Contents -- Introduction - "Music is my life, and I live to play" : Louis Armstrong's Jazz Autobiographics -- Chapter 1 - "I have always been a great observer" : New Orleans Musicking -- Chapter 2 - "I done forgot the words": Versioning Autobiography -- Chapter 3 - "Diddat Come Outa Mee?" : Writing Scat and Typing Swing -- Chapter 4 - "A happy go lucky sort of type of fellow" : The Productive Ambiguities of Minstrel Sounding -- Chapter 5 - "He didn't need black face-to be funny" : The Double Resonance of Postcolonial Performance -- Chapter 6 - "My mission is music" : Armstrong's Cultural Politics -- Conclusion - "What do you know about that?" : Final Thoughts on "Laughin' Louie" -- Notes -- Suggested Listening -- Suggested Further Reading -- Index.