It’s the Roaring ’20s and “Hot Miss Lil” is a star! Barely 20, she’s already a bandleader, arranger, composer, singer—and usually the only woman in Chicago’s hottest bands. As pianist with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band she’s unimpressed when “Little Louis” Armstrong, a pudgy bumpkin with a cornet, arrives from New Orleans, but shy “Satchelmouth” wins her over. Lil becomes his friend, mentor, co-composer, arranger, manager and wife—the second of four. She is also his important but now forgotten star-maker who moved on to two more wives, yet they stayed closed until the very end.
