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NEW YORK (AP) — The new stage musical about Louis Armstrong on Broadway opens with the jazz icon in a rehearsal room alongside an anonymous piano player. Keep an eye on the guy on keys.
Audiences may not know it, but there are actually two Armstrongs onstage at that moment — the actor playing the great trumpeter and one of his real-life descendants. In an act of casting kismet, the piano player is Brandon Louis Armstrong, the music giant's great-great nephew.
“That moment always feels like I get to — as Brandon — speak to my great-great uncle from beyond,” he says. “I get to just spend a moment in conversation with him and ask if he’s OK and hear his voice.”
The younger Armstrong is making his Broadway debut in “A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical,” playing multiple parts, including a piano player, a teacher and as an understudy for Louis Armstrong himself.
“I was cautious about how I’d be able to step into this world and connect with part of my family history and my lineage,” he says. “I’m so grateful and so thankful and so happy.”
Behind the smile
“A Wonderful World” — starring Tony Award-winner James Monroe Iglehart and sometimes James T. Lane in the title role — is a stage bio of one of jazz's most influential figures, a musician know for “Hello, Dolly,” “Cheek to Cheek” and “A Wonderful World.”
The musical looks behind his wide smile to dig into his rise from poverty, his four marriages and battles with racism from the Klansmen of New Orleans to the thugs of Chicago to Hollywood’s bigots. He emerges from it a transcendent force, warts and all.
“The messaging behind it is that jazz is the choices that we make in between the notes,” says the younger Armstrong. “It’s not about making the right choice every time. It’s about making a choice and allowing yourself to be present wherever those choices may lead you.”
Show choir and ‘Hamilton’
The younger Armstrong was born and raised in Los Angeles. His home was always filled with music, but no one in his immediate family is a musician or wanted to perform.
“I grew up with a lot of jazz playing in the household, a lot of gospel, a lot of R&B, a lot of hip-hop. My mom was also really big into like '80s hair metal bands and stuff like that,” he says. “I’d go from listening to Motown to like listening to Guns n' Roses and then Kenny Rogers. It just was always a tapestry of music.”
He was enchanted by his high school show choir and got invited to join — all boys got in because muscles were needed to lift the girls — and was later stunned by seeing a regional theater production of the classic musical “Ragtime.”
“I was so moved by it, I just was like, ‘I don’t care if I’m the person sweeping the floors when it’s over. I just want to be a part of whatever that is’” he recalls.
He graduated from The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and after some local stage work — including playing Donkey in “Shrek” — landed on the third national tour of “Hamilton,” which kicked off in 2019 in Puerto Rico starring Lin-Manuel Miranda.
No name dropping
Armstrong didn't lean into his family name to get ahead. Press interviews when he broke out didn't even mention his famous pedigree. “I never, surprisingly, thought to ever lead with that,” he says. “In this particular show, it's inescapable.”
Iglehart, also a co-director, recalls Armstrong walking into the rehearsal room and stating his name. “We’re like, ‘How cool.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, I’m related.’” He got the job based on his voice and acting — not his name.
“We really did it on talent,” says Iglehart. “I always feel like who's ever the most talented person for the show, that should be who is in it. But then the fact that it was his lineage, we kind of felt that it was like a sign.”
“A Wonderful World" has been a way to honor not only Louis Armstrong but also Brandon's grandfather, Louis Henry Armstrong, who told stories about his proud lineage and would often pick Brandon up after school blasting jazz music, much to his teenage embarrassment.
“I just think in those moments how unbelievably proud he would be of something like this,” he says. “It’s like the best kind of therapy every night.”
While there is an actual Armstrong in the cast, fellow actors and creatives haven't pulled Brandon aside to ask him about what Louis would think about a line or a scene. That's because Louis Armstrong left many rich writings about his thoughts.
“So much of the heartbeat of what it is that our show is beating with — and I prefer it this way — is the heartbeat that’s being told through Louis’ voice, as opposed to someone coming in and arbitrarily putting themselves into him," the younger Armstrong said.
In addition to the rehearsal piano player, serving in the ensemble and playing the New Orleans music teacher who recognized Louis Armstrong's talent, Brandon knows that one day he will be asked to go on as his great-great uncle.
“My biggest concern I think when it happens is just trying not to cry all the way through the show,” he says, laughing. “Somehow the universe has paved out this road for me that has landed me here, getting to literally take the stage and carry that baton."
