Sound on Disc: Classic Jazz … & Schubert

Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra, 1932-1933 (BMG RCA-Bluebird 9759 2 RB). Before the “swing era” had brought jazz back into the American musical mainstream, Louis Armstrong was continuing his rise as the greatest of jazz trumpets, improvisers, and showmen. There was not a jazz instrumentalist in the late Twenties and Thirties who was not influenced by Louis—and that influence persisted until bop and its successors debased the currency. In this album, Louis was leading a rather routine band and recording what was not the very best of the Tin Pan Alley output. But from these tunes, he carved out solos that were lyric, beautifully phrased. “That’s My Home” became a classic at the hands of Satchelmouth, as did other selections included here.

Fats Waller: The Last Years, 1940-1943 (BMG RCA-Bluebird 9883-2 RB). Fats Waller, the rotund stride pianist, contributed mightily to the school of Harlem jazz. On the stage of the old Apollo Theater in New York, he could electrify an audience by the power and inventiveness of his pianistics, his tremendous drive, and a personality which rose to the top most balcony. But at small recording sessions and when jamming with his contemporaries, he evoked a blues spirit and a sensitivity which rivaled that of any jazz pianist of his time. He was also a showman and a clown, in the classic sense of the word, and thus transformed some of the shoddiest products of Tin Pan Alley into music and entertainment. He also wrote and popularized some of the finest jazz standards of his era, “Aint Misbehavin’ ” being the best known of them. Now Bluebird has put together three CDs of his final output—a memorial to a jazz great.

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Ralph de Toledano

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Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra, 1932-1933 (BMG RCA-Bluebird 9759 2 RB). Before the “swing era” had brought jazz back into the American musical mainstream, Louis Armstrong was continuing his rise as the greatest of jazz trumpets, improvisers, and showmen. There was not a jazz instrumentalist in the late Twenties and Thirties who was not influenced by Louis—and that influence persisted until bop and its successors debased the currency. In this album, Louis was leading a rather routine band and recording what was not the very best of the Tin Pan Alley output. But from these tunes, he carved out solos that were lyric, beautifully phrased. “That’s My Home” became a classic at the hands of Satchelmouth, as did other selections included here.

Fats Waller: The Last Years, 1940-1943 (BMG RCA-Bluebird 9883-2 RB). Fats Waller, the rotund stride pianist, contributed mightily to the school of Harlem jazz. On the stage of the old Apollo Theater in New York, he could electrify an audience by the power and inventiveness of his pianistics, his tremendous drive, and a personality which rose to the top most balcony. But at small recording sessions and when jamming with his contemporaries, he evoked a blues spirit and a sensitivity which rivaled that of any jazz pianist of his time. He was also a showman and a clown, in the classic sense of the word, and thus transformed some of the shoddiest products of Tin Pan Alley into music and entertainment. He also wrote and popularized some of the finest jazz standards of his era, “Aint Misbehavin’ ” being the best known of them. Now Bluebird has put together three CDs of his final output—a memorial to a jazz great.