Landmark Jazz Album #13 - Complete Hot Fives and Sevens - Louis Armstrong (Columbia)

Armstrong (ct, v), Honore Dutrey, Edward Kid Ory, J.C. Higginbotham, Jack Teagarden (tb), Johnny Dodds, Don Redman, Jimmie Noone (cl), Barney Bigard, Happy Caldwell (ts), Lonnie Johnson (g), Johnny St Cyr (bj), Lil Hardin, Earl Hines (p), Baby Dodds, Zutty Singleton (d) and others. Rec. 1925-1930

If Jelly Roll Morton represents the high water of New Orleans polyphony through his Red Hot Peppers recordings of around this same time, Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens reach out into the music’s future by allowing the incredible improvisatory genius of Armstrong to reach its first outrageous flowering. This music is bursting at the seams with vitality, Armstrong’s every solo seeming to overflow with uncontrollable invention delivered with an urgency that is never manic, always confident, forever breathtaking in its conception. Within this admirably packaged 4-CD set from 2000 (easily the best collective incarnation of this music on disc) Armstrong’s accompanying groups expand to meet his conception as the years go by while Louis himself keeps making that big picture bigger.

Credits: KS