This Week in Press Club History: "Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours"

Jan. 29, 1971: Louis Armstrong, the world’s greatest jazz trumpeter, is the featured performer at the inauguration of National Press Club President Vernon Louviere, a fellow Louisianan. Five months later, Armstrong, 69, is dead. A recording of his historic 20-minute performance, believed to be his last, is not made available to the general public for another 41 years. At a press conference at the Club in April, 2012, Smithsonian Institution’s Folkways recording label announces the new release, titled “Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours,” Armstrong’s often-used signature for letters and autographs.

The National Press Club over the years has hosted many other American musical greats, including B. B. King, Benny Goodman, Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole.

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s history through lobby displays, events, panel discussions and its oral history project.

For more information on the activities of the Committee, or to join it, contact past NPC President Gilbert Klein at [email protected].

For more on the Club’s distinguished history, visit our website.