Last 12 years of Louis Armstrong's life in images

Louis Armstrong sometimes referred to Jack Bradley as his "white son", inviting him to private rehearsals, recording sessions, on the road, his dressing room and home.

Bradley had unrestricted access to his hero for 12 years, documenting the jazz legend through thousands of photographs and saving Armstrong's sound recordings, fan letters - and even handkerchiefs.

"It's the finest and largest collection of Armstrong material in private hands - without any doubt," says Dan Morgenstern, the former longtime director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University.