Great Lives Preview: Louis Armstrong

"I write about jazz because Louis Armstrong's 1938 "Jubilee," which ought to be included in any universal health-care system, is too good a secret to keep," said Gary Giddins in a personal note on his website. 

Giddins, an award-winning author and music and movie critic will be giving a lecture Louis Armstrong at UMW's Dodd Auditorium today at 7:30 p.m.

Giddens currently writes columns for Jass Times and the New York Sun, but his work has previously been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire and The Nation among others. 

He has also won six ASCAP Deems Taylor awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Peabody Award in Broadcasting and a lifetime achievement award from the Jazz Journalists Association. 

He published "Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong" in 2001. 

One review in Jazz Times lauded the work in Dec. 2003, "If you want to understand why Louis Armstrong ranks among the most seminal figures in American jazz, you need look no further than Gary Giddins' slim masterpiece...Giddins' elegant evaluation of the man and his music is the filet mignon of Armstrong biographies." 

The lecture is part of the eight-year old Great Lives Serie with installments every Tuesday and Thursday.