[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong reviewed - London Guardian, December 16, 2011

[Robert Ringwald]

Louis Armstrong: The Armstrong Box (Storyville, 7 CDs + DVD)
by John Fordham
London Guardian, December 16, 2011
Last summer, Universal Records and Sony BMG released Louis Armstrong's great recordings
from the 1920s to the 1960s in a 10-disc collector's box. One of its highlights was
a 1956 live show by the trumpeter with his postwar All Stars sextet -- and that very
significant but often-misrepresented group is the sole focus of this seven-CD set
spanning the years from 1947 to 1967. (It also includes a DVD of 1958-59 TV clips,
featuring such guests as George Shearing and Dizzy Gillespie.) The All Stars toured
constantly for two decades of a still-effervescent Armstrong's middle-age, and did
much to fuel the worldwide renaissance of traditional jazz after the second world
war, and this set represents the gruelling schedule of small-town one-nighters and
radio shows as well as glitzy concert gigs. Highlights include a well-recorded 1949
Hollywood live show featuring pianist Earl Hines, drummer Sid Catlett and the sublime
trombonist/singer Jack Teagarden, and the hard-swinging later All Stars lineup caught
at New York's Basin Street in 1956. There's inevitably a lot of hammy showmanship,
the repertoire and the solos get repetitive, and Armstrong buff Ricky Riccardi's
liner notes emit more heat than illumination. But the leader's trumpet variations
on a huge repertoire of songs are consistently majestic, his singing irresistable,
and his devoted commitment to his art and his audiences is plain throughout this
absorbing collection.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
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