The “Goffin Notebooks” (CA. 1944)

Abstract Armstrong organizes the Goffin notebooks by year, covering the period 1918-1931, but within each section he ranges somewhat freely outside of the designated year. His marriage to Lil is placed in a section headed “1923,” but the wedding took place February 5, 1924. Armstrong probably made an error when he headed a second section “1923,” for the events that follow, including Oliver’s tour and Armstrong’s departure for Henderson’s band in New York, happened in 1924. He has numbered the notebooks I, 2, 3, and 5. Notebook 3 ends with the year 1926, with Armstrong at the pinnacle of his Chicago years, and notebook 5 begins with the year 1928, with Armstrong and friends scrambling for a job-” ‘Things gotten so ‘Tough with us until I 5¢ (Fifteen cents) looked like $15.00 (Fifteen dollars)”-and in the middle of a story about a car that was not covered earlier. Thus, even though Armstrong mentions “four books of stories” in his letter to Goffin, it seems likely that a fifth notebook (numbered “4”), covering 1926 and 1927, has been lost.