I’m currently working my way through my massive collection of Louis Armstrong music using Jos Willems discography All of Me: the complete discography of Louis Armstrong. My goal is to get rid of all the copies of songs which I’ve managed to buy (usually when getting big multi-CD box sets, or when I upgrade from shitty quality chronological recordings or other cheaper sets), and to listen to and organise everything that’s left. The problem is that I was starting with about 1200 songs and Armstrong recorded for about fifty years, for most of which he was insanely popular. It’s slow progress.
I try to do this with all my music, but I just don’t have the time. Or, to be honest, inclination. So I’ll end up doing this sort of thing when I have time or feel pushed to ‘get it together’ for DJing, when I should be practicing instead :D.
But I love discographies. I love following a musician through all those recording sessions, all those different bands and cities and studios. Modern day musicians just don’t do the sort of studio work these guys did. They’d be in the studio in a different city every other week as they traveled across the country playing live gigs pretty much every night. Each session is about three songs long, and they’re almost always just one take. Until the technology got cheaper. And they’re all one track – everyone squeezed into one room and just played. Most modern musicians aren’t anywhere near good enough to pull that off. But these guys were playing for crowds every night, and they were traveling and practicing together every day. That was one hard core life.
To be blunt, some of these sessions are rubbish. You stumble over quite a few wrong notes, shitty musicians and combos who are really just not feeling it. But then you also find little blocks of songs that are amazing. Amazing. There’s a Mills Blue Rhythm Band session from 20th Nov 1936 where they record ‘Algiers Stomp’, ‘Big John’s Special’ and ‘Mr Ghost Goes to Town’ (I think it’s that collection of songs – I don’t have the dates in front of me) all in one day, and it’s just astounding. They were all obviously totally together as a group, really feeling it, and the compositions and arrangements were right on.
Anyways, the point of this story is that I’d like to keep track of some of the sessions I come across when I’m doing this stuff. Just so’s I can remember.
So here’s one from this Armstrong stuff.
The other week I was reading a section of Red Mars, the massive Kim Stanley Robinson SF classic about terraforming Mars, and one of the characters is thinking about Louis Armstrong. This woman is a Russian engineer working on building structures on the planet as the group set up a new colony. She’s an inspired engineer, a brilliant problem solver, and quite pragmatic, stolid sort of person. She likes listening to jazz while she works. There’s this one section where she’s thinking about Armstrong and the work he did with his small groups in the 50s or 40s (I can’t remember when – probably with the All Stars in the 50s), and she notes how in this period he’s full of joy. It’s a return to the creative, exciting and satisfying work he did with the Hot Fives and Sevens in the 20s, after decades of tedious (and often quite ordinary) big band work. It’s as though the light comes back into his playing, and he does the sort of improvised work that shines in a small group setting. He’s managed to get away from the overly structured, show-casing-the-celebrity model of his big band.
Anyways, you can argue about that opinion. I think there’s some really brilliant work with ‘the Louis Armstrong Orchestra’, particularly in about 1930, 31 and 32. But there are definitely times, especially later in the 30s, when those big band recordings really drag. Booooring.
So I’m listening through my Armstrong stuff, and get to a little clump in 1946. On the 6th September in Los Angeles, Louis Armstrong, Vic Dickenson, Barney Bigard, Charlie Beale, Leonard Feather, Allan Reuss, Red Callender, and Zutty Singleton recorded four blues standards as ‘Louis Armstrong’s Hot Seven’: I Want a Little Girl, Sugar, Blues For Yesterday and Blues In The South. Yeah, that band is hot. That version of ‘Sugar’ is just gorgeous. There’s a laid back, gentler feel to these four recordings. You can hear these pros just rolling it out. The tempos are slower, but the mood has that relaxed edge that only really experienced musicians can pull out. They know their shit, and they trust each other. I’d DJ each of these songs, but I listen to them at home as well, over and over.
The songs are overplayed, overdone standards. The sort of things that are at once absolutely essential to a jazz musician’s repertoire, but difficult to play in a new and interesting way. But there’s something really nice and relaxed about these versions.
…sorry, I’m getting a bit confuzzled here. A sudden dose of allergies have me all snotty and sneezy and confused.
But the point I want to make, is that these recordings precede some All Star work from 1947, which is what I think Kim Stanley Robinson was talking about (though he’s probably banging on about the 50s stuff, as that’s more high profile). In ’47 the personnel change again. Louis Armstrong and his All Stars feature Bobby Hackett, Jack Teagarden, Peanuts Hucko, Dick Cary, Bob Haggart, Sid Catlett and George Wettling did a live gig in New York. It’s the Teagarden factor that catches my ear. Those two are gorgeous together. But it’s a bit easy for things to slip over into cliched clowning, so these tight, exciting sessions are great.
I’m especially keen on on a session they did on the 10th June 1947 in New York, in yet another combination: Louis Armstrong and his All Stars (Bobby Hackett, Jack Teagarden, Peanuts Hucko, Ernie Caceres, Johnny Guarnieri, Al Casey, Al Hall, Cozy Cole). Look at those names! No wonder this is a great little set of songs. There’s a great version of ‘Jack-Armstrong Blues’ which is just beautiful.
Ok, I’m dying of snot, so I have to stop here. I have to talk about that Carnegie Hall gig, but I can’t concentrate, sorry. But I’ll try to update this post or add new posts as I come across sessions I especially like.
Bits and pieces
- It’s All In The Game: Louis Armstrong, 1947-1957: I haven’t listened to this yet, but they’re talking about this same period.