Bricktop & Peter & Louis (CpB #7)

Ada "Bricktop" Smith and her husband Peter Duconge in Paris. (Dec. 29, 1929)

I would like to thank the New York Public Library Digital Gallery for the image above.
A cropped version of this photograph is included in her book. Bricktop's description of her husband includes the only gossipy reference in the entire autobiography:

I married musician Peter Duconge in 1929. The whole thing never should have happened, and we split a few years later over a girl named Hazel.

But they remained life-long friends.
In Nineteen Fifty-something, Bricktop owned a club in Rome–on Via Veneto–when a touring bandleader was stricken with pneumonia. "The way the newspapers reported it, he was close to death." Within days, the report was proven otherwise when this bandleader booked a party at her club.

Louis Armstrong showed up on the Via Veneto that night. He attracted a crowd big enough to fill the Coliseum. I had a hard time getting into my place. Once I did, we had a wonderful evening. Louis sang, and we talked about the days when Peter played in his band.

Louis lived a very fulfilling life until 1971. The later years of Bricktop's life were equally fulfilling. She survived Satchmo by more than a decade.

We Love You BRICKTOP

Blogger's Note
It is the express desire of the Lewis Carroll School of Logic to make "We Love You BRICKTOP" into a mantra heard across the length and width of the United States of America.