Award-winning author Stephen Maitland-Lewis points to the only Grammy award won by jazz great Louis Armstrong, that he owns and loaned to the Louis Armstrong House Museum.
Photo courtesy of Darien Photographic
He could have been on a book tour promoting his latest novel, but on June 29, British-born award-winning author Stephen Maitland-Lewis was among the 200 people that attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new $26 million Louis Armstrong Center in north Corona.
The novelist is a trustee on the board of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, where America’s first Black popular music icon, known internationally as Satchmo, spent the last 40 years of his life with his wife Lucille.
“It was a very wonderful event that was in the making for 20-plus years,” Maitland-Lewis said. “For those 20-plus years we’ve been talking about it and looking at architectural drawings and at the models, and then we had to arrange funding with Queens College, the city, the state and the federal agencies that were all wonderful, and then we had to negotiate with the neighbors so it was all a bit of a hassle but 20 odd years later, we have this fabulous facility.”
Maitland-Lewis was invited to join the board in 2009 after Michael Cogswell, the founding executive director of the Louis Armstrong House House Museum, learned of his long friendship with the international icon. Maitland-Lewis grew up in post-war England, just outside of London where food and gasoline were still rationed. His parents were huge jazz fans and by the time he was 8 or 9, he became enamored with Armstrong’s music in particular.
“I started listening to his records and totally fell in love with the music and the guy and when I was about 11 or 12 I wrote him a letter,” Maitland-Lewis told Schneps Media. “It was not high literature and full of poor grammar and spelling mistakes, and four weeks later, I got from him a four page letter in his own handwriting thanking me for my letter. Of…
Read the full article here
