A Louis Armstrong relative steps up to help portray the music icon on Broadway

AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The new stage musical about Louis Armstrong on Broadway opens with the jazz icon in a rehearsal room alongside an anonymous piano player. Keep an eye on the guy on keys. In an act of casting kismet, he is Brandon Louis Armstrong, the music giant’s great-great nephew. The musical looks behind Louis Armstrong’s wide smile to dig into his rise from poverty, his four marriages and battles with racism. The younger Armstrong plays plenty of parts in the ensemble as well as understudying for his great-great uncle. When that happens, he says, his biggest concern ”is just trying not to cry all the way through the show.”