Louis Armstrong Foundation gives $1 million to jazz at Lincoln Center to create national programs for kids

Jet, July 27, 1998

The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation recently gave a $1 million gift to Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York to bring together jazz and children.

The foundation, headquartered in New York City, was founded by the late jazz trumpeter two years before he died in 1971.

The money will support the Louis Armstrong Jazz Curriculum Project, a national initiative to introduce jazz to children in grades four through eight.

Jazz at Lincoln Center will oversee the project, which includes teacher-parent guides, student workbooks, compact discs and other educational materials.

The project will also draw from Jazz at Lincoln Center's popular Jazz for Young People concerts, which are hosted by famed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who is also artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Marsalis said, "The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation's leadership in making a national jazz studies curriculum possible is truly an historic and monumental development in the history of American music education."

David Gold, president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, said the project is "exactly the type of activity he would have wanted us to embrace."

The gift was announced on Arm strong's birthday, July 4.

Phoebe Jacobs, who is vice president of the foundation, pointed out, "Throughout his lifetime, Louis gave gifts to people on his own birthday, which he celebrated on the fourth of July. To honor his tradition, we decided to give this gift to Jazz at Lincoln Center on what would have been his 97th birthday."