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Thanks to his legions of loyal fans, there are a number of web sites devoted to the legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong. We found the wealth of information helpful, but the abundance of detail also makes it difficult to quickly locate an answer to a specific question. Our initial search on "louis armstrong satchmo" deluged us with results, some of which would no doubt provide the answer, but only after quite a bit of reading and clicking. We've learned from past experience that it helps to be as specific as possible on a quest such as this, so we typed the whole darn question into the search box. Lo and behold, this time we hit the right note. Our search results led us to a page from the PBS site devoted to the Ken Burns' documentary Jazz. The page explains that Armstrong's nickname is short for "Satchelmouth." This derogatory-sounding moniker was actually a compliment that referred to his generous mouth (which was also reported to be quite dirty). Some say his nickname stemmed from his wide, infectious grin, while others state it was a nickname he earned in band class as his cheeks blew up when he played the cornet. Regardless, "Satchmo" was coined during a 1932 trip to London when a magazine editor greeted Armstrong with "Hello, Satchmo." Armstrong liked the shortened version of his nickname so much he used it as an album title. It stuck. As we learned from our research, Louis was also called "Pops" and "Sweet Papa Dip." Why the latter? Well that's another question for Ask
Yahoo!.
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