Bio : Louis Armstrong House Museum
ABOUT LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOUSE MUSEUM
Louis Armstrong is a definitive arbiter of Jazz and America’s first Black popular music icon. He entertained millions, from heads of state and royalty to the kids on his stoop in the working-class neighborhood of Corona, Queens. The Louis Armstrong House Museum preserves this legacy by offering guided tours of the historic home and preserving Armstrong’s 60,000-piece archives. The Museum is in the midst of a dramatic physical and programmatic transformation, marked most visibly by the opening of the new Louis Armstrong Center, located across the street from the historic home. The new Center helps advance our mission of preserving the legacy of Louis and Lucille Armstrong, and to live their values of artistic excellence, education and community. The expanded campus will become a new, international destination celebrating Armstrong’s distinctive role in African-Diaspora history and vitality, offering year-round exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, and screenings through an array of public programs for all ages. With longstanding partners, Queens College and the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, and with a growing list of supporters and programmatic collaborators, the Museum will become a Queens-based hub for inspiration and learning, economic development and tourism.
ABOUT REGINA BAIN
Regina Bain is an artist and educator serving as the Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. In the midst of the reverberations of slavery, Jim Crow laws and the great migration, Armstrong became America’s first Black popular music icon. The Museum preserves his home and archives and develops programs grounded in the values of artistic excellence, education and community. This year, Ms. Bain will open the new 14,000 sq. foot Armstrong Center housing a multimedia exhibit curated by Jason Moran, a 75-seat performance space, and the 60,000-piece Armstrong Archives — the largest archives of any jazz musician and one of the largest of any Black musician. Previous to her appointment at LAHM, Ms. Bain served as Associate Vice President of the Posse Foundation — a national leadership and college access program where she supported site directors in all aspects of their role and led staff training on the program areas of leadership, academic excellence and cross cultural dialogue. Bain’s efforts helped to increase Posse’s national student graduation rates for four consecutive years. Bain is currently the co-chair of Culture @3’s anti-racism subcommittee and recently served on the Yale Board of Governors.
ABOUT JASON MORAN
Pianist, composer and artist Jason Moran is the Artistic Director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. Moran studied with pianists Jaki Byard, Andrew Hill and Muhal Richard Abrams and began his solo recording career in 1998. He has released 18 solo recordings for Blue Note Records and his own label Yes Records. In 2010 Moran was named a MacArthur Fellow as well as a Doris Duke Fellow. He scored Ava Duvernay's Selma and The 13th. His work with dance companies include Lines Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence Dance Company and the Martha Graham Dance Company. His visual art is in museum collections across the nation and he curated the permanent exhibition for the Louis Armstrong House Museum. In 2022 He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was recently awarded the 2023 German Jazz Prize for Pianist of the Year. He currently teaches at the New England Conservatory in Boston.