The great jazz trumpeter and sandpaper vocalist gets the old jukebox treatment in a new Broadway musical starring James Monroe Iglehart.

The Louis Armstrong Musical, starring a terrific James Monroe Iglehart ( Aladdin, Hamilton) as the legendary Satchmo, opens on Broadway tonight at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Studio 54, and if it doesn’t escape every pitfall of the jukebox musical,

James Monroe Iglehart and a stellar ensemble are absolutely mesmerizing in a timely biographical musical about the life and music of Louis Armstrong.

James Monroe Iglehart stars as Satchmo in a new jukebox musical about the jazz great. But in this story, sometimes there’s too much to tell.

The biographical musical faces some of the same questions as the biography itself: what do you leave in, leave out, what is the central story you‘re telling, what are the essential truths and knots of a person and character you’re trying to tease out?

The Louis Armstrong Musical” is a musically rich if wordy and info-heavy Broadway show that serves as a reminder of just how challenging the jukebox biographical genre can be,