Book
Review
Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings. Eighty-nine tracks. Compilation produced by Phil Schaap. Liner notes by Phil Schaap, Robert G. OMeally, and George Akavian. 2000. Columbia/Legacy C4K 63527.
Jazz devotees have long sought
to craft the finest tributes in praise of Louis Armstrong, his significance
to jazz, and his essential place in American musical culture. Showered
with acclaim, Armstrong has been called the sky of American music, the
musician who charted the roadmap for jazz, the inventor of the soundtrack
for the twentieth century. Some critics further contend that he not only
decisively influenced jazz but largely determined the music's subsequent
history. The performances that first brought Armstrong to national attention
enjoy a comparable reputation. Considered the peak of his career by many
purists, Armstrong's recordings in the latter half of the 1920s with his
Hot Five and Hot Seven have received similarly florid praise. Produced
by small groups with shifting personnel and released initially as 78-rpm
double-sided singles by Okeh Records, this music has been described as
the birthplace of jazz, the musical shot heard 'round the world, the Alps
of jazz--indeed, both the music's Holy Grail and its Rosetta Stone.
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