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60 free Louis Armstrong trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Louis Armstrong trivia quiz covers the trumpeter and singer who turned jazz from a group music into a soloist's art. The easy questions cover the nickname, the city, the instrument, the two most famous songs and the record that knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts. From there it moves through the life: the Karnoffsky family and the pawn-shop cornet, the New Year's Eve gunshot that sent him to the Colored Waif's Home, the riverboats with Fate Marable, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, the Hot Five and Hot Seven, the dropped sheet music that produced the first famous scat record, and the four wives. The harder end covers the 200 high Cs, the mob-connected manager Joe Glaser, the year without playing, the Little Rock outburst that got him an FBI file, the razor blade and the lip salve, the laxative he handed to royalty, 'Ambassador Satch', the Time cover as King of the Zulus, and the record on the Voyager Golden Record. Every answer was checked against Armstrong's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our jazz and famous musicians quizzes are the natural next stop.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Louis Armstrong born and raised?
New Orleans
He grew up in a rough neighbourhood called the Battlefield on Rampart Street.
Q 02What birthday did Armstrong himself often claim, though records suggest August 4, 1901?
July 4, 1900
His mother was about 16 when she gave birth at home; his father soon abandoned the family.
Q 03Which family of Lithuanian Jews employed the young Armstrong and advanced him money for his first cornet?
The Karnoffskys
He wore a Star of David all his life partly in their memory, and wrote a memoir about them in 1969.
Q 04What did Armstrong do on New Year's Eve 1912 that got him sent to the Colored Waif's Home?
Fired his stepfather's gun into the air
He fired a blank; the home was run like a military camp, but its band gave him his first real teacher, Peter Davis.
Q 05Whose steamboat orchestra did Armstrong call 'going to the University' for making him sight-read?
Fate Marable's
They toured the Mississippi on the steamer Sidney for the Streckfus line.
Q 06Whose place did Armstrong take in Kid Ory's band in 1918 when his mentor moved north?
Joe Oliver's
He also became second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band.
Q 07To which city did Armstrong move in 1922 to join his mentor's Creole Jazz Band?
Chicago
He played second cornet at the black-only Lincoln Gardens and had his first private bath.
Q 08How many high Cs in a row could Armstrong reportedly play?
200
His reputation drew challenges to 'cutting contests' from other musicians.
Q 09For which label did Armstrong make his first studio recordings, with the Creole Jazz Band, in April 1923?
Gennett Records
The studio was in remote Richmond, Indiana; Armstrong played so loud he had to stand 15 feet behind Oliver.
Q 10Why did Armstrong have to stand 15 feet from the bandleader in the corner of the Gennett studio?
His playing was so loud it drowned the leader out
The band played straight into a large funnel; electrical recording did not arrive until 1926.
Q 11Which Creole Jazz Band pianist became Armstrong's second wife in 1924?
Lil Hardin
She had him play classical music in church concerts and dress better 'to offset his girth'.
Q 12Whose orchestra, the top African-American band of the day, did Armstrong join in New York in 1924?
Fletcher Henderson's
He switched from cornet to trumpet to blend with the section, and Ellington's band came to Roseland to watch him.
Q 13Which billing did Lil give Armstrong in publicity back in the Midwest in 1925, much to his chagrin?
'The World's Greatest Trumpet Player'
Q 21Which younger white singer's style owed the most to Armstrong's vocal innovations?
Bing Crosby
Crosby's 'Just One More Chance' of 1931 shows the debt plainly.
Q 22What was Armstrong's first film, made in Los Angeles in 1931?
Ex-Flame
The same year he was convicted of marijuana possession and given a suspended sentence.
Q 23What was the name of the hometown baseball team he sponsored?
The Secret Nine
He also had a cigar named after him during his 1931 hero's return to the city.
For a time he worked in the Lil Hardin Armstrong Band, employed by his wife.
Q 14What was 'Muggles', the title of a Hot Five hit, slang for?
Marijuana
Armstrong smoked it for much of his life and called it 'a thousand times better than whiskey'.
Q 15How many records did the Hot Five produce in the twelve months from November 1925?
Twenty-four
Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Johnny St. Cyr and Lil Armstrong made up the rest, usually with no drummer.
Q 16On which 1926 Hot Five recording did Armstrong famously scat, supposedly after dropping the sheet music?
'Heebie Jeebies'
He thought the take would be discarded; instead it made the Hot Five the most famous jazz band in America.
Q 17With which pianist did Armstrong record the 1928 duet 'Weather Bird' and the landmark 'West End Blues'?
Earl 'Fatha' Hines
His trumpet introduction to 'West End Blues' is among the most influential improvisations in jazz.
Q 18Which two musicians were added to the Hot Five to make it the Hot Seven in 1927?
A drummer and a tuba player
Baby Dodds on drums and Pete Briggs on tuba; John Thomas replaced Kid Ory on trombone.
Q 19In which 1929 Waller-Razaf revue did Armstrong steal the show singing 'Ain't Misbehavin''?
Hot Chocolates
He was in the pit orchestra and made a cameo as a vocalist; the record became his biggest seller yet.
Q 20Which Hoagy Carmichael song did Armstrong turn into one of its most successful recordings ever in 1931?
'Stardust'
His radical rework of Carmichael's 'Lazy River' the same year showed the same approach to melody and phrasing.
Q 24Which mob-connected manager cleaned up Armstrong's legal and money mess from the mid-1930s?
Joe Glaser
Glaser was Jewish and gave Armstrong the Star of David he wore until his death.
Q 25In 1937 Armstrong became the first African American to do what on network radio?
Host a sponsored national broadcast
He was substituting for Rudy Vallee on CBS.
Q 26In which New York borough did Armstrong settle permanently in 1943 with his fourth wife Lucille?
Queens
The house is now the Louis Armstrong House Museum.
Q 27What was the six-piece group Armstrong's manager formed for him in August 1947 called?
The All-Stars
Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden and Barney Bigard were among its shifting membership.
Q 28Which French song did Louis Armstrong hear Suzy Delair sing in Nice in 1948, then record in English?
'C'est si bon'
He cut it in New York in 1950 with Sy Oliver's orchestra.
Q 29Armstrong was the first jazz musician on the cover of Time magazine in 1949, pictured in what role?
King of the Zulu krewe at Mardi Gras
He presided over the Zulu krewe's parade that year.
Q 30Roughly how many performances a year did Armstrong give over three decades?
More than 300
He also appeared in more than 30 films.