Music & lectures

saturday, august 1

Delta Utilities Stage

Esplanade Ave side of the New Orleans Jazz Museum

11:30 AM – 12:00 PM | Roots of Music presented by Airbnb

12:00 PM – 1:10 PM | Preservation Brass presented by Jones Walker

1:30 PM – 2:40 PM | Troy Sawyer & The Elementz feat. Girls Play Trumpets Too presented by A Friend of Fest

3:00 PM – 4:10 PM | Joe Lastie’s Jazz to Brass presented by Bourgeois Bennett CPAs and Consultants 

4:40 PM – 5:50 PM | Assata Renay presented by Premium Parking

6:20 PM – 7:50 PM | Hasizzle with TBC Brass Band presented by Airbnb

fidelity bank Piano Sessions Stage

Gallery on the 2nd floor of the New Orleans Jazz Museum

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM | Jenna McSwain presented by Fidelity Bank

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Tribute to Ma Rainey ft. Lars Edegran & Thais Clark Ricky Riccardi & Wendell Brunious presented by Fidelity Bank

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM | Professor Craig Adams ft. Barbara Shorts & Philip Shelley presented by Fidelity Bank

The Satchmo Legacy Stage in Memory of Joni Berry

The Satchmo Legacy Stage in Memory of Joni Berry features two days of fascinating discussions by renowned Armstrong scholars. Join us on the third floor of the New Orleans Jazz Museum. 

12:00 PM – 12:45 PM | Armstrong and His Music Across the Continents

Speakers: Dr. Robert Mikell

Louis Armstrong performed his music across six Continents (except Antarctica) and influenced musicians down through the generations. He toured extensively and brought Jazz to a diversity of audiences around the world. His performances were a major factor in popularizing Jazz internationally.

1:00 PM – 1:45 PM | The Corona Collection

Speaker: Charanya Ramakrishnan

Charanya Ramakrishnan discusses her project where she talked to 15 neighbors who originally lived on the block in Corona and who have memories of Louis and Lucille.

2:00 PM – 2:45 PM | Good Evening, Everybody on the Radio: Louis Armstrong is on the Air

Speaker: Jon Pult

In an era before television, the internet, and streaming, radio connected Americans to the wider world in real time, serving as a primary source of news, entertainment, and, importantly, shared cultural experience. This presentation surveys Louis Armstrong’s life “on the air” as a guest, host, bandleader, and subject.

3:00 PM – 3:45 PM | Intersections of Tap Dance with Louis Armstrong

Speakers: Lisa La Touche

This presentation explores the influence and intersection of tap dance on Louis Armstrong’s artistry and legacy. It also highlights the many tap dancers who performed alongside Armstrong, celebrating their contributions and significance as artists in their own right.The research presented is drawn from Lisa’s work as an Artist in Residence with the Louis Armstrong House Museum, as well as a recent research fellowship with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation focused on the history of tap dance in New Orleans.Through archival photographs, documents, and recordings, the presentation traces the intersections between Armstrong and tap dance while also sharing stories of influential New Orleans artists whose creative development was deeply connected to tap traditions, including Earl Palmer.The lecture will conclude with a brief live performance featuring Lisa’s original choreography, demonstrating the natural relationship between tap dance and the rhythmic vitality of an early Louis Armstrong recording.

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM | Birth of the Hot: 100 Years of the Hot Five

Speakers: Ricky Riccardi

In November 1925, Louis Armstrong recorded his first session as a leader, assembling a studio group known as the Hot Five. By the time of the group’s second session in February 1926, Hot Five had altered the course of jazz history. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Hot Five, Louis Armstrong historian, author, and archivist Ricky Riccardi will be on hand to do a deep dive on these seminal early sessions.

Sunday, August 2

Delta Utilities Stage

Esplanade Ave side of the New Orleans Jazz Museum

12:00 PM – 1:10 PM | Kid Merv & All That Jazz presented by Pops’ Circle

1:30 PM – 2:40 PM | Sir Chantz Powell & The Sound Of Funk (S.O.F.) presented by Camp Bow Wow

3:00 PM – 4:10 PM | The Nayo Jones Experience presented by  A Friend of Fest

4:40 PM – 5:50 PM | Don Vappie and Jazz Creole presented by New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation

6:20 PM – 7:50 PM | The Original Pinettes Brass Band presented by A Friend of Fest

fidelity bank Piano Sessions Stage

Gallery on the 2nd floor of the New Orleans Jazz Museum

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM | Linda Aubert presented by Fidelity Bank

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Tom Worrell presented by Fidelity Bank

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM | John Royen & Tim Laughlin presented by Fidelity Bank

The Satchmo Legacy Stage in Memory of Joni Berry

The Satchmo Legacy Stage in Memory of Joni Berry features two days of fascinating discussions by renowned Armstrong scholars. Join us on the third floor of the New Orleans Jazz Museum. 

12:00 PM – 12:45 PM | From Memphis to Paris on a Piano Stool: Lil Armstrong’s Lost & Found Autobiography

Speaker: Adriana Carrillo

Originally born in Memphis, pianist, composer, and bandleader Lillian Hardin Armstrong was better known for her contributions to the Hot Five recordings, and her relationship with Louis Armstrong. She was often attributed as the Architect of Armstrong’s career and the instigator of his stardom.
Using a newly acquired collection by the Louis Armstrong House Museum, we’ll hear in her own words, stories that would have been part of her lost autobiography. While it remains incomplete, the tales and artifacts illuminate much of the existing knowledge about Lil. Her storytelling abilities and her candid perspective add details to the episode of her marriage with the jazz ambassador, since they met in 1922 and before they separated in 1931, as well as crucial events before and after meeting Louis.

This presentation is an emotional take on the vision and sophistication of this Southern artist, her journey from “The pride of Virginia Avenue” into “The Hot Miss Lil” and her overlooked legacy to jazz history.

1:00 PM – 1:45 PM | The Making of Mosaic Records’ “Complete Louis in New York Sessions 1924-1925

Speakers: David Sager, Scott Wenzel, and Ricky Riccardi

This summer, Mosaic Records will be releasing what is sure to be one of the most important Louis Armstrong boxed sets in recent years, a 6 CD collection of everything Armstrong recorded as a sidemen in New York City in 1924-25, including sides with Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith, Sidney Bechet, and many others. Three of the sets co-producers–and Satchmo Summerfest returning favorites—Scott Wenzel, David Sager, and Ricky Riccardi will discuss the challenges faced during the making of the set and will share audio samples from the process.

2:00 PM – 2:45 PM | Pops at the Movies

Speakers: Sharone Carmona

Before Louis Armstrong was a movie star he was a movie fan, and his experiences at the movies influenced his storytelling, his sense of humor, and his outlook on life in addition to his music. Drawing on archival materials from the Louis Armstrong House Museum, including reel-to-reel tapes, video clips, photos, and scrapbooks, as well as historical contexts, we’ll accompany Pops as he plays in the orchestra for silent movies, watches an increasingly tense screening of D.W. Griffiths’ infamous Birth of a Nation, takes in matinees between performances, puts on Westerns for the kids in his neighborhood in Corona, Queens, and more. Together, we’ll experience the magic of the movies through Satchmo’s eyes.

3:00 PM – 3:45 PM | Buddy Bolden’s Last Dance

Speaker: James Karst

Just weeks before he dropped out of the Labor Day parade in New Orleans, jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden booked a performance on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. This presentation will share details on this heretofore unknown event, which upends existing knowledge about Bolden’s exposure to white audiences and raises new questions about how the end of his career was tied to his changing living conditions. It also includes a newly discovered contemporary mention of a Bolden performance in a local newspaper, the only one known to exist.

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM | All for You, Louis: 70th Anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s First Trip to Ghana

Speaker: Ricky Riccard

In 1956, CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow set up a visit for Louis Armstrong to visit the Gold Coast of Africa, soon to become the independent nation of Ghana. Murrow sent a camera crew and photographers to document Armstrong’s every move, which became the centerpiece of the documentary film “Satchmo the Great.” Ricky Riccardi will be on hand to provide an almost hour-by-hour account of this trip, featuring rare recordings, video footage, and photographs.