Louis Armstrong - The Very Best of Louis Armstrong

 

Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz. Armstrong received numerous accolades including the Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance for Hello, Dolly! in 1965, as well as a posthumous win for the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972. His influence crossed musical genres, with inductions into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, among others.

Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans. Coming to prominence in the 1920's as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, he was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. Around 1922, Armstrong followed his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to Chicago to play in Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. Armstrong earned a reputation at "cutting contests", and his fame reached band leader Fletcher Henderson. Armstrong moved to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band soloist and recording artist. By the 1950's, Armstrong was an international musical icon, appearing regularly in radio and television broadcasts and on film. Apart from his music, he was also beloved as an entertainer, often joking with the audience and keeping a joyful public image at all times.

Disc 1:

MY HEART

MUSKRAT RAMBLE

YES, I'M IN THE BARREL

GUT BUCKET BLUES

COME BACK SWEET PAPA

HEEBIE JEEBIES

CORNET CHOP SUEY

ORIENTAL STRUT

AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'

SOME OF THESE DAYS

HE LIKES IT SLOW

ST LOUIS BLUES

SHANGHAI SHUFFLE

TEXAS MOANER BLUES

EVERYBODY LOVE MY BABY

MANDY, MAKE UP YOUR MIND

PAPA DE DA DA

MONEY BLUES

SUGAR FOOT STOMP

WILD MAN BLUES

DISC 2:

BODY AND SOUL

JUST A GIGOLO

WHEN YOU'RE SMILING

I'M A DING DONG DADDY

IF I COULD BE WITH YOU, ONE HOUR TONIGHT

I SURRENDER DEAR

DON'T FORGET TO MESS AROUND

SWEET LITTLE PAPA

SKID-DAT, DE-DAT

YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU

SAVOY BLUES

BASIN ST BLUES

HOBO, YOU CAN'T HIDE THIS TRAIN

PUBLIC MELODY NUMBER ONE

ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND

ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET

IT'S WONDERFUL'

JEEPERS CREEPERS

WALKIN' MY BABY BACK HOME

LOVE WALKED IN

The Very Best of Louis Armstrong

Clarence Williams - Great Original Performances 1927 To 1934

 

Clarence Williams (1898-1965) was an American jazz pianist, composer, promoter, vocalist, theatrical producer, and publisher.

Williams ran away from home at age 12 to join Billy Kersand's Traveling Minstrel Show, then moved to New Orleans. At first Williams worked shining shoes and doing odd jobs, but soon became known as a singer and master of ceremonies. By the early 1910s he was a well regarded local entertainer also playing piano, and was composing new tunes by 1913. Williams was a good business man and worked arranging and managing entertainment at the local African-American vaudeville theater as well as various saloons and dance halls around Rampart Street, and clubs and houses in Storyville.

Williams started a music publishing business with violinist/bandleader Armand J. Piron 1915, which by the 1920s was the leading African-American owned music publisher in the country. He toured briefly with W.C. Handy, set up a publishing office in Chicago, then settled in New York in the early 1920s. In 1921, he married blues singer and stage actress Eva Taylor with whom he would frequently perform. He supervised African-American recordings (the 8000 Race Series) for New York offices of Okeh phonograph company in the 1920s in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square. He recruited many of the artists who performed on that label. He also recorded extensively, leading studio bands frequently for OKeh, Columbia and occasionally other record labels.

He mostly used "Clarence Williams' Jazz Kings" for his hot band sides and "Clarence Williams' Washboard Five" for his washboard sides. He also produced and participated in early recordings by Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith, Virginia Liston, Irene Scruggs, and many others. King Oliver played cornet on a number of Williams' late 1920s recordings. He was the recording director for the short-lived QRS Records label in 1928.

Most of his recordings were songs from his publishing house, which explains why he recorded tunes like "Baby Won't You Please Come Home", "Close Fit Blues" and "Papa De-Da-Da" numerous times.

In 1933, he signed to the Vocalion label and recorded quite a number of popular recordings, mostly featuring washboard percussion, through 1935. In 1943 Williams sold his extensive back-catalogue of tunes to Decca Records for $50,000 and retired.

Clarence Williams' name appears as composer or co-composer on numerous tunes, including a number which by Williams' own admission were written by others but which Williams bought all rights to outright, as was a common practice in the music publishing business at the time. Clarence Williams hits include "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" (as publisher - not composer), "Baby Won't You Please Come Home", "Royal Garden Blues", "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do", "Shout, Sister, Shout" and many others. In 1970, Williams was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

This compilation:

1 Clarence Williams' Jazz Kings– Candy Lips 2:43

2 Clarence Williams And Washboard Band*– I Can't Beat You Doin' What You're Doin' Me 2:42

3 Williams' Jug Band*– Chizzlin' Sam 3:07

4 Clarence Williams' Washboard Five– Log Cabin Blues 3:11

5 Clarence Williams' Novelty Band– You're Bound To Look Like A Monkey When You Get Old 3:03

6 Clarence Williams And His Jazz Kings*– A Pane In The Glass 3:00

7 Clarence Williams' Washboard Five– Walk That Broad 2:59

8 Clarence Williams And Washboard Band*– Trouble 3:13

9 Williams' Jug Band*– You Ain't Too Old 3:05

10 Clarence Williams' Blue Seven– Close Fit Blues 2:56

11 Clarence Williams' Washboard Band*– Lazy Mama 3:11

12 Clarence Williams' Novelty Band– He Wouldn't Stop Doin' It 2:57

13 Clarence Williams' Washboard Band*– Worn Out Blues 3:10

14 Clarence Williams And His Orchestra– Chocolate Avenue 2:55

15 Clarence Williams' Washboard Five– Have You Ever Felt That Way 3:09

16 Clarence Williams And His Orchestra– Organ Grinder Blues 3:09

Clarence Williams - Great Original Performances

An introduction to....Finest Vintage Jazz...various artists

An excellent 2 disc, 49 track compilation of original mono recordings from 1917 to 1941 featuring the cream of jazz artists of the time. Ideal for the collector or if you are a recent convert to nostalgic music.

sample one

sample two

Rhythm of the Day...Red Nichols and His Five Pennies

Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols (May 8, 1905 – June 28, 1965) was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader.

Over his long career, Nichols recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, and critic Steve Leggett describes him as "an expert cornet player, a solid improviser, and apparently a workaholic, since he is rumored to have appeared on over 4,000 recordings during the 1920's alone."

Nichols had good technique, could read music, and easily got session and studio work. In 1926 he and Miff Mole began a prodigious stint of recording with a variety of bands, most of them known as "Red Nichols and His Five Pennies". Very few of these groups were actually quintets; the name was simply a pun on "Nickel", since there were "five pennies" in a nickel. "That was only a number we tied in with my name", Nichols once explained. "We'd generally have eight or nine [musicians], depending on who was around for the session and what I was trying to do."

Nichols recorded over 100 sides for the Brunswick label under that band name. He also recorded under a number of other names, among them, The Arkansas Travelers, The California Red Heads, The Louisiana Rhythm Kings, The Charleston Chasers, Red and Miff’s Stompers, and Miff Mole and His Little Molers. Some weeks, Nichols and his bands were making 10–12 records a week.

His recordings of the late 1920's are regarded as the most progressive jazz of the period in both concept and execution, with widely-ranging harmonies and a balanced ensemble.

                                          

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Firecracker Jazz Band....Hot Vintage Jazz...keeping traditional jazz alive

Traditional Jazz at Its Finest

In hundreds of performances since 2003, Firecracker Jazz Band has played everywhere from street corners, speakeasies, jazz festivals from coast to coast, beer-soaked dance halls, Bonaroo and the Kennedy Center. Based in the beautiful confluence of plentiful music and majestic mountains that is Asheville, N.C., a performance by Firecracker Jazz Band is not to be missed. With jubilant vigor that spills from the stage to the streets, these six musicians revitalize traditional jazz with unbounded energy. In paying homage to the pioneers of early 20th Century Jazz, including that of Dixieland and New Orleans, Firecracker Jazz Band carries the torch that was once lit by such greats as Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong & Bix Beiderbecke.

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The Aussie Music Blog

The Vintage Music Blog

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This Jukebox Rocks

The Blues and Roots Music Blog

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That's What I Call Sweet Music: American Dance Orchestras of the 1920s

This compilation of 1920's American dance music features long-forgotten artists such as Paul Sprecht, Red Nichols' Stompers, Rudy Vallee and others playing some truly infectious jazzy numbers that once comprised popular music in the U.S.A. Sure, some of the lyrics are corny, but the playing is consistently great (and the sound quality respectable). It's hard not to get nostalgic hearing these bygone numbers that blend big band, orchestral, and novelty music. As Robert Crumb states in the gorgeously illustrated liner notes, "what you hear on this CD is the good-time, social music of a vanished urban civilization, a lost world of smokestack factories, clanging trolley cars--and everybody wore hats!" True enough. --Jason Verlinde (Amazon)

1. That's What I Call Sweet Music, played by Paul Specht and his Orchestra, recorded on Jan 14, 1929

2. Make My Cot Where The Cot-Cot-Cotton Grows, Red Nichols' Stompers, Oct 26, 1927

3. Be My Baby, Blue Steele and his Orchestra, Feb 8, 1928

4. I'm The Last Of The Red Hot Mammas, Herman Kenin and his Ambassador Hotel Orchestra, Apr 26, 1929

5. Hy Honey's Lovin' Arms, Ray Miller and his Orchestra, Oct 2, 1927

6. 'Leven-Thirty Saturday Night, Fess Williams and his Royal Flush Orchestra, Apr 18, 1930

7. I'm Bringing A Red, Red Rose, George Olsen and his Music, Dec 6, 1928

8. Do Something, McKinney's Cotton Pickers, Apr 9, 1929

9. Wedding Bells, Fred Rich and his Orchestra, Feb 19, 1929

10. St. Louis Blues, Leroy Smith and his Orchestra, Feb 23, 1928

11. Sing Song Girl, Leroy Shield and the Victor Hollywood Orchestra, Sep 26, 1930

12. Sweet Ella May, Earl Hines and his Orchestra, Feb 13, 1929

13. The One That I Love Loves Me, Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees, Apr 1, 1929

14. Aristocratic Stomp, Paul Tremaine and his Aristocrats, Oct 2, 1929

15. Buy, Buy For Baby, Ben Pollack and his Park Central Orchestra, Oct 15, 1928

16. Hum And Strum, 'Doc' Cook and his 14 Doctors of Syncopation, Mar 30, 1928

17. Give Your Little Baby Lots Of Lovin', Anson Weeks and his Hotel Mark Hopkins Orchestra, Jan 28, 1929

18. That's What Puts The Sweet In Home Sweet Home, Jean Goldkette and his Orchestra, Nov 21, 1928

19. Singin' In The Rain, Gus Arnheim and his Orchestra, Apr 28, 1929

20. The Pay Off, California Ramblers, Feb 10, 1928

21. My Little Old Home Down In New Orleans, Tal Henry and his Orchestra, Dec 5, 1928

22. Oh, You Have No Idea! Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, May 23, 1928

23. She's A Great, Great Girl, Hal Kemp and his Orchestra, Mar 7, 1928

24. Happy Days And Lonely Nights, Charlie Fry and his Million Dollar Pier Orchestra, Jun 5, 1928

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(updated 03/2021)