Louis Armstrong's Life as a Man

By KRIN GABBARD

Louis Armstrong had a genius for defining and promoting himself, going so far as to put a spin on his very entrance into the world. He assigned to that event the date July 4, 1900 -- the most American day at the dawn of the most American century. Never mind that several years after Armstrong's death, in 1971, the jazz historian Tad Jones tracked down Armstrong's birth certificate,...