Little Satchmo

By Sharon Folta

To the world, Louis Armstrong is iconic—a symbol of musical genius, unparalleled success and unassailable character. To Sharon Preston Folta, he was, simply, Dad. Despite the enduring celebration and study of Armstrong’s life and career, no one, save for close family and friends, knows Sharon exists. Even in the trumpeter’s death she remains Armstrong’s secret—the product of a two-decade-long affair between the long-married musician, and the vaudeville dancer Lucille Preston. And for more than half a century, she has lived her life hiding in the shadows of her father’s fame. Until now. Now, Sharon shares her story—extraordinary because of who her father was, but universal in its reach toward generations who have grown up in fatherless households, searching for a keen understanding of their own blood, their own DNA, their own Legacy. Little Satchmo is an extraordinary tale of identity, loss, and one daughter’s ultimate search for truth—and her father’s love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Folta
• Release date: Mar 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301411184

Sharon Folta

Sharon Preston-Folta was born in Harlem, NY but moved to Mt. Vernon, NY at age 7 where she lived until she was 26 years old. Sharon spent a twenty-plus-year career in advertising sales and marketing, predominantly as an account executive in radio, working with such companies as Fairchild Publications and WLNY TV in Long Island, and ABC/Disney and CBS Radio in New York City. She is currently Marketing Media Planner and Personal Chef. In addition to her BA from Iona College in New Rochelle, NY, Sharon’s love of cooking led her to attend the Institute of Culinary Education nights and weekends, where she earned two professional degrees, Culinary in 1999 and Culinary Management in 2005. She currently resides in Sarasota, Florida with her husband, Howard, a musician. Her mother, Lucille Preston, also lives in Sarasota. Sharon has a son, two grandchildren and one great-granddaughter! This memoir is Sharon’s first and only book. Number 1 New York Times bestselling author Denene Millner has written 19 books, including “Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man,” which she co-authored with Steve Harvey. “Act Like A Lady...” debuted No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller's list and was named by Nielsen the top selling nonfiction book of 2009. She also co-authored Harvey's new book, “Straight Talk, No Chaser,” which hit bookstores in December 2010. She penned the novelization of the Academy Award-winning movie, "Dreamgirls," and the three-book teen series, “Hotlanta”. Millner also wrote, “Never Make the Same Mistake Twice” for the Real Housewives of Atlanta star Nene Leakes, and served as an editorial consultant for Holly Robinson Peete's new children's book, “My Brother Charlie.”

Book preview

LITTLE SATCHMO

Living in the Shadow of My Father,

Louis Daniel Armstrong

by Sharon Louise Preston-Folta

with Denene Millner

.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Sharon L. Folta and Denene Millner

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Stardust

Chapter 1: I Want A Little Girl

Chapter 2: A Kiss To Build A Dream On: Miss Sweets

Chapter 3: What A Wonderful World

Chapter 4: I'll See You In My Dreams

Chapter 5: That Lucky Old Sun: Life Without Louis

Chapter 6: They Can't Take That Away From Me

Epilogue: This Is My Song: A Letter To My Father

STARDUST

I am Louis Armstrong's daughter. His only child. I have waited my entire lifetime to say that publicly. Out loud. Because up until this very moment, I wasn't allowed to admit to anyone, other than my closest family and friends, that the blood of a legend runs through my veins. For more than fifty years, I swallowed that bitter secret whole. Some days, it went down easily. On others, I had to choke it down. Every faded memory, every hushed conversation, every missed moment scraping and burning my tongue and my throat and my heart, and settling like rocks in the pit of my stomach. Not knowing your family history is painful enough. Being forced to keep it a secret—to pretend you are not who you really are—well, that sears.

I have lived with the pain for what seems like a lifetime.

But now, it's time—time to tell my story.

I thought that I should begin by telling you who I am not. I am not bitter. I am not angry. I am not a gold digger or some money-hungry, long- lost relative looking to sink my claws into a jazz legend's fortunes.

I am a daughter. A human being, whose flesh and bone and vein and sinew is the sum of two parts—Lucille Sweets Preston, a small-town Harlem girl, who made it big as a dancer on the jazz circuit at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, and her lover of more than two decades, Louis Satchmo Armstrong, the architect of one of America's most important contributions to the art of music.

To the rest of the world, jazz and Satchmo enthusiasts in particular, this is, indeed, quite a revelation. It is widely believed that Louis Armstrong was childless when he died in 1971, after a twenty-nine year marriage to his fourth wife, Lucille Armstrong. In all of the copious research that I've conducted during my five-year quest to get to know and understand just who my father was as a man and a husband, I have come across only one passing reference to the possibility that I existed and exist, in a short passage in Louis Armstrong In His Own Words: Selected Writings, a collection of my father's letters, assembled by Thomas Brothers. In the passage, Brothers notes that in one particular letter my father penned in 1955 to his longtime manager, Joe Glaser, Louis directs Glaser to handle a few business arrangements before his wife, Lucille, arrives in Las Vegas to accompany him on an overseas tour. Brothers writes:

Armstrong needs Glaser to take care of payments to a sweetheart and secretary, to a mistress (the name has been deleted from this edition) who, he thinks, has borne him a child, to in-laws, and to a friend...

That I am mentioned in just a passing reference toward the end of only one of the many books, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, letters, and memoirs written by or about Louis Armstrong comes as no surprise to me. Not anymore. Because for as long as I have been able to remember, both my mother and my father have implored me to keep my true identity a secret. My father, one of the most well-known and respected entertainers in the world, who at the time of my birth enjoyed unparalleled success and privilege in a society that had not yet embraced African Americans as equals, either could not, or would not, publicly claim me, a child he fathered out of wedlock with his longtime mistress, lest his reputation as a sterling, perfect, unassailable man of character—an American icon—be tarnished. And my mother, well, in her mind, private acknowledgment, financial stability, and a long-held promise of marriage from the man who fathered her only child was more than enough. Outing his secret was never an option for her—not so much as even a thought. That, my mother said often—even to this day, is his life, Sharon. Not yours. You have no rights to it.

But I beg to differ. As a mother, as a grandmother, as a daughter, as a living, breathing, thinking, thoughtful human being, I can say with certainty, finally, that while I can make claims to neither the life that my father lived, nor the decisions that he and my mother made to protect their relationship, I certainly have the right to my life—to know both sides of my family tree, to count, as blood, not just my mother's people, but my father's people too. I have the right to know my father's maternal grandmother, Mayann Albert, as well as his paternal grandmother, Josephine Armstrong, who helped raise Louis, and his sister, Beatrice, too. I have the right to know how his childhood and the ones of those who came before him influenced the man he came to be—and certainly how this played into the kind of father he was to me. My son and his children, too, have the right to fill in that specific patriarchal side of our family tree—to write, with certainty, on each of their familial branches that they are Armstrongs. That they come from an invaluable legacy, as strong and beautiful and amazing as a baobab tree.

Most importantly, though, I've come to realize after a half century of secrets—after fifty years of being invisible—that I have the right, too, to consider how my father's DNA contributed to the sum that is Sharon Preston Folta. This is a basic human right; to know from whence we've come, who was responsible for giving us life, and how each and every one of their experiences, monumental and miniscule alike, laid the foundation for who we ultimately become.

It's about legacy.

Of course, there will be the inevitable question: Why, after all these