Big Jazz

Twenty CD's, beginning at the beginning of Armstrong's recording career. That means King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in 1923. And the collection goes on through the years: Armstrong with, among others, Fletcher Henderson, Clarence Williams, Bessie Smith, the Hot Five, Hot Seven, and the bands he fronted during the thirties and forties, up to just before the formation of the All Stars in 1947, the small group with which he mainly worked, with many changes of personnel, for the rest of his life. An amazing collection, much of which has been available in smaller portions, but never like this. In the course of his career, Louis Armstrong adapted to the tastes of the times. However, he never lost the essential elements that made him arguably the greatest jazzman of them all. Following the trajectory of this star over the decades shows sides of him that are all the more interesting because of the changing contexts and styles within which he performed. Anyone with any interest at all in jazz will find listening to this collection an entertaining and illuminating experience. For Armstrong fans, it is essential. A personal note: While a student in the late nineteen fifties, I was listening to some of the Hot Seven recordings. A classmate ridiculed them, saying that the tunes were just a series of cliches. Yes, I said, but on these recordings they were being played for the first time; it was the musicans who found inspiration in Armstrong's work who made them cliches. It was a measure of how greatly Armstrong has influenced music.

far from comprehensive

The music included in the set speaks for itself. Simply some of the greatest and most important music ever recorded. However,the collection falls short in an important area. If you already have a pretty good Armstrong collection and are trying to fill in the holes don't bother with this set. Almost all of the rarities are missing. It's basically a low cost duplication of material commonly available in other sets. You won't find Satchmo's 1926 sessions with Sippie Wallace or the Lil Armstrong Serenaders session or Satchmo's sessions with Erskine Tate's Vendome Orchestra or any of the other numerous sessions he played on with other artists in the twenties. It seems that once all of the American labels got their Armstrong boxed sets out over the last few years these enterprising folks from Holland simply copied what they'd released and combined the results into this set. You get what you pay for.