Louis Armstrong Festival Honors Musician's Legacy on Chicago's South Side

BAC will host a Satchmo gallery exhibit and film festival in January and February, as part of the Louis Armstrong Festival.

The Beverly Arts Center is thrilled to be part of the Louis Armstrong Festival and will be telling another version of Louis Armstrong’s life with the assistance of the Louis Armstrong House Museum and archivist Ricky Riccardi.

The archives, located at Queens College in New York, will be loaning components that will highlight his gig at the Waldorf, Race and Civil Rights, Armstrong in Chicago, and finally his relationship with manager Joe Glaser.

The Satchmo gallery exhibit will open at the BAC and Gallery Guichard on Jan. 8 with an opening reception on Jan. 10. A bus will be available to take patrons between the BAC and Gallery Guichard on Jan. 10 only.

Along with the exhibit, the BAC will be hosting a free symposium on Monday, Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m. featuring Terry Teachout, playwright of Satchmo at the Waldorf, being presented at Court Theatre, and Ricky Riccardi, Louis Armstrong House Museum archivist. Riccardi will also share some of the 700 reel-to-reel recordings made by Armstrong throughout his life.

A film festival will highlight Armstrong’s work in February when the BAC will show three films of importance in Armstrong’s life. “High Society” will kick things off on Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m. will feature “Cabin in the Sky,”

“Satchmo the Great” wraps up the series on Sunday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. This special documentary loaned from Armstrong archives was made by the legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, is a 1957 biography film of the jazz-great. He and his band tour the world as American goodwill ambassadors bringing jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music.

One of the outstanding scenes in this “biography/docudrama” shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy’s immortal “St. Louis Blues.”

The Beverly Arts Center is located at 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago.

Source: Beverly Arts Center