ko ko mo Breather

In the spring of 1959, when Louis Armstrong took the stage in Belgium to play the concert captured on this DVD, he had much to smile about. The irrepressible trumpeter and singer had cut his first records with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band some thirty-six years earlier. In the interim, he had completely redefined the possibilities of both instrumental jazz and popular singing. His concept of what it meant to swing had become the very essence of jazz rhythm, and his ceaseless ability to create coherent melodic improvisations over a given set of chord changes had reconstructed the very nature of the jazz ensemble.

Perry Como rocks! Perry Como would have been aghast at the notion, but in the mid-to-late 1950s (when his TV show was the highest-rated show in the USA) he recorded a slew of singles that weren't really rock 'n' roll, but definitely rocked. These immaculately written, produced, and sung records are now heralded as the era's classics, and they include Kewpie Doll, Round And Round, Ko Ko Mo, Tina Marie, Hot Diggity, Catch A Falling Star, Magic Moments, Juke Box Baby, Glendora, Dancin', and Just Born To Be Your Baby.

On most informed lists of rock & roll villains, the Crew Cuts would have to rank near the top. They weren't rock & rollers in the first place: their clean-cut white harmony glee club approach was really in the style of early- and mid-'50s groups such as the Four Aces, the Four Lads, and the Four Freshmen. The Canadian quartet differed from those acts, however, in their concentration upon covers of songs originally recorded by R&B/doo wop vocal groups.

Five CD sets containing 100 classic tracks by legendary artists, one of the biggest selling and best remembered musical icons of all time.