Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and More: Jazz Legends We're Celebrating for International Jazz Day

Louis Armstrong’s deep, gravelly voice has endured decades. Born in 1901 in New Orleans, Armstrong had led a difficult life before rising to prominence in music. Abandoned by his father, Armstrong lived with his mother before being sent to live in a coloured home for boys. It was there where he fell in love with the cornet, which was to carve his name in history forever. 

Mentored by Joe “King” Oliver, Armstrong gradually rose to fame, taking jobs in various bands, eventually becoming popular in New York and Chicago. By the 1960s, well into his career, he was said to have been performing 300 nights a year. Some of his most notable works include “What A Wonderful World” and “La Vie En Rose”. 

Thelonious Monk is a bit more reclusive than the other legends on the list. A gifted pianist, Monk often performed at Minton’s Playhouse in New York City, where his influence shaped the future of bebop music. Some people described his music as “angular” with dissonant harmonies at unusual intervals. Despite this, his music held a playful quality, which many enjoyed. Some of his most famous songs include “Suburban Eyes”, "Blue Monk", and “‘Round Midnight”. 

It was in the 1940s that Miles Davis’ musical creativity truly shined. The son of a dentist, Davis began playing the trumpet in his early teens, earning a spot for himself in the Institute of Musical Art, now known as The Julliard School. Restless and inventive, he often skipped classes and learned his art through jam sessions with masters such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Needless to say, Davis continued to rub elbows with musical tastemakers throughout his career. 

His style is striking, rich with inflection, and often deliberate in its pacing and rhythm. His most notable work came out in 1957, the album Birth of the Cool. 

Chet Baker, born 1928 and died 1988, is an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. Most noted for his gentle, almost feminine singing voice as well as his upbeat trumpeter rhythms, Baker rose to fame in 1953 and then again in 1954 when he released, “Let’s Get Lost”. While romantic, its lyrics take on a whole new dimension in light of Baker’s persistent heroin addiction, for which he’d battled throughout his life. With movie star good looks, dark hair, and soulful eyes, this jazz trumpeter held promise throughout his music career, which lasted well into the 80’s before he died falling out of a window in his Amsterdam hotel. 

Today, despite his tumultuous and public battle with drugs,  Baker is celebrated as a cult figure in the music industry, leaving behind a legacy of talent and of rhythm. 

As a child of seven, Duke Ellington had already begun playing the piano. Originally born in Washington DC, Ellington eventually moved to New York to pursue his music career where he eventually helped birth big-band jazz. Highly creative, Ellington also experimented with jazz in classical forms recomposing and reorchestrating songs such as Peter Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite”. His symphonic “A Rhapsody of Negro Life” eventually became the basis for a short film in the 1930’s. Some of his most notable songs include “Take the ‘A’ Train” and “In A Sentimental Mood”. 

Billie Holiday’s nostalgic high-pitched voice is an open gateway to sentimental feelings and tender remembrances. Originally born as Elinore Harris, Holiday began her career singing in a nightclub in Harlem. Although she had no formal training in music, she had an instinctive sense of musical structure that coupled well with her own wealth of experience; this developed her signature singing style with was moving and simultaneously unique. 

In the late 1930’s, she toured with Count Basie and then began to perform in cabarets and concerts in the 1940’s. Highly successful, Holiday had her own struggles with heroin, which impacted her voice but not her singing technique. Today, some of her most well-known songs include “Billie’s Blues” and “God Bless the Child”. She died in 1959, shortly after writing her autobiography, which was turned into a motion picture starring Diana Ross in 1972.