Louis Armstrong - Satchmo (2000)

The Best Available Armstrong on DVD

Perfect? No work on Louis Armstrong could be perfect but this is as good at it gets. Highest Recommendation! November 16, 2008

Entertaining Overview of the Jazz Legend

This documentary on the life of Louis Armstrong, one of the major proponents of the jazz genre of music, is a quick look at how Louis Armstrong developed into a jazz musician as a vocalist, trumpeter, band leader, and arranger.

'Louis Armstrong - Satchmo' starts with Louis's life growing up in New Orleans and how he spent much of his time in an orphan home playing in a band, which is where his skill had room to take off. The documentary follows his move to Chicago and his involvement in the early jazz recordings.

The DVD contains excerpts of live performances and also tracks Louis Armstrong's gradual but swelling rise to fame and how he attained the nickname "Satchmo". Louis, with his love for performing, became a famous musical figure and eventually had the rare achievement of being featured as a performer in many movies. The docu-biography reveals how Louis never lost his lovable, down-to-earth manner, even with the increased size of his audience. Louis was just Louis, and he would always be loved for his smile, his lovable personality, and of course his music.

Containing interviews with Tony Bennett and Wynton Marsalis, 'Louis Armstrong - Satchmo' is a pleaser about a jazz player's rise to become an enormously famous popular entertainer. And he never lost his charm. We love you, Louie. January 13, 2007

good documentary

Great footage, great information. good for middle school and up. mentiones drug use, but doesn't spend much time on it. mostly the music and how he was adored by all! November 10, 2006

The best of Satch on DVD (so far), Swiss Krissly yours!

I would agree that this is by far the best DVD documentaty of Satch so far (the commendable Ken Burns' Satch segment are spread throughout the series, although quite well done). It handles all the major issues (including the rarely discussed issue of Louis Daniel Armstrong's foray into civil rights) and gives a pretty complete portrait of Louis Armstrong the man and what made him so special.

The film clips are excellent. One reviewer complained that these bits are too brief, but I find them pretty satisfying and enjoyable. Complete performance clips of our man are thankfully available on other Cds. And on that note, I'll say Swiss Krissly yours (hardcore Satch fans will dig). October 18, 2006

Disappointed

I strongly disagree with the other reviews. While the DVD is a good documentary of Louis Armstrong's life, it only has "imbedded" songs, and the menus (indexes) are not set up to go to the songs, so you have to search for them. Unless you enjoy watching the documentary over and over, this is not the way to enjoy his music. I wish I could view the songs without having to shift though a bunch of commentary. I wanted to watch him perform "What a Wonderful World", but it only had about a thirty second clip of that song, and there were no views of Satchmo performing that song . . . it only had a video of people showing their respect at Satchmo funeral. There really was only a couple songs showing Satchmo singing the entire song. Really disappointing throughtout. August 5, 2006

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