Louis Armstrong cut his first records in Chicago with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band during the spring of 1923. Between that milestone and the first Hot Five sessions which took place in November 1925, the young cornetist became extraordinarily busy as a horn for hire in the middle of New York's rapidly dilating jazz scene. Most of the recorded evidence has been compiled and reissued by Masters of Jazz in a five-CD set holding 118 tracks dating from April 1923 through February 1925. The Joe Oliver recordings are among the ...
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Louis Armstrong cut his first records in Chicago with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band during the spring of 1923. Between that milestone and the first Hot Five sessions which took place in November 1925, the young cornetist became extraordinarily busy as a horn for hire in the middle of New York's rapidly dilating jazz scene. Most of the recorded evidence has been compiled and reissued by Masters of Jazz in a five-CD set holding 118 tracks dating from April 1923 through February 1925. The Joe Oliver recordings are among the most celebrated in all of early jazz, and with good reason. Armstrong's subsequent adventures with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra are well documented here, and it is clear that the producers attempted to engage in careful discernment when deciding what to include from that band's discography. In addition to four sides by the legendary Red Onion Jazz Babies, there are numerous examples involving Clarence Williams, his singing wife Eva Taylor, and various instrumentalists who relied upon Williams for steady work, as he organized sessions on a fairly regular basis for the purposes of recording and popularizing songs which were marketed by his own music publishing enterprise. Armstrong's collaborations with early blues and jazz vocalists helped him to develop his own remarkable singing technique. In and amongst some of the finest jazz instrumentals of the '20s, Armstrong is heard with Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Maggie Jones, and Bessie Smith. His warmly expressive horn fits perfectly with each singer's style and persona, a dynamic that is ideal for comparing the voices of Virginia Liston, Margaret Johnson, Sippie Wallace, and Trixie Smith. Don't let the size of this box set scare you away. This is most of the prologue for Louis Armstrong's first recordings as a leader, and it is packed with archetypal works which define the arts of blues and jazz. ~ arwulf arwulf, Rovi
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