The Louis Armstrong House Museum Digitizes Research Collections Of Thousands Of Artifacts

(New York, NY): The Digitization of The Louis Armstrong House Museum's Research Collections will soon launch their platform allowing complete online access to spectacular, never-before-seen collection of photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, audio, videos, personal papers, scrapbooks and sheet music of Louis Armstrong and his entourage.

The collection, currently being digitized by Deluxe Media Recall, will be housed on the Museum's website and made available to researchers, historians, and Armstrong admirers of all ages. Highlights of the collection include:

• Scrapbooks: A complete compilation of all the memories Armstrong made during his time in Queens and beyond, featuring material dating back to the mid-1920's.

• Audio: With the help of Grammy award-winning engineer Andreas Meyer, hundreds of hours of never-before-heard audio, can now be contemplated and enjoyed. The tunes and talks were digitized from reel-to-reel tapes, acetate discs and cassette tapes and take us back with Louis through his experiences, from concert recordings to interviews to spoken word tapes.

• Video: Hours of never-before-seen footage including a Queen's College Ceremony in 1987 when the college acquired the Armstrong House, accompanied by a concert with performances by Dizzy Gillespie, Jon Faddis, Dexter Gordon & more!

• Photographs: The Museum digitized dozens of new photos of Armstrong at home, in celebration of their annual gala which is themed the 75th anniversary of the Armstrong's moving to Queens. Jack Bradley, Armstrong's personal photographer and close friend, took thousands of exclusive shots of this jazz giant that fans can finally set their eyes on. An intimate perspective into Louis backstage, in his recording studio, at home and in concert is provided by unique photographs by Paul Studer, a friend of Armstrong. A mishap turned miracle, Maynard Frank sold 200 negatives of photos of Louis Armstrong to a man who lost, discovered, and donated them to the Louis Armstrong House Museum to be digitized.

Additionally, this year, the Annual Louis Armstrong House Museum Gala event will be held on Wednesday, November 28th at Capitale in Manhattan and will include include a cocktail hour, silent auction, seated dinner, and the presentation of the Louie Award to 9-time-Grammy-award-winning musician, philanthropist and long time friend of Louis Armstrong, Herb Alpert, as well as, noted philanthropists Saul Kupferberg and Gail Coleman. Past recipients of the Louie Award include Wycliffe Gordon, Quincy Jones, Dick Cavett, Dr. John, George Avakian, Jon Faddis and Robert F. Smith. 

The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation is dedicated to perpetuating the legacies of Louis and Lucille Armstrong throughout the world. Their generosity, donating Louie’s and Lucille’s Corona home to the city of New York and Armstrong’s archives to CUNY Queens College, made it possible for the creation of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. Through this stunning stock of artifacts, The Louis Armstrong House Museum adheres to their ambition of educating and inspiring people of all ages, origins and locations.

This summer, the museum broke ground on its new 14,000-square-foot Louis Armstrong House Museum Education Center, located directly across from the original house in Corona, Queens. The $23 million facility, a gift from a variety of benefactors including the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Queens College, the Borough of Queens and the governor's office, will house a state-of-the-art exhibition gallery, 68-seat jazz club, museum store and the Louis Armstrong Archives, currently housed at Queens College. The facility is set to be completed in 2019.

MORE ABOUT THE DIGITIZATION:

In 2016, The Louis Armstrong House Museum (LAHM) received a generous, 2.7 million dollar grant from Robert F. Smith’s Fund II Foundation to create the museum's first fellowship program and Digitization of Collections Program. These two programs allow the museum to serve a greater community by training future museum professionals and by completing the digitization of the museum’s monumental research collections. The grant to the Louis Armstrong House Museum helps to fulfill the institution's mission of preserving the African-American experience. 

The LAHM Museum Fellowship Program will be open to African-American History majors currently enrolled in historically black colleges, universities, and other institutions that have an evident interest in the curatorship of African-American heritage and will expose students to opportunities in curatorial studies and inspire them to consider curatorial careers.

Louis Armstrong House Museum on the web:

https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/

https://www.facebook.com/louisarmstronghousemuseum/

https://twitter.com/ArmstrongHouse