[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith reviewed - Buffalo News

[Robert Ringwald]

Louis Armstrong: The Okeh, Columbia and RCA Victor Recordings: 1925-1933 (Sony Legacy)
Bessie Smith: The Complete Columbia Recordings (Sony Legacy)
by Jeff Simon
Buffalo News, November 23, 2012
These are cornerstones of American music. Period.
So exalted and fundamental is what's on these two majestic 10-disc box sets for the
gift season that they are perfect for ears hungry for the music that was essential,
in a way, to everything that followed and for gift givers with a passion to fill
those ears as a mark of love and respect.
If, for instance, you'd caught a sober, reflective Jimi Hendrix on his way out the
door for a suitably Hendrixian night, he'd have gladly admitted that if Louis Armstrong
hadn't been among the precious few who virtually invented the improviser's solo role
in American music, there would have been no Jimi Hendrix. Nor would there have been
a Hendrix -- or a Mick Jagger or Kanye West for that matter -- if Bessie Smith hadn't
been a blues singer not only larger than life but larger than most people's idea
of life. (Smith's was a musical stardom that created all of its own rules. Other
people either got it. Or they didn't.)
Listeners in the 21st century might have to teach themselves the creative astonishments
of the music underneath the primitive recording technology and the pervasive historical
influence. So, too, may they have to deal with the ineluctable monotony of Smith
in vast quantity and the large variety of commercial inanity that was as essential
to Armstrong's public career as the lightning bolt masterworks.
The trick, of course, with both is to never listen to more than two discs in one
sitting. (And in addition with Armstrong, to make sure that every sitting involves
either disc three with "Potato Head Blues" or "Struttin' with Some Barbecue" or "Hotter
Than That" and disc four with Earl Hines and Armstrong on "Weather Bird," "St. James
Infirmary" and "Tight Like This.")
In the racial world of the 21st century with President Obama in the White House,
the duet of Armstrong and Hoagy Carmichael on the original "Rockin' Chair" -- with
Armstrong, always, being the "son" ordered to fetch the gin by a white "father" --
requires an indulgent understanding of exactly how much sophisticated racial irony
was involved (not as much as the riotously subversive Fats Waller but a lot). But
to listen to the primal recording years of Armstrong is to hear the roar of communal
genius, if neither the notes or remasterings are ideal.
To listen to Smith's voice is to encounter a wonder of nature so large that it mooted
almost entirely the technology that housed it (in his notes, Ken Romanowski comically
refers to her voice as "contralto"). There are some very stark blues here -- "Backwater
Blues," "Send Me to the Lectric Chair" -- that offset the string of 1928 double entendres
on "Empty Bed Blues," "Put It Right Here or Keep It Out There," "I'm Wild About That
Thing" and "You've Got to Give Me Some."
The final disc of the Smith box is Chris Albertson's interview with her ribald, joyously
indiscreet niece by marriage Ruby Smith. You'll have to decide for yourself how much
is truth and how much is the raucous legend-making essential to the ongoing life
of the blues. My guess? About 60 percent.


-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV
916/ 806-9551

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