Satch Louis Armstrong

As Louis Armstrong traversed the globe, bringing jazz to every corner of it, live recordings became the norm. This reissue brings together 1955 concert recordings with the All-Stars from Milan and Amsterdam, buffeted with three previously unreleased bonus studio tracks recorded in New York and Hollywood. Both Satchmo and the All-Stars are in top-notch form here, playing with a real spirit of abandon. Another real good one to add to the collection.

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….

This sampling of Louis Armstrong's vocal-oriented recordings features all but one from the 1949-56 period. Guests include Louis Jordan, the Mills Brothers and Bing Crosby ("Gone Fishin'"), but in general the music is somewhat commercial and of lesser interest than most of Satch's readily available CDs.

No thanks to a concert schedule that gave recording sessions a low priority, Louis Armstrong's period at Verve was unconscionably short - only a little over a year (August 1956 to October 1957). But since Verve chief Norman Granz liked to record his artists a lot, Armstrong's Verve sessions produced quite a harvest - six albums on eight LPs, including three with the redoubtable Ella Fitzgerald - substantial portions of which are included in this well-packed two-CD set. The albums Ella and Louis Again and Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson get the most exposure with eight tracks apiece, the first Ella and Louis album gets five, I've Got the World on a String gets four, and Louis Under the Stars and, strangely, the Porgy and Bess album with Fitzgerald only get three each…

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…