“The Satchmo Story” (Early 1959)

Abstract Armstrong titles this document “The Satchmo Story, 2nd Edition.” This can only mean that he wrote it as a sequel to Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, published in 1954; the forthcoming sequel was announced at the time of publication. Gary Giddins (1988: 16) discusses Joe Glaser’s decision to break off Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans with Arm strong’s arrival in Chicago, as well as the suppression of subsequent material that dealt with marijuana. According to Giddins, Armstrong read parts of the sequel to friends, doubling them up with laughter in reaction to his claims for the medicinal value of ma rijuana. Giddins thought the book had been lost. But the present document, held at the Louis Armstrong House and Archives at Queens College/CUNY, is surely the beginnings of it. Armstrong says, at one point: “This whole second book might be about nothing but gage”-”gage” being slang for marijuana.