Louis Armstrong, also known as Satchmo and Pops, was a jazz trumpet player and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.  His music was very influential to jazz because he shifted the focus from collective improvisation to solo performance.  Armstrong is known for his deep, gravelly voice and for being highly skilled at scat singing.

It was on this day, November 11, 1925, that Louis Armstrong started recording for Hot Five, his first jazz recording band under his own name.  The band consisted of his wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, on the piano, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on the clarinet, and Johnny St. Cyr on the guitar and banjo.  It was with this band that Armstrong popularized adding solo trumpet passages to the jazz genre.

In 1928, Armstrong replaced all of the original Hot Five band members, aside from himself.  The band changed from improvisation to a more arranged style that would later become popular with swing music the following decade.