Daniel Louis Armstrong
(born 1900) was 27 when this little gem of a book was published. It contains transcriptions of his solos on recordings—quite an innovative concept in that day. From the Forward:

“Throughout the world the name of Louis Armstrong is known to thousands of musicians. It is a byword with the interpreters of jazz and commands at all times a place of honor. During the past few years jazz music has come into international vogue. Armstrong was among the pioneer proponents that brought it into popularity and has been a big factor in keeping it to the front. His influence is felt everywhere. Hundreds of jazz cornetists, who, by the way are an important feature in all dance orchestras, have adopted the Armstrong style of playing. His ability is enthusiastically endorsed by all the great and near great.

“The solos in this book depart in principle of production from any solos on the market. They are genuine inspirations obtained, not by the old method of the artist writing down his solos one note at a time, but from actual recordings. Special phonograph recording apparatus was employed to make them. They are red hot inspirations extracted from red hot jazz recordings.

“If you want to get hot and stay hot, play these solos. They will prove invaluable to all jazz cornetists as they can be used in playing any of the famous selections in this book. All cornet strains are indicated by letter or number and correspond with the same strain as marked in the orchestration. Therefore, all that is necessary is to place this book on the stand next to the orchestration—then when the orchestra reaches the cornet strain read your book instead of the orchestration. If you will do this and carefully observe all markings and phrasing, we guarantee that the results will be overwhelmingly satisfactory.”

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