President Emeritus

“The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc. always looks for ways that will appropriately represent EXACTLY what Louis Armstrong achieved, which very few artists did. Armstrong brought together profound talent, profound influence, and an innovative sense of humanity that remains, as does all great art, timeless. Armstrong’s vision of life is always up to date because it includes the fundamental vision of democracy: the individual should be respected and not unfairly hampered because all human possibilities need no passport, no class, no color, no religion, and no geographical context to exist. Humanity is humanity and it is always there when one arrives in the middle of the people, who forever remain any nation’s greatest natural resource. Louis Armstrong understood this perfectly, which is why he was the improvising seer of a profoundly new improvising art based upon empathy. It is why his mind was equal in its understanding of the profound meaning of the civil rights movement and put him inline with Martin Luther King’s vision of moving beyond prejudice. When Armstrong did this, he had to stand against powerful critics but he never wavered. Throughout history, there have been few artists, no matter how profound, who were able to bring together transcending talent, transcending influence, and a profound sense of human meaning in a liberating social context. Louis Armstrong did, and that is what the Foundation attempts to fulfill as well as it can in the world of musical education.”

Stanley Crouch, 2012