstrong House Archives Director and Armstrong biographer Ricky Riccardi is a regular presenter at the festival. This year, he’ll lead sessions on the birth of the Hot Five and the 70th anniversary of Armstrong’s highly documented trip to Ghana and talk on a panel about a new box set of Armstrong’s early recordings in New York.

There’s also a presentation on Buddy Bolden and more on Armstrong.

The festival has two outdoor stages and piano music inside the museum. The Saturday lineup includes Mark Braud’s All-Stars, Yusa, HaSizzle with the TBC Brass Band, Charmaine Neville, Preservation Brass, Troy Sawyer and the Elementz with Girls Play Trumpets Too and more. Sunday brings an Armstrong tribute from Kermit Ruffins, John Boutte, Don Vappie and Jazz Creole, the Big 6 Brass Band, the Original Pinettes Brass Band, the Nayo Jones Experience and more.

The festival kicks off at 11:30 a.m. Saturday with the Roots of Music band performing on Barracks Street. On Sunday morning, there’s a Jazz Mass at St. Augustine Church at 10 a.m., and afterward, the Treme Brass Band leads a second line to the festival grounds.

For a full schedule and information, visit satchmosummerfest.org.