Louis Armstrong had a bunch of trumpets through the years, so saying that this particular instrument is legendary is probably not entirely accurate. But as The Smithsonian Institute highlights in their piece -- "To Really Appreciate Louis Armstrong's Trumpet, You Gotta Play it. Just Ask Wynton Marsalis" -- there's something historically satisfying about it all the same.
“It sounded better than I thought it would sound,” Marsalis says of the historic instrument. “In terms of music, his horn sounded good because of him. When he’s not playing, you don’t think you’re going to pick up Louis Armstrong’s trumpet and sound like him.”
...
It’s not often he plays a museum object, but Marsalis said he was cautious with it.
“When you play anybody else’s horn, you’re always careful,” he says. “Like when you take care of somebody else’s kids, you’re going to be definitely more careful than you are with your own. But it’s not like I’m doing that much with it. I’m just going to play it. The horn was not in danger.”
Attribution(s): "Louis" by Herbert Behrens is from the Nationaal Archief via Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0