The Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York is being recognized nationally for it’s contributions to the community.
WBGO’s Ang Santos talks with the museum’s executive director, who will accept an award during a ceremony in Washington DC later this month…
Ang Santos: With us today on the WBGO Journal, Regina Bain, Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, New York City. The museum is being recognized nationally by the Institute of Museum and Library Services with a medal for contributions to the community. Regina, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.
Regina Bain: Thank you for having me.
AS: How did this honor from the IMLS come about?
RB: IMLS has been an amazing supporter of museums across the nation for decades, and we have been honored to receive awards from IMLS over the years, but this was a special year. This was the opening of the new Armstrong Center right across the street from the historic house. It felt like the right time to try to go for this honor, for this medal. The museum, the historic house of Louis Armstrong, a national landmark, has been open for guided tours to the public since 2003. With the new opening of the Armstrong Center, we now have a 75 seat jazz club, the 60,000 piece archives, the largest of any jazz musician and an amazing exhibit curated by Jason Moran right across the street from the historic house.
AS: What does this recognition say about how the Armstrong House Museum serves the community?
RB: Louis Armstrong loved Corona. Of course he was born in New Orleans, but he lived for 30 years on 107th Street in Corona, Queens. And there's a sound clip that we get share on the tour of the house where he talks about the song What A Wonderful World. He talks about thinking about the people on his block and his community when he sings that song. Thinking about the kids that he saw grow up. We wanna be in that legacy. We do that by teaching kids trumpet. Louis Armstrong, there's a famous picture of him sitting on the steps of the historic house with some young folks, and they're learning trumpet. We do that now with an amazing donation of trumpets that we received. We are doing oral histories within the community of people who remember Louis Armstrong. We want to make sure to capture those stories. So it's everything from concerts to kids. That’s what community means to us.
AS: I was in concert band and jazz band all through grade school, all through high school, and I remember my parents giving me one of those 20th Century Masters compilations. It was a Louis Armstrong CD. I was really taken by Mack the Knife. It was cool, and I never really heard anything like it. Do you recall your sort of, a-ha moment with Louis Armstrong? You know, where you sat there and you said to yourself, yeah, I'm into this?
RB: This man has had five decades of hits and counting with Cool Yule and with Armstrong in London that's coming out soon. He has had so many hits. The sounds from each decade are different. I have many favorites, but right now, I'll say one of my favorites that struck me from a most recent listening is actually St. James Infirmary. And there are, I believe two recordings of it, but there's one, one of the later recordings. We have these listening sessions run by Matt Rivera. People just come in and play 78’s that we have in our archive or that they bring with them. We listened to. St. John's Infirmary in the Armstrong Center in that beautifully designed room for sound. I fell in love with that song in a way that I hadn't before because I could hear all the pops and crisps. I could hear the laughter in this dark comedy of a track. I loved it. It made me appreciate Louis Armstrong in a way that I hadn't even before that because of the complexity of that sound and his approach as a performer. So I'll say, in this moment, and it may change when I listen to something else, but St. James Infirmary.
AS: On July 30th, the Institute of Museum and Library Services is hosting a ceremony in Washington D.C. where you're going to be presented with a medal?
RB: Yes.
AS: What’s that going to be like?
RB: We will be there with a member of our community and with the other amazing organizations that have been honored by this medal this year and throughout time. We’re becoming part of an amazing legacy of storytelling in our nation. It's really important that jazz and that Louis Armstrong be in that number. We will be there. I am thankful to institutions like IMLS and thankful to institutions like WBGO who are keeping legacies of history for us as a nation. Jazz is America and we need, institutions like WBGO and IMLS to recognize that and keep it going. I'm thankful to our community, all of our supporters, and the folks on the block who come day to day. We appreciate you. This honor is because of you.
For more info on the Louis Armstrong House Museum, visit here.