Fats Domino vs. Bessie Smith

Fats Domino's 1950 update of Buddy Bolden's "Carleess Love" was cut 25 years after Bessie Smith did it with Louis Armstrong. 

Get into the Halloween spirit with Alex Pangman's Swing Set, Saturday

Alex will be sharing "spooky" treats from Eartha Kitt, Satchmo & Rene Marie on JazzFM.91 starting at 7 pm. 

Alex's playlist for tonight's Swing Set...

Getting in the mood for Halloween has never been easier with tonight’s set list JAZZ.FM91 

Glenn Miller and His Orchestra - Swingin' at the Seance

Scat Man Crothers - Ghost Riders in the Sky

Maddy and Her Jazz Friends - The House Is Haunted

Bing Crosby - I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You

Eartha Kitt - I Want To Be Evil

Rene Marie - I'd Rather Be Burned as a Witch

Chick Bullock - The Boogie Man

Harry Hall - Hush, Hush, Hush, Here Comes the Bogeyman

Wingy Manone - Boogie Man

Hannah Gill - Oogie Boogie's Song

Hannah Gill - My Man's an Undertaker

Louis Armstrong - Old Man Mose

Lee Morse and Her Blue Grass Boys - Tain't No Sin (To Dance Around in Your Bones)

Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns - Lucky Devil

Aileen Stanley - I'm a Jazz Vampire

Louis Armstrong's 1968 BBC recordings issued as "Louis In London"

Louis In London (out Friday) features 13 tracks recorded for the BBC by Louis Armstrong. There's a preview at the Rex tonight.  

Here's the scoop from Verve/Universal...

Verve Records is proud to announce LOUIS IN LONDON, the last great performance by the most influential American musician of all time, Louis Armstrong. Recorded live at the BBC on July 2, 1968 – just weeks after the groundbreaking Grammy-winning artist hit the #1 spot on the UK charts with “What A Wonderful World” – the 13-track collection will be released on standard black and exclusive blue vinyl, CD, and digital, accompanied by extensive liner notes by Armstrong’s biographer and Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum, Ricky Riccardi, on Friday, July 12. You can get a copy of LOUIS IN LONDON right here. 

From redefining jazz with his revolutionary trumpet playing to singlehandedly inventing popular singing, Louis Armstrong made a greater impact on American popular music than any other single artist before or since. In July 1968, Armstrong and his renowned band, The All-Stars, travelled to England and entered the BBC’s London studios to record a performance, full of vitality and joy, that manifested some of the most inspired singing and trumpet playing of his remarkable career.

First broadcast on September 22, 1968 as BBC TV’s “Show Of The Week – Louis Armstrong,” the session poignantly proved to be Armstrong’s last great performance. From the moment Armstrong received a copy of the 1968 London recording, he became determined for the world to hear this music, affixing a note to the outside of the tape box on which he wrote, “For The Fans.” Armstrong sent copies of the BBC concert to friends and played them whenever he received visitors. Though he could have chosen any number of remarkable recordings, including his iconic collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald, he instead returned again and again to the BBC session from the summer of 1968. Now, more than five decades since his passing, LOUIS IN LONDON will at long last be officially shared with the world.

“Knowing how badly he wanted his friends and fans to hear this music while he was still alive,” writes Ricky Riccardi in the album’s exclusive liner notes, “it’s a great source of pride to know that it will now be enjoyed by new generations, including many fans who weren’t even alive at the time Armstrong passed, but who are still inspired by his music and his joy.

“Armstrong once claimed he was here ‘in the cause of happiness.’ All these decades later, albums like LOUIS IN LONDON continue his life’s mission at a time when we still need to be reminded that maybe it still is a wonderful world and maybe we’ll never walk alone after all.”

Captured in high fidelity audio and video, LOUIS IN LONDON presents Armstrong delivering everything from the first composition he’s known to have played in public – W.C. Handy’s “Ole Miss” – to classic versions of such worldwide hits as “Mack The Knife” and “Hello, Dolly!” and the chart-topping “What A Wonderful World”– watch high definition performances videos of the latter two below. Those interested in hearing a preview of LOUIS IN LONDON should swing by Toronto's Rex Hotel (194 Queen St. West) today for an album playback session hosted by JazzFM91's Walter Venafro starting at 5:30 pm. 

Louis Armstrong – Louis In London 

When It’s Sleepy Time Down South

(Back Home Again) In Indiana

A Kiss To Build a Dream On

Hello, Dolly!

Mame

You’ll Never Walk Alone

Ole Miss

Blueberry Hill

Mack The Knife

Rockin’ Chair

The Bare Necessities

What a Wonderful World

When The Saints Go Marching In

Watch the BBC documentary Jazz Legends In Their Own Words

The hour-long documentary Jazz Legends In Their Own Words features Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and others.

Happy Birthday Luis Russell

Remembering Panama-born pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader Luis Russell with his "Louisiana Swing"

In 1935, the Luis Russell Orchestra became Louis Armstrong's backing band with Luis as pianist and musical director until 1943. 

Happy Birthday Louis Armstrong!

Remembering the great Louis Armstrong with the Laughin' Louis doc and a broadcast shared on Alex Pangman's Swing Set. 

UK conductor Sir Henry Coward's hilarious 1926 indictment of jazz

From the Chicago Defender article, it seems like Louis Armstrong's "Heebie Jeebies" would've infuriated Sir Henry Coward. 

That time Louis Armstrong made a movie with Billie Holiday

Back in 1947, Billie Holiday appeared alongside Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory & Barney Bigard in the film New Orleans. 

Rough Guide explores Roots of Jazz in the roarin' 20s

Rough Guide's snazzy 26-track compilation of shellac artefacts is a well-chosen survey of the origins of modern jazz.    

Here's the scoop...

From humble origins in New Orleans to its journey upriver to Chicago, this Rough Guide charts the 1920s “golden age” of jazz with classic tracks by legends such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington & Jelly Roll Morton as well as many other pioneering artists.

As with most musical forms, the birth of jazz didn’t happen overnight but came into being by a slow process of accumulation – the gradual fusion of many different strains and the impact of many different personalities. But by the turn of the twentieth century, and largely in the city of New Orleans, the music now called “jazz” was starting to take recognisable shape. Central to its development was the red-light district in New Orleans known as Storyville which gave musicians the opportunity to perform in its many saloons, brothels, dance halls and cabarets. Among those were the great cornet virtuosi and bandleaders Freddie Keppard and Joseph “King” Oliver who experimented with music sometimes referred to as “jass”, reportedly after the jasmine perfume worn by prostitutes which was overtime corrupted into what is now known as “jazz”. Pianist Jelly Roll Morton was another who plied his trade in the most prestigious venues of Storyville, and along with his revolutionary style of playing was the first jazzman to write down his tunes, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated.

The first recognised jazz pioneer and bandleader was the cornetist Buddy Bolden who created an exciting and novel fusion of ragtime, black sacred music, marching band music and rural blues. From around 1900 to 1907, Bolden and his band achieved unrivalled popularity in New Orleans and are thought to have been the first to use brass instruments for playing the blues. Unfortunately, there are no surviving phonograph cylinder recordings of Buddy Bolden and he remains very much a mythical figure in jazz history. Remarkably, and somewhat ironically, the first band to make what is widely considered the first jazz record, ’Livery Stable Blues’ in 1917, was the all-white Original Dixieland Jazz Band who played a lively, syncopated dance music rooted in the New Orleans tradition. They were also the first recorded band to use the word “jazz” (or “jass”) in their name. Their featured jazz standard ‘Tiger Rag’ was recorded in 1918, complete with cowbells and other dubious “novelty effects” and borrowed wholesale from the trailblazing African-American musicians of New Orleans. Despite this, the band became very influential in their own right and proved how jazz has always remained linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage. Even jazz’s greatest figure Louis Armstrong acknowledged the importance of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who were also an inspiration for many future artists including the white cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, undoubtedly one of the greatest soloists of the 1920s.

When Storyville was closed at midnight on November 12, 1917, this set the scene for a whole new phase of jazz evolution as musicians began to migrate upriver to the northern cities and in particular Chicago, a place full of night spots that needed bands and afforded a better standard of living. Effectively the closing of Storyville meant a dispersal of jazz, and Chicago, more than anywhere, met the requirements as its new home. Importantly, it also enabled the rich music of early New Orleans jazz to be recorded by artists for the first time.

With the exception of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s ‘Tiger Rag’ from 1918, all of these recordings were made between 1920 and 1930, often described as the “golden age”, which marked many crucial events in jazz, not least the prohibition of alcohol law which gave rise to the Windy City becoming the home port for the major bootleggers and thus the centre of a rough, flourishing nightlife. This decade saw the rise of the first wave of jazz stars, including the great Louis Armstrong. The classic opening track ’Dippermouth Blues’ by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (featuring Louis Armstrong) is often accredited to Armstrong, partly because "Dippermouth" in the song's title, was a nickname of Armstrong himself. Armstrong had first seen his mentor Joe ‘King’ Oliver when hanging around the dance halls, brothels and saloons of Storyville, and jumped at the chance when invited to join Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band who had moved to Chicago, in what would become the next key chapter in jazz history.

The Rough Guide to the Roots of Jazz is out April 30. You can order a copy right here.  

Various Artists - Rough Guide to The Roots of Jazz

01    King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band: Dippermouth Blues  02:29

02    Eddie Lang: Eddie's Twister  02:51 

03    Tiny Parham and his Musicians: Sud Buster's Dream  02:59

04    Louis Armstrong Orchestra: Muggles  02:50 

05    New Orleans Rhythm Kings: Bugle Call Blues  02:18

06    Bix Beiderbecke and his Gang: Ol' Man River  03:04

07    Fletcher Henderson and his Orchestra: The Stampede  03:09 

08    Earl Hines: I Ain't Got Nobody And Nobody Cares For Me  03:05 

09    Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers: Doctor Jazz  03:24 

10    Freddie Keppard's Jazz Cardinals: Salty Dog  02:36 

11    Russell's Hot Six: Sweet Mumtaz  03:07 

12    Joe Venuti's Blue Four: Cheese And Crackers  02:53 

13    Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: Black And Tan Fantasy  03:23  

14    Eddie Condon's Quartet: Indiana  02:56  

15    Fats Waller: Muscle Shoals Blues  03:14

16    Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra: Way Down Yonder In New Orleans  02:51

17    Original Dixieland Jazz Band: Tiger Rag  03:11

18    Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra: It's Tight Like That  02:44

19    Benny Goodman: Clarinetitis  02:24 

20    James P. Johnson: Carolina Shout  02:44

21    Clarence Williams' Blue Five: Wild Cat Blues  02:58

22    The Chicago Footwarmers: Oriental Man  02:40

23    The Bucktown Five: Chicago Blues  02:30

24    Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra: South  02:43

25    Bessie Smith: St. Louis Blues  03:09

26    E. C. Cobb and his Corn-Eaters: Transatlantic Stomp  03:09

Alex Pangman unveils new pandemic-inspired video

Watch the video for Alex & Her Alleycats' version of Louis Armstrong's "If We Never Meet Again" tonight at 8pm.

Here's the scoop...

Alex Pangman & Her Alleycats' new music video will premiere on YouTube tonight (January 12) at 8pm Eastern which you can watch below.

"If We Never Meet Again" is a Louis Armstrong composition that was chosen during the darkest times of the first wave, and recorded safely in isolation booths in summer 2020. Pangman notes, “Jazz music saw nations through the 1918 flu pandemic, the second world war, and many other crises. It's built for catharsis, distraction, and also celebration. I'm hopeful that 2021 will bring celebration!” You can hear that hopefulness when she sings, too.

The Alleycats quintet are John MacLeod on cornet, Peter Hill on piano, Glenn Anderson on drums and Chris Banks on the bass. Directed by Sean Ryan, the session was made possible by a COVID-19 grant from the Canada Council For the Arts, with Jeremy Darby at Toronto's Canterbury Music Company.

Check out Alex Pangman's version of "If We Never Meet Again) followed by Louis Armstrong's original 1936 version of the tune he co-wrote with Horace Gerlach below.

 

Happy Halloween!

Have a spooky good night with Louis Armstrong, Kay Starr, Cab Calloway and Chick Webb's Orchestra. 

Dr. John plays Louis Armstrong's piano

Dr. John's salute to Louis Armstrong, Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit Of Satch, is out now.