Louis Armstrong was a singer. A New Orleans singer, who was not only dirt poor but a wop as well. Somehow he broke through the bounds and brought big band to 1940's America. It was a swinging, jiving time oh my yes. After all that war in Europe made peopole nervous, and they needed Old Lougi to make them relax a little. As time went on the people started to turn away from ol' Lugi and the Witnesses. They found better music, better sounds. What did Louis have? He had his big band and a string of gigs out from Los Angeles that seemed to be taking him down a slow spiral into nothing.
After all by 1945 who cared about New Orleans music? Who cared that the King of the Swingers did not want to leave the Congo? The hits, those chart toppers were coming from New York, and Chicago and that strange mix of German Riech and American melody was creating a trully unique sound. Boring as hell, but unique. That sound was conservative, and made for large concert halls not the night clubs Louis was in.
By 1949 however Louis had something grand. He was still writing music, talking of that girl Angelina the waitress at the Pizzaria, even Marie. They got him some change in his pocket but not the reviews he was so craving. In Richmond, Virgina playing a single gig before heading out to Los Angeles Louis was sitting around with his band wondering what to do. He was to meet some girl to be a replacement singer, a broad named Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, yet something strange occured. A man walked into the Blue Moon club and demanded to meet Louis.
The two spoke and the man showed off his skills. He could scat, bebop, and do everything Louis threw at him. The man was slick as grease he was. Playing the piano like it was a part of his body. Louis said the band already had a piano man but he was willing to help the kid out and find him a band to swing with. The man smiled and said he wanted to be with Louis. "Who you think you are kid?" was Prima's reply.
"I'm Romano Mussolini." From that moment on the two had something amazing. Son of an Italian dictator, Romano was never into the whole "rulling Europe" scene. Sure in germany he could have played at concert halls in front of Hitler himself. Shown Himmler and the other SS boys how to swing in the Hitlerstad concert hall in the ruins of old Moscow, yet the man liked Jazz. So Romano went to his father Benito and said "hey pops I wanna be a swinger!" What did ol' Mussolini do? Why he sent his son to America, gave him a little money and said "Do your best! If in a year you are not in the papers you come home and learn to do something respectful!"
Flash forward to 1954 and there was Louis singing his songs while his buddy Romano was playing his notes. They got on well together. Sure Louis got married three more times, Romano had a string of girls, but the two became one of those Vegas staples. Old Blue Eyes and his pack would come watch, even Hitler's lap dog Speer caught a show in 1955. The show was stopped for six months when Romano returned to italy to witness the funeral of his father. Louis said it best "To think such an ugly mug was so important. Gives hope for me." The two men preformed well into the late 60's when louis needed brain surgury and fell into a coma. Louis died in 1976, and had a small private funeral. Romano stayed in the music scene until 1981 when he switched to producing. While Italy and the Greater German Reich had a few censor laws on certain music, he was able to side step much of it simply by being Mussolini's son. He started the first non-state sponsored German Rock band in 1984. He died in 2006 with seven kids, and a small fortune.