Hello Satch!

The title of this compilation, All-Time Greatest Hits, is misleading. That's no disrespect to the material here, which is mostly very good. It's just not Louis Armstrong's all-time greatest. These 18 tracks come from Armstrong's "pop" era, the final decades of his career where, under the tutelage of producer Milt Gabler and arranger Gordon Jenkins, the jazz pioneer moved full-bore into a genial form of heavily orchestrated pop music. The Armstrong of this era, a large, bear-like man with an infectious laugh and a gravelly voice, immaculately dressed in a crisp suit with a white linen handkerchief in one hand and a rarely played trumpet in the other, has become the iconic image of the man, which unfairly relegates his best, most passionate and most influential work to the background…

This 10-CD set is as good a compendium of the genius of Louis Armstrong as anyone could wish for. It’s all here: the early years with the King Oliver and Fletcher Henderson bands, the glorious period of the Hot Fives and Sevens, the big band recordings of the Thirties, the collaborations with contemporaries such as Ella Fitzgerald. Then there are the later recordings, when Satchmo’s celebrity empowered him to soar over many political and racial divides. There’s also a fascinating unreleased Hollywood Bowl concert from 1956, a CD of “out-takes” from recording sessions, and a revealing interview with Dan Morgenstern.

Born and raised in New Orleans, trumpeter Louis Armstrong - also known as "Satchmo", "Satch" and "Pops" - was one of the most influential figures in jazz, with a career spanning five decades. With his instantly recognizable rich, gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes.

Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo, Satch, and Pops, was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and different eras in the history of jazz. In 2017, he was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame….

The Top 100 '80s Rock Albums span a series of genres as startling and varied as the era's neon-flecked fashions.No one was immune to the early-decade emergence of new wave, from up-and-coming acts to legacy groups – many of whom began incorporating the then-new sound into their bedrock approach.Meanwhile, classic rock and subsequently metal began a transformation into mass acceptance when the edges were smoothed out to form arena rock and hair metal, respectively. The arrival of roots, thrash, and world music influences kept things interesting, along the way. All of it made selecting the period's best releases both intriguing and deeply challenging.Check out the list below, as Ultimate Classic Rock takes a chronological look at the Top 100 '80s Rock Albums.

The singing of Teresa Brewer was always producer Bob Thiele's blind spot. Although equipped with a voice quite suitable for pop and country music, Brewer always sounded overly cute and out of place when performing jazz, despite her husband's successful attempts to team her with the who's who of jazz. This CD is quite remarkable, for there are few singers who sound less like Louis Armstrong than Brewer, yet here she is singing a dozen of Satch's standards. What's more, she is joined by a different trumpeter on each track: Clark Terry, Nicholas Payton, Ruby Braff, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Lew Soloff, Terence Blanchard, Yank Lawson, Red Rodney and Dizzy Gillespie…

A jazz pioneer, Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music's history. As a trumpet virtuoso, his playing, beginning with the 1920s studio recordings he made with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, charted a future for jazz in highly imaginative, emotionally charged improvisation. For this, he is revered by jazz fans. But Armstrong also became an enduring figure in popular music due to his distinctively phrased baritone singing and engaging personality, which were on display in a series of vocal recordings and film roles. He weathered the bebop period of the '40s, growing ever more beloved worldwide. By the '50s, Armstrong was widely recognized, even traveling the globe for the US…