Entry · catalog no. 5023
Armstrongs
/ /ˈɑːrmstrɔŋz/ /ARM-strongz
noun · New York and national jazz scene · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
Notes in the upper register, especially high trumpet notes, with Louis Armstrong's name serving as a unit of range.
“He climbed up into the Armstrongs and stayed there for the whole last chorus.”
Origin & Attribution
Listed in Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary as "musical notes in the upper register, high trumpet notes," and present in the revised 1939 edition. The term honors Louis Armstrong, the New Orleans-born trumpeter whose high-register playing set the standard for jazz trumpet in the 1920s and 30s, and it belongs to Black jazz musicians' habit of turning a master's name into a common noun. The Calloway entry is the only attestation found, so it is recorded as a documented jargon term of the swing-era musicians' world, not as one with a wide paper trail.
1939
Listed in Calloway's revised Hepster's Dictionary
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
New York and national jazz scene · 1930s
Spoken by
Jazz and swing musicians; Harlem entertainers
$ARMSTRThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical87 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
5/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1939
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
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Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceCab Calloway, The New Cab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A Hepster's Dictionary, revised edition, entry 'Armstrongs'
1939
See also