Jazz Articles about Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong: Satchmo - Ambassador of Jazz

by Chris May
February 28, 2012

Louis ArmstrongSatchmo: Ambassador Of JazzVerve/Universal2012 “You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played," trumpeter Miles Davis said. And while pianist Jelly Roll Morton may have claimed to have invented jazz, if any one artist could be said to have done that, it would be trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong. No one artist invented jazz, of course, but Armstrong's importance in its early development is supreme, ...

Brian Harker: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings

by Florence Wetzel
January 8, 2012

Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven RecordingsBrian HarkerSoftcover; 186 pagesISBN: 9780195388404Oxford University Press2011In 1925, Louis Armstrong was 24 years old. He had just returned to Chicago from New York City at the behest of his second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, who wanted Armstrong back in the Windy City to play with her band. Armstrong had already appeared on numerous recordings, but now he was asked to ...

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

by Chris May
November 26, 2010

Pops: A Life Of Louis ArmstrongTerry TeachoutPaper; 475 pagesISBN: 978-0-547-38637-9Mariner Books2010 The most unputdownable biography of trumpeter/vocalist Louis Armstrong to be written, by a country mile, Pops is also one of the best jazz biographies on the shelves. Modestly subtitled A Life Of Louis Armstrong rather than The Life Of..., this is the only book about Armstrong anyone but the hungriest devotee will ever need. First published ...

Louis Armstrong: The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946)

by David Rickert
March 22, 2010

Louis Armstrong The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946) Mosaic Records 2009

As far as recordings by trumpeter Louis Armstrong go, the Decca recordings don't generate much interest. Prior to them came the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings, the most influential jazz recordings ever made and the template for everything that was to come. Afterward came the superb pop recordings for RCA, which showed a masterful entertainer more respected for ...

Louis Armstrong: The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946)

by AAJ Staff
November 8, 2009

Louis Armstrong The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946) Mosaic Records 2009

Presumably everyone knows that Louis Armstrong's greatest and most important work was done in the '20s with and around the time of the incredible Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions. During the Swing Era he led a big band and after the war returned to the small group format for the most of the rest of his career with his ...

Louis Armstrong: Integrale Vol. 5 & Live in Australia 1964

by Michael Steinman
April 19, 2009

Louis ArmstrongIntegrale Vol. 5 (CD) Fremeaux & Associes2008 Louis Armstrong Live in Australia 1964 (DVD) Medici Arts 2008 Some might assert that the Fremaux label's triple-CD set, containing almost everything Louis Armstrong recorded between December 1928 and April 1931, presents him at his creative peak and that Medici Arts' DVD (actually from 1963) is ...

Louis Armstrong: Live in Zurich, Switzerland 18.10.1949

by Graham L. Flanagan
February 20, 2009

In the movie Manhattan (1978), Woody Allen's depressed protagonist dictates a list of the things he believes make life truly worth living. Along with Willie Mays and Cezanne's paintings of apples and pears, Allen includes Louis Armstrong's recording of “Potato Head Blues." Whenever you listen to Louis Armstrong, you are doing right by your soul. And you can keep doing right by it in 2009, thanks to this live date from Switzerland, which comprehensively chronicles a performance ...