Louis Armstrong

[Purusha]

You thinking so or not thinking so doesn't make it true or false. When Coltrane played 'Lazy Bird', it was different every time he played it, but it was still 'Lazy Bird'. You are saying that 'Lazy Bird' was a new and different piece of music every time it was played. It may have had variations but it was not a new and different piece every time it was played. And even if it was never written down, anyone who heard it and could play the sax, could play a new realization of 'Lazy Bird' whenever he wanted to.

You are right in the sense that jazz improvisation is essentially a form of musical composition in its own right, but i disagree with this assumption that the result of jazz improvisation is in any way analogous or, god forbid, identical to the result of the process of composition as found in classical music. I know that Bach was able to improvise fugues but do you think even him could have improvised the Art of Fugue? Or the well tempered clavier (which took him many years to perfect?). I think in jazz composition and performance are tightly woven with each other, so that it is not easy to say where one begins and the other one ends, where as classical composers are able to "stand back", so to speak, and examine the music in more "abstract" terms, at least in my opinion.

[Purusha]

If that is true, then, no, we cannot have the real Beethoven.  Because no one improvises cadenzas in piano concerti just as Beethoven did.

Nor does any of us today hear the symphonies as Beethoven himself heard them.  None of us today hears the Op.125 as Beethoven conducted it.

By this argument there is no such thing as Beethoven, only, say, Richter, or Monteux, or what have you, which means there is to reason to even bother having a room devoted to individual composers in this forum and we ought to merely discuss performers and nothing else. Obviously, the music of Beethoven survives for the most part, enough for us to understand what its value is. But without the recordings of Coltrane, we would have an hard time knowing anything about Coltrane. Therefore, we cannot discuss his music apart from his recordings, where as we can discuss Beethoven apart from Gilels or Karajan.

[Florestan]

If that is true, then, no, we cannot have the real Beethoven.  Because no one improvises cadenzas in piano concerti just as Beethoven did.

Nor does any of us today hear the symphonies as Beethoven himself heard them.  None of us today hears the Op.125 as Beethoven conducted it.

That is absolutely true. The HIP claim that this or that manner is not only how this or that music should be played (which can be defensible), but also exactly what they heard back then is bogus. 

[Purusha]

The worst thing that can happen to any music is that it ossifies because of a single powerful individual's influence, which is magnified through recordings.

Well, unfortunately, this is precisely what we have now. You can believe that Coltrane "lives on", but he really doesn't. He set a standard for excellence and had an original voice that cannot be shared with anybody, and can only be equaled by others who happen to be as gifted as he was, whom of course will invariably write their own music and thus wouldn't really be extending Coltrane beyond the grave. Mind you that i'm not arguing this is a good situation to have, i'm just stating what the facts are.

[Gurn Blanston]

That is absolutely true. The HIP claim that this or that manner is not only how this or that music should be played (which can be defensible), but also exactly what they heard back then is bogus. 

Did anyone ever argue that? Does anyone still argue it? The answer to both of those is no. It was one of those arguments which the anti's made up and put in the mouths of the pro's, so they would have an easy claim to disallow. So the claim itself is bogus, thank you.

[Florestan]

Did anyone ever argue that? Does anyone still argue it? The answer to both of those is no. It was one of those arguments which the anti's made up and put in the mouths of the pro's, so they would have an easy claim to disallow. So the claim itself is bogus, thank you.

I was actually watching the clock. It took you 15 minutes. Rather slow response, I´d say. 

[Gurn Blanston]

I was actually watching the clock. It took you 15 minutes. Rather slow response, I´d say. 

I'm at work...

[Karl Henning]

The HIP movement is almost entirely a post-modern conceit.  But it offers us some wonderful music making nonetheless.

Agreed on all points.

[Karl Henning]

I was actually watching the clock. It took you 15 minutes. Rather slow response, I´d say. 

I'm at work...

(* chortle *)

[Chaszz]

Coming in rather late to this discussion about jazz being about improvisation and classical music being about composition and interpretation thereof, I have a couple of comments to contribute. Jazz may be to a large extent improvised, but there is plenty of composition too. Musicians who could read in the 1910s and 20s were well-respected and were hired more readily. Jelly Roll Morton composed and arranged New Orleans jazz and would not hire a musician for a record date who could not read well. The New Orleans style had barely crystallized before arrangers were laying the groundwork for the Swing Era where written ensemble  passages were standard. Already Armstrong's later Hot Fives of 1928 were arranged by Don Redman. Yes, these arranged choruses were settings for solos, which were like like diamonds in velvet, but had plenty of jazz power themselves. They later provided the characteristic sounds and expressions of the Ellington, Basie, Goodman and many other orchestras. Ellington  belongs among the top three or four jazz figures, and it is not for his soloing.

Secondly, many of the Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens were written out in score by Louis or wife Lil and mailed to the Library of Congress for copyright registration. This was partly to try to protect composers' royalties which were difficult to collect from greedy record companies. Cornet Chop Suey was written out almost exactly as it would later be performed in 1924, two years before the record was made. There is a photo of the score in Louis' handwriting which is in the Library of Congress, somewhere on the web, but I can't find it at the moment. Also Armstrong is different from other jazz musicians in that he often created a typical variation on a song which he then used throughout the rest of his career, rather than improvise a new variation. The solo variation on the first eight bars of the B section of Muskrat Ramble was played almost exactly the same in every recorded version, whether 1926 or 1947 or whenever. This is true of solos on Stardust, I'll Never Be the Same, Up the Lazy River, Sunny Side of the Street, and many others. He varied it and stuck with the variation. This is not improvisation. It is still great music. It is is one reason I compare his work to classical practice.   

So those are two comments about the composed side of jazz, as opposed to improvisation. On the other, classical side, I have read accounts of, and occasionally by, listeners in small salons who were absolutely mesmerized by Beethoven's improvisations, which sometimes went on for long periods of time. This is from before his deafness. I would readily assume Mozart and Bach, and others, could and did do similar things. No doubt if we had recordings of these things they would be very precious, and would probably give us new insights into the musical personalities of these composers we don't possess now. 

So overall what I'm suggesting is that these hard and fast lines between these two different forms of music don't exist as strongly as we think they do. There's no arguing with the facts that most jazz musicians improvise and always have, and most classical players since perhaps 1850 or 1900 have not improvised and can't. But in the heydays of both these musics, things were more fluid.

[Purusha]

I think the distinction between the two genres is very strong in principle, just not always so in fact, and often for purely relative reasons. For instance, the fact jazz was born in the west automatically put it in close proximity with an already existing musical tradition and could not help being influenced by the conventions of this latter. This does not mean that in principle jazz has any need of those conventions, it just so happened that those conventions were already there, so why not take advantage of them? There are many other musical forms in the world that are extremely sophisticated but never felt the need to develop a complex system of notation, one of them being the traditional music of Africa itself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEwnHf9Q23k

[Chaszz]

3. The early Hot Fives - 1925-26



In 1925, Louis Armstrong quit Fletcher Henderson's big band after 13 months and left New York to return to Chicago. He was dissatisfied with playing only a single chorus in each of his solos, he wanted to sing, which Henderson would not let him do, and wife Lil was demanding his return. She was playing piano in Chicago, finding more opportunities there, and wanted him to headline and achieve greater fame. He joined her band at the Dreamland Cafe with a large sign out front proclaiming him the World's Greatest Trumpet Player.

At the same time the Okeh record company, after the big success of Armstrong's records with Clarence Williams' Blue Five, signed him to lead his own band for the first time, as Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. This was a recording band only and appeared in public only once for a promotion. The style was New Orleans with increasing amounts of solos as the series went on. The recording technology was improved as electric recording was introduced along with the invention of the microphone.  This replaced the acoustic recording horn, which had had no electric amplification and depended only on a diaphragm. The cornet now had a fuller sound, unlike the thin reediness it had on the earlier records. Louis switched to trumpet at some point, nobody really knows when, but played cornet on at least the first batch of Hot Fives, since he mentions the instrument by name during his vocal in Big Butter and Egg Man, and Cornet Chop Suey names the instrument outright.

Louis' New Orleans colleagues clarinetist Johnny Dodds, trombonist Kid Ory, and banjoist Johnny St. Cyr joined him on these sides, with wife Lil on piano. These musicians are more or less capable but have not stood up well over the hundreds of thousands of times I have listened to these performances over the years (just joking, but barely). A few of the tunes were old New Orleans favorites, but most were composed on the spot or a few days before recording.

One of the best of the early ones is Cornet Chop Suey. This had been composed by Louis two years previously, in 1924 when he was with King Oliver, as a signed manuscript copyright deposit in his hand at the Library of Congress shows. The beauty and elegance of the melody and variations make me think of Mozart as well as jazz. Louis himself later said this piece could be played by cornet or symphony orchestra. There is a triplet phrase leading into a beautiful opening passage, followed by a 16-bar introduction, then a 32-bar chorus. There follows a mediocre solo by Lil, who played good rhythm but wasn't much of a solo pianist. Then Armstrong solos for the rest of the record against stop-time or continuous accompaniment, playing gorgeous and swinging figures throughout. First there are loose variations on the introduction, then logical and stunning variations on the chorus, then at the end a coda with a glorious ending on a high A. This tour de force is beyond anything he had played previously in his recorded career.  (The record shown in this video is a later reissue by Columbia, which had absorbed Okeh).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es5KLayfw9w

Gut Bucket Blues, though not among the greatest of the Hot Fives, is an amusing introduction to the band and has some solid 12-bar blues playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgh2GSW8Kws

Muskrat Ramble became a traditional jazz standard. It is credited to Kid Ory, who takes nice advantage of the trombone parts, but Louis later claimed he wrote it. His masterful solo variation on the first eight bars of the B section, reaching to a high dominant note, became regular for him, repeated each time he played the tune. In the A section, the most interesting part is the minor third chord alternating with its dominant which begins in the sixth bar. Louis' variations on this, in the two final choruses, at minutes 1:57 and 2:19, in my opinion are on the level of genius, despite the muffed note in the first one. The final chorus, a hot "ride out," also has a hint of the tango rhythm which was occasionally present in New Orleans jazz, especially in some of Jelly Roll Morton's records (Morton claimed it was essential for jazz), another testament to the rich tapestry of cultural influences in New Orleans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoEtrHPUN_I 

Big Butter and Egg Man, as well as some great cornet playing, contains an early Armstrong vocal (this is where he mentions his cornet) that is largely spoken and is rougher than his later singing in the 30s and beyond. The cornet solo is one his most famous, but additionally in the opening and closing choruses it is pleasurable just to hear him play the melody with his golden singing tone, sometimes with a slight legato followed by a quick return to the rhythm. The vocal chorus by May Alix decidely does not swing, but she had other charms. She was working with Louis at the Sunset Cafe at the time, and on the bandstand he would sometimes just stare in awe at her beauty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F7YSPnO5nc

Skid-Dat-De-Dat is somewhat of an oddity, full of breaks, with a strong blues feeling although it is not in blues form. It contains some wonderful playing by Louis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qo2uhNRJok

Jazz Lips is not usually listed as one of the noteworthy Hot Fives, but is one of my favorites. It is a collection of alternating breaks and ensemble sections, sort of a novelty tune (as can be seen there was a lot of corny humor in these sessions). But it will repay listening. I love it because Louis' playing during the ensembles, and especially during the final ride-out chorus, is a great example of the New Orleans lead cornet role. The final chorus acquires its power partly because it is at last a release from all the breaks into pure flowing rhythm. During this chorus Louis plays with pure abandoned joy, one stabbing passage after another, and also contributes a wonderful sliding figure in the middle break. Then there is his nice cadenza right at the end. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbpOPOz2KQA


Finally, no review of the early Hot Fives can be complete without the famous Heebie Jeebies, which introduced scat singing to the wider world. Louis later said he dropped the lyrics sheet and had to improvise, but there are a few reports of earlier scat signing by him and others. Nonetheless, this was the first definitive recorded instance and it created a new form of expression for the jazz singer.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGt2U-xTE

Anyone interested in more early Hot Fives can buy a set, or find them on Youtube with the help of this list...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong_Hot_Five_and_Hot_Seven_Sessions

Next: The Hot Sevens

[Chaszz]

I think the distinction between the two genres is very strong in principle, just not always so in fact, and often for purely relative reasons. For instance, the fact jazz was born in the west automatically put it in close proximity with an already existing musical tradition and could not help being influenced by the conventions of this latter. This does not mean that in principle jazz has any need of those conventions, it just so happened that those conventions were already there, so why not take advantage of them? There are many other musical forms in the world that are extremely sophisticated but never felt the need to develop a complex system of notation, one of them being the traditional music of Africa itself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEwnHf9Q23k

Yes, but jazz is quintessentially the fusing of European and African musical systems, with each holding roughly equal weight. So the Western system is not just a collection of conventions to take advantage of, but infuses the music as vitally as the African element. In Muskrat Ramble, which I analyze above, Armstrong gets a lot of emotional power out of the minor third chord, in a Western not African sense. Cadences and the interplay in general between tonic and dominant chords in jazz are Western. Likewise the extended harmony of Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal and the Impressionists was purposely infused into modern jazz. Dizzy Gillespie delighted in teaching younger players about those harmonies and where they came from. Jazz may have not had an absolute need for these things, but they formed it as much as the African side. I can't see the sense of saying it could have done without them when they were eagerly embraced by musicians who loved them, and were integral to its development. If birds didn't have wings they might still be dinosaurs, but they have wings. If not for these Western things, jazz might be almost entirely African. But it's not.

[Chaszz]

4. The Hot Sevens - 1927



In May 1927 Okeh recorded four sessions with a larger band called the Hot Seven. The Hot Five was augmented by Pete Briggs on tuba and Johnny's younger brother Baby Dodds on drums. Kid Ory was out of town and was replaced by John Thomas on trombone. The recorded sound is improved somewhat by what must have been a later generation of equipment, at least in part. Armstrong's power as a player has continued to increase and develop, and his lead horn and extended soloing largely dominate the ostensibly New Orleans-style collective sessions. Clarinetist Johnny Dodds has a number of lengthy solos too, out of a partly misplaced spirit of egalitarianism, which are good but not often very memorable. Armstrong is almost definitely playing trumpet now, as the vibrancy and stabbing penetration of the horn's sound are too bold for a cornet.   

Potato Head Blues is justly the most famous of the Hot Sevens, with its remarkable solo and ride-out chorus. Many pages of comments have been written about this record. Actress Tallulah Bankhead said she played it during every performance intermission for a pick-up before going back onstage. Armstrong wrote the song, which is not a blues but is in a 32-bar AA form similar to that of Cornet Chop Suey. After the first chorus, where Louis plays the melody in a relaxed, singing fashion, he goes on with a short solo interlude-introduction. Then Johnny Dodds solos on the main theme, after which Louis plays his solo against a stacatto stop-time background. The solo is full of ideas, detours and unexpected changes from high register to low register. It is based mostly on the harmonies of the chord progression, without any pretense at all that it is a variation on the melody. Although this might be expected from a clarinet, from a lead trumpet it is an announcement that jazz is now concerned with harmonic rather than melodic variation, and thus is a sort of watershed.

But for me and many others the finest section is still to come, in the magnificent ride-out half-chorus (the 3-plus minute time limitation of the 78 rpm record forced the leaving out of the first half of this final chorus). With long sweeping phrases that span over and simplify the chord changes, Louis plays a brand new melody full of beauty and authority, another of his summings-up of what the lead horn in the New Orleans ensemble could be, even as he was helping consign the style itself to history with his soloing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ccXJ0Y-CI

The next rccord, Melancholy Blues, was one of the tracks included on NASA's Voyager spacecraft's Golden Record to introduce aliens in interstellar space to some of humanity's greatest achievements. Again in spite of the title, this is not a blues but a 32-bar chorus, this time in AABA form. After the short introduction, there is not even a pretense at New Orleans collective playing as instead a long trumpet solo immediately takes over. Louis plays over and around the rhythm at the beginning, stretching the phrases out luxuriously in long singing lines. The solo explores many possibilities of the trumpet's expressiveness -- smears, glissandos, high register to lower register shifts, sometimes within the same phrase, passing grace-note phrases and double-time sections. It includes a magisterial unaccompanied four-bar break at the end of the B section. The many varied sounds exemplify how sometimes early jazz was said to mimic the human voice. It would not be an exaggeration to speculate that probably nobody in history has ever played a trumpet more expressively. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJJBJzprWaU

Next, in the first two choruses of Willie the Weeper, Louis states the melody first and then varies it beautifully. This is a good stomper with another great trumpet solo leading into an impassioned final chorus with everybody playing full out, and especially good blues-tinged clarinet by Johnny Dodds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRzBzVw1OAw

That's When I'll Come Back To You has a vocal by Lil. Then there's a vocal by Louis that, like many of his vocals in the Hot Fives and Sevens, is rough, has awkward humor, and falls short of the smoother (though still gravelly) beauty of his singing starting in the 1930s. The four-bar trumpet break near the end is one of his finest in harmonic and rhythmic inventiveness. Also again some very good playing by Johnny Dodds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYEh8j9dXY0


Johnny Dodds

The first version of Gully Blues was called SOL Blues, and because of the dirty title (an acronym for S__t out of luck), it was re-recorded with new lyrics and under a new name. The trumpet solo is extraordinary. The reach to the high fifth and the powerful descending phrases after it are repeated and varied in all but the final one of the six two-bar sections of the twelve-bar blues. This provides a primer on how to vary a theme that reminds one of the variations form used by classical composers, but here condensed into 12 short measures. In the ensemble final chorus afterward the trumpet is hardly less expressive though now in free form.

The two takes of essentially the same song give an extra look into the process. A comparison of the solo and to some extent the out chorus with the original "dirty" version emphasizes that Louis frequently composed his solos beforehand rather than improvising them. Dodds' solo also, rather than being improvised, is much the same on both versions.

SOL Blues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYjw0-4htZI

Gully Low Blues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yYrRK93pDg

Weary Blues is one of the few instances of an old New Orleans standard played by the Hot Five or Hot Seven bands, as most of the numbers were composed on or near the recording dates, or were based on recently popular pop or jazz songs. It is a two part tune, with a 12-bar blues in the first part leading through a short transition to a 16-bar chorus in a new key. Again a trumpet solo full of great new ideas leads to a superb ride-out chorus. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou3MNioS0KA


Chicago, c. 1925

One of the most famous Hot Sevens, Wild Man Blues is credited to Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton as a joint composition. There is a lengthy solo by Louis with all his inventiveness and mastery, exploring many facets of the song's chord harmonies as well as the trumpet's capabilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO3k-S_pqK4

These Hot Seven recordings not reviewed here are well worth hearing also, and can be found in the usual place on the web:

Alligator Crawl
Twelfth Street Rag
Keyhole Blues

[Chaszz]

The next chapter, on the later Hot Fives, will be posted in a few days.

[Chaszz]

A slight delay...

[Chaszz]

5. The later group of Hot Fives - 1927

Press of other responsibilities has presented me updating this for awhile.

After the Hot Seven sessions, later in 1927, a number of Okeh recording dates were held with the original Hot Five, with Kid Ory back on trombone and the tuba and drums omitted. As is to be expected, as Armstrong is at the height of his powers, there are more masterpieces here. The trumpet sounds different, somewhat clearer, more melodic and piercing, but more treble, thinner and lacking the rich midrange and bass tones it has in many passages of the Hot Sevens. These differences are no doubt due to vagaries of recording studios and equipment. (Satchmo's tone is unusual for a trumpeter, having a thicker, more rounded, richer sound than any other trumpeter I've ever heard, with the exception of some of Miles Davis' unmuted playing. This very full sound was the result of a non-standard embouchure which Louis created on his own, and which gave him serious lip trouble on and off throughout his career.)   

Hotter Than That is a favorite from these sessions. It opens with a trumpet solo which, in spite of a little flub near the beginning, is full of great phrasing and ideas. After a clarinet solo, Louis sings a scat chorus accompanied by guitarist Lonnie Johnson, who was sitting in for this session. This vocal is replete with rhythmic creativity, with a long passage spanning over and breaking up the beat, then establishing it again. Next after a half-chorus by the trombone, Satchmo comes in on trumpet with a breathtaking ascending break. Then he begins the final half-chorus with a repeated two-note phrase that builds tension until it releases into another great break, and the record finishes with some fancy extra interplay between trumpet and guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exIOjoBYp5o

Struttin' With Some Barbecue is another beauty. After nice half-chorus solos by Dodds and Ory, Armstrong's full-chorus solo against a stop-time background is superb, and then comes the out-chorus with his beautiful phrase that ascends to two high third notes and descends in fine phrasing, sending a chill down the spine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl-2R_Pb7dk

Ory's Creole Trombone is a reprise of the tune we heard at the beginning of the recordings in this essay as recorded by Ory's band in Los Angeles in 1921 or 2. The difference in 1927 is as of night and day. Though it's a traditional form derived from parade music and ragtime in its 3-part structure, Louis' variations on the themes are very free and forward-looking. The piercing break, at the end of his solo, between the next-to-last and last choruses has always seemed to me so free harmonically and so creative as to predict bebop. When I hear this record I always think of Miles Davis' saying, "You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played - I mean even modern." Well, that might be slightly hyperbolic. I put both versions of the tune here for comparison.

Ory's Creole Trombone

Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra, 1921-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWUkShQQwk4

Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, 1927
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NevLri5ozX8

The next record, The Last Time, contains some humorous vocalizing. There is great trumpet work by Armstrong throughout but especially in the final ensemble chorus, where he again provides a primer in variation. He uses double-time phrasing to fine effect at the end of his vocal and in the beautiful trumpet break near the end of the final chorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB-_eatM0g8

The other Hot Fives from 1927 are IMO not quite up to the standard of those I've mentioned above, but are well worth hearing, as is anything from Satchmo at this point, and can be found on Youtube.

Put 'Em Down Blues
Got No Blues
Once in a While
Savoy Blues

There are two more chapters to be told here -- Louis' collaboration with the remarkable pianist Earl Hines, and then his early big band recordings. They will appear soon.   

[jochanaan]

I'm coming rather late to this discussion too.  There are a few background points that will help in understanding:

1. Musicians can't help but put themselves into their musicmaking.  Even if one plays only the notes written on the pages, there are many other parameters such as tempo, dynamics and phrasing, plus those little variations which aren't written on the page and often change from concert to concert and even rehearsal to rehearsal--and this is as true in classical music as in jazz or other musics.

2. The various genres of music always "contaminate" each other.  The various jazz artists import harmonies from classical music, while many classical composers even before the 20th century imported styles and even melodies from folk and popular music.  And many of the best artists have crossed over successfully: think of George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and more recently the Marsalis brothers and Yo-Yo Ma...

[Chaszz]

One more of the 1927 Hot Fives was left out in the list at the end of my last post -- Put 'Em Down Blues.

[Chaszz]

6. Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines



In Chicago in 1925, Louis Armstrong met and became friends with pianist Earl Hines. Hines grew up in a middle-class black home in Pittsburgh, took three years of classical piano lessons and dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. But he discovered and turned to jazz and eventually moved to Chicago. The two musicians played together at various nightclubs during the time Armstrong was cutting records with his Hot Five and Seven recording-only bands. In 1928, Armstrong replaced all the other members of the recording band with musicians he was working with nightly in clubs while keeping the group's Hot Five name unchanged. Hines was the pianist. Some of the later records were released under the name Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five.
 
Hines had breathtaking technique. It's entertaining to imagine him developing it by practicing Beethoven sonatas in his youth. His left hand played steady or complicated rhythms while his right ran the keys brilliantly and fluidly. To project his solos in noisy clubs, he developed what he dubbed "trumpet-style" piano -- he played the right-hand lead in parallel octaves so the volume was twice as loud. He sometimes suspended the left-hand rhythm or twisted it into puzzling intervals as if to test the listener, before resuming it again. His abilities were far beyond those of other pianists in Chicago's nightclub world, and so many later great jazz pianists were influenced by him that he became known as the "Fatha" of jazz piano.

The recordings made by these two greats together in 1928 are another landmark in the development of the jazz solo, with many releases so it's difficult to narrow them down to a handful to comment on. West End Blues always comes out first in any survey, though, as it's probably Louis' greatest recorded performance.

As for the band, Fred Robinson replaces Kid Ory on trombone and Jimmy Strong replaces Johnny Dodds on clarinet. Neither change is for the better and Strong is somewhat a weaker player. The horns sometimes play New Orleans style front-line free polyphony, while on other cuts arranger Don Redman contributes early versions of what would become big-band unison style in the 1930s. There's a lot of experimentation, high jinks and fireworks, with rapid changes back and forth from solo to ensemble to vocal. The effect is sometimes rough and unpolished. On virtually every recording, Armstrong and Hines carve out new niches of the soloist's art.

We'll get to West End Blues a bit later. To introduce the band, here is No One Else But You, which exemplifies four important aspects of these recordings: Satchmo's wonderful soloing, his maturing singing trading roughness for smoothness, Hines' great soloing with some rhythmic puzzles, and nice unison horn writing by Redman moving away from the New Orleans style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCTq3q3hkKo

Some of the greatest recordings of this series were slow tunes. Here is the blues Muggles, with a lovely solo by Hines followed by good trombone and clarinet solos, leading to a double time trumpet chorus by Satchmo and then a straight chorus of sublime blues trumpet playing, slurred blue notes and all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8IGsLckps

Now here is West End Blues, without doubt Louis' finest blues playing and probably the greatest record he ever made. In his concluding solo he plumbs and expands the depths of jazz and blues for a statement of deep complex emotion, with more than a tinge of tragedy.

First a stunning trumpet introduction leads into a simple, sombre playing of the King Oliver blues melody. A trombone solo is followed by a clarinet solo with lovely vocal obbligato by Louis, then a beautiful solo by Hines. The last chorus is Satchmo's: a sustained high note held for four bars, four bars of an impassioned complex intensity of playing unheard in jazz previously, then descending chords by the piano to complete the twelve bars of the blues. The record finishes with a restrained coda.

Louis' playing and singing throughout are great, yet it's really only in the four central bars of the last chorus that he unleashes playing of such high genius. It's amazing to think that one of the peaks of jazz recording, and of American music itself, is only four measures long. But what four measures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPCBieSESI

On Weather Bird, a duet for trumpet and piano, Louis and Earl trade phrases on an old King Oliver rag, mining the chord changes for material in a dazzling display of ideas and technique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyb_wr40pog

Tight Like This is another slow number with an Armstrong solo of great intensity that touches on tragedy. This time instead of effectively four measures long, the solo is forty-eight. Though not a blues in form, the tune is full of blues feeling. Hines states the melody in an eloquent solo, then Robinson and Strong are mercifully without trombone and clarinet solos. Instead, three full choruses by Louis' trumpet build in intensity to an emotional climax and descent. Once again, this record underlines the bountiful riches lost to the world when Satchmo played long evenings nightly in clubs with no recording equipment present. This listener's first choice in time travel would be to hear this man in Chicago nightclubs every evening in the 1920s, sitting close to the bandstand with the microphone end of his smart phone, perhaps disguised as a cigarette package, sticking out of a jacket pocket and recording every note.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb996lMlzRM

Beau Koo Jack contains a technically dazzling trumpet solo by Satchmo and some fine arranging by Don Redman which foretells the Swing Era. Though the record here begins with the sound of a crack, the crack soon disappears, and this video is the best acoustically I could find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NZJjhfaKdE

Basin Street Blues is another slow number which reaches an artistic peak among the recordings in this 1928 series. It's an old New Orleans standard usually presented as a nostalgic return to the people, sights and sounds of the city. Here it is stripped of sentimentality and the nostalgic lyrics are dropped in favor of a scat vocal. The record becomes instead a simple platform for presenting the raw, impassioned final solo and out-chorus of the trumpet, which parallel the tragic intensity of  West End Blues and Tight Like This. A novel touch are the opening and closing passages by Hines on celeste.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj76PnMLkaQ


Earl Hines in the late 1920s. Armstrong and Hines opened a night club together but it soon failed.

There are many more of these 1928 Armstrong-Hines recordings. I've tried to present some of the best of them above. The rest of them are well worth hearing and can also be found on Youtube. Take note of the date so you get the 1928 version. Here is a list of the ones not presented above:

Fireworks
Don't Jive Me
Hear Me Talkin' To Ya
I Can't Give You Anything But Love
Knee Drops
No, Papa, No
Save It Pretty Mama
Skip the Gutter
Squeeze Me
A Monday Date
St. James Infirmary
Sugar Foot Strut
Two Deuces

The next, last post in this series on Louis' greatest recordings as a cornet and trumpet player will review his early big band recordings of 1929 and the early 1930s.