“LOUIS ARMSTRONG,” says Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, “is having a moment.”
He’s been gone since 1971, but the man they called Satchmo – a trumpet-maestro jazz titan, the gravel-and-velvet voice who duetted with Ella Fitzgerald, and much more – is doing nicely this decade. As well as an impending Broadway musical and a smart new wing for his New York museum, Sacha Jenkins’ 2022 film portrait Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues re-evaluated him as “a lightning rod” of his time rather than the kindly old gent who sang Hello, Dolly and The Bare Necessities.
Another reminder of his timeless genius arrives in July. Louis In London documents performances for the BBC with his All-Stars band in July 1968, soon after he’d hit UK Number 1, aged 67, with What A Wonderful World. With a recording life going back to 1923 with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, he was back to rude health after dental work had affected his embouchure. “He loved this concert and he wanted people to hear it,” says Riccardi. “Remember, he’s also the greatest singer jazz ever produced and despite his age he does not run out of steam when he’s playing, he actually gets stronger as it goes on. There’s this late-career embrace of wisdom and sentimentality that in lesser hands could come off as corny. It’s really kind of beautiful, like it sums up his entire life. When the BBC sent him a copy, he gave it to musicians and friends – he wrote on the box, ‘For The Fans.’”
Though some tracks have been released before, this expanded edition adds extras and alternative takes to create what amounts to a career retrospective. The hits are here – What A Wonderful World, Mack The Knife, Blueberry Hill and the rest – plus less commonly-known material, such as Ole Miss, which he played as a teen in New Orleans in 1916, and his career-long signature song When It’s Sleepy Time Down South. These are sublime performances –
