The exhibition Here To Stay takes a look at Louis Armstrong’s multifaceted life. Over a five-decade career, the innovative musician, rigorous archivist, consummate collaborator, and community builder charged the worlds around him. Much of his magnetic career is documented through thousands of objects including photographs, sheet music, recordings and correspondence. It is my belief that the Louis Armstrong House and Archive is one of the most important cultural sites in the world.

Louis Armstrong has continued to generate a legacy that transcends time and genre. Much of my work as a musician elicits the conversation about history and innovation and the framing around these two. How do artists persevere despite the bindings of their eras? Generosity is one way Armstrong  persevered. He gave his time, his sweat, and his oxygen to all that surrounded his sound. Now we can gather around his substantial archive to celebrate a life well-lived, and well documented. He encourages us to SAVE SOMETHING. All answers cannot be revealed within one lifetime, but Here to Stay provides us the opportunity to contemplate the nuance of his legacy.

Louis provokes all music. He stands in the stream and alters the current. The resulting current behind him will always be CURRENT. The musical policies he branded became blueprints, and those blueprints become a metropolis.

– Jason Moran, Curator of Here to Stay

This is a permanent exhibition at the Louis Armstrong House Museum.