In remembrance of Sacha Jenkins
LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES offers an intimate and revealing look at 
the world-changing musician, presented through a lens of archival footage and never-before-heard home recordings and personal conversations. This definitive documentary, directed by Sacha Jenkins, honors Armstrong’s legacy as a founding father of jazz, one of the first internationally known and beloved stars, and a cultural ambassador of 
the United States. LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES shows how Armstrong’s own life spans the shift from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, and how he became a lightning rod figure in that turbulent era. LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES is a project of Imagine Documentaries and Polygram Entertainment with a production team that includes Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Michele Anthony, 
Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard. Director and producer Sacha Jenkins joins us for a conversation on the profound impact that Louis Armstrong has had on American music, specifically jazz, his multi- 
hyphenated career as a singer, trumpeter, actor, bandleader, artist, ambassador of American culture, his life-long partnership with his wife, Lil, and how important it was for Jenkins to re-set the perception of this humble man with a thorough recounting of his personal, professional and musical life.
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About the filmmaker – Sacha Jenkins was born in Philadelphia, in 1971. Jenkins was seven years old when his parents separated. His father, Horace Byrd Jenkins III—an Emmy Award winner for his work as an original producer on Sesame Street—moved to Harlem shortly thereafter, while Jenkins, his mother, Monart, and his sister ended up in Astoria, Queens. While still in high school, he borrowed money from his mother to create the graffiti zine Graphic Scenes & X-plicit Language, and, in 1992, Jenkins and his childhood friend Haji Akhigbade created Beat-Down, widely considered to be the the first hip-hop newspaper. Two years later, Jenkins teamed up with former Beat-Down music editor and TV producer Elliott Wilson to found the seminal hip-hop and skateboarding magazine Ego Trip. Other members of the editorial team included Jeff “Chairman” Mao, Brent Rollins, and Gabe Alvarez. Though it published for only 13 issues, the self-proclaimed “arrogant voice of musical truth” had an outsized influence on rap culture throughout the 1990s and 2000s, eventually yielding the books Ego Trip’s Book of Rap Lists and Ego Trip’s Big Book of Racism! The Ego Trip team also went on to produce several TV shows for VH1, including Miss Rap Supreme and Ego Trip’s the (White) Rapper Show. Jenkins was the music editor of Vibe from 1997 to 2000, wrote for Spin and Rolling Stone, and co-authored Eminem’s autobiography The Way I Am. His later career, however, was largely defined by his directorial efforts, among them the films Word Is Bond and Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues and the documentary series Rapture and Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, the latter of which earned him an Emmy nomination. Until his death, Jenkins served as the creative director of Mass Appeal, a brand he’d helped to relaunch after becoming a partner at Decon in 2012.
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“Like one of Armstrong’s great solos, it feels packed with dynamics, sprinkled with astonishing high notes, and immensely pleasurable.” – Leslie Felperin, Guardian
“With all that’s been said, reported and written about Louis Armstrong over the decades, it’s shocking how eye and ear-opening Sacha Jenkins’ new documentary about him is.” – Roger Moore, Movie Nation
“Sacha Jenkins eloquently shares the story of a legend that we barely knew as a musician or a man. Louis Armstrong blazed a trail in jazz, but had a side that will surprise, elate and leave audiences with a different kind of respect for his legacy” – Carla Renata, The Curvy Film Critic
“Jenkins is undaunted by the complexity of his subject, plunging ahead with swagger and not worrying if we have unanswered questions at the end.” – John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter
“With this tuneful, tender documentary, director Sacha Jenkins convincingly makes the case that there was no more significant music figure in the entire 20th century than Louis Armstrong.” – Bill Newcott, Movies For The Rest Of Us