{"id":22117,"date":"2021-12-19T05:30:40","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T10:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22117"},"modified":"2026-04-28T07:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:35:36","slug":"album-review-the-wonderful-world-of-louis-armstrong-all-stars-a-gift-to-pops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/19\/album-review-the-wonderful-world-of-louis-armstrong-all-stars-a-gift-to-pops\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong All Stars \u2013 A Gift to Pops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22118\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/gift_to_pops.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/gift_to_pops.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/gift_to_pops-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/gift_to_pops-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>People of a certain age (i.e. <i>my<\/i> age) may have early memories of Louis Armstrong singing \u201cHello, Dolly,\u201d \u201cWonderful World\u201d or the theme song from <em>On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service<\/em>, \u201cWe Have All the Time in the World.\u201d Of course we (and most everyone else) know that Armstrong&#8217;s career had been through several phases by that time. His early work with his Hot Fives and similar outfits helped form the foundations of jazz. Born nearly 120 years ago (and gone since 1971) his influence cast a long shadow upon music of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>A collective of New Orleans musicians led by Wycliffe Gordon pays tribute to Pops (aka Satchmo) on this new collection. Opening with a vintage recording of the man himself singing \u201cWhen It\u2019s Sleepy Time Down South\u201d live onstage in 1964 \u2013 in stunning fidelity, it should be noted \u2013 the album then moves into new recordings.<\/p>\n<p>These songs \u2013 exploring Armstrong&#8217;s varied catalog \u2013 strike a nice balance between faithful readings of the tunes and modern-day approaches to the material, always honoring the songs and their place in Armstrong\u2019s body of work.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not all hot jazz, either. While cuts like \u201cStruttin\u2019 With Some Barbecue\u201d have that ineffable Crescent City flavor, tracks like \u201cUp a Lazy River\u201d are more relaxed. Drummer\/vocalist Herlin Riley does an uncanny vocal simulation of Louis.<\/p>\n<p>Compositions by Hoagy Carmichael, W.C. Handy, Oscar Hammerstein (and Louis himself) provide a tidy survey of the breadth of the music that has become associated with Armstrong. Piano, vocal and trumpet are all that are needed for a rousing \u201cRockin\u2019 Chair.\u201d And the All Stars\u2019 reading of \u201cSt. Louis Blues\u201d sounds and feels the way this reviewer imagines Vince Guaraldi might\u2019ve tackled it.<\/p>\n<p>Listening today in 2021, Sam Theard\u2019s 1929 \u201cI\u2019ll Be Glad When You\u2019re Dead\u201d doesn\u2019t sound all that far removed from the kind of thing another Louis (Jordan) was doing, and of course that led in fairly short order to rock\u2019n\u2019roll. See? It really is all connected.<\/p>\n<p>The set ends with another brief Armstrong clip. It\u2019s not music; instead it\u2019s a lovely interview clip within which Pops expresses his philosophy of life. It\u2019s one we could all do well to share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People of a certain age (i.e. my age) may have early memories of Louis Armstrong singing \u201cHello, Dolly,\u201d \u201cWonderful World\u201d or the theme song from On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,49,65],"tags":[4126],"class_list":["post-22117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-review","tag-louis-armstrong","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31426,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22117\/revisions\/31426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}