Louis Armstrong Stardust

This release presents, for the first time on a single set, Louis Armstrong’s two long out of print 1951 concerts at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. For the first performance, taped on January 30 and originally issued (partially) on Satchmo at Pasadena (Decca DL8041), Louis is backed by the classic All Stars featuring Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Earl Hines, Arvell Shaw, and Cozy Cole, plus Velma Middleton on vocals for a few songs.

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, Louis Prima came up in his hometown gigging steadily in the clubs and doing his best to emulate Afro-American musicians. His number one role model was Louis Armstrong. After playing Cleveland with Red Nichols in 1932, Prima began recording in 1934 and thoroughly established himself on 52nd Street in New York City the following year. Prima was good looking and sang in a pleasantly hoarse voice. His humor was often heavy-handed, and his bands pushed hard to generate excitement among live audiences and the record-buying public. Prima's 1934 bands had strong players in George Brunies, Claude Thornhill, and Eddie Miller. "Jamaica Shout" is a rare example of instrumental Louis Prima: hot jazz with nobody yelling…

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…

Aptly titled, 'The Great Vocalists Of Jazz & Entertainment', culls 748 of the absolute finest recordings by top singers of the pre-rock era of the '30s, '40s & '50s. All recordings are digitally remastered and over 20 top names are featured, including Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne and Perry Como. Each artist has at least one disc devoted to solely to their repertoire; most have two (Billie & Frank deservedly have three apiece). Hou sed in a sealed, full color 5' x 6' x 8' box, it contains 20 double slimline jewelcases.