NONFICTION - Sept. 20, 1992

SATCHMO by Gary Giddins. (Anchor: $15; 240 pp.) He was a lifelong marijuana smoker, a proselytizer for the laxative Swiss Criss, a black man who revered his white manager (who reportedly took 50% of his fees) and an artist whom many accused of being an Uncle Tom because of his ever-smiling stage demeanor. He was Louis Armstrong, an American original, arguably the musician who invented jazz as we know it today, and a man who called himself “Pops” but whom adoring fans referred to as “Satchmo.” This captivating volume, filled with remarkable photographs, details the story of a larger-than-life human being who rose from childhood in an orphanage in New Orleans to become a millionaire with such star status that a letter addressed simply “Ole Satchmo Himself, Wherever He Is” would reach him at his modest home in Corona, N.Y. Armstrong was also a passionate writer who Giddins says “was never far from a typewriter,” and many unpublished letters and autobiographical sketches--all fascinatingly idiosyncratic--are included.