Rare film of Louis Armstrong in the recording studio discovered in abandoned storage unit

More than six decades after it was recorded, the only known film of Louis Armstrong in the recording studio has been discovered and is now in the hands of the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

Michael Cogswell, executive director of the museum, told The Associated Press that "not even the most diligent Armstrong researchers knew it existed." The 33 minute, 16mm film was shot while Armstrong recorded the 1959 album Satchmo Plays King Oliver in Los Angeles. Producer Sid Frey decided to film the session, but never used the footage, and his daughter, Andrea Bass, said all of the tapes, films, albums, and mementos from her father's career ultimately ended up in a storage unit.

Bass was able to track down the Armstrong footage after finding a person who buys the contents of forgotten storage units. She struck a deal with him, and now the film, as well as the master reel-to-reel tapes of 1960's Louie and the Dukes of Dixieland, belong to the Corona, Queens, museum. It's truly a "groundbreaking discovery," Cogswell said. Catherine Garcia

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