Louis Armstrong, Satchmo: My Life In New Orleans (Da Capo). A friend asked me recently, “What’s the best book about Louis Armstrong?” It may turn out to be the one Terry Teachout is writing, I said. I told him about Armstrong biographies by Gary Giddins, Laurence Bergreen, James Lincoln Collier, Max Jones-John Chilton and others, all with their strengths. But I suggested that if he had not read Armstrong’s own account of his youth, that would be the place to start. This modest little autobiography is honest, conversational and true to the man’s style as one of the positive, uplifting figures of our time.