The 18 tracks on All-Time Greatest Hits come from Louis Armstrong's "pop" era, the final decades of his career where, under the tutelage of producer Milt Gabler and arranger Gordon Jenkins, the jazz pioneer moved full-bore into a genial form of heavily orchestrated pop music. The Armstrong of this era, a large, bear-like man with an infectious ...
George Gershwin: The Ultimate Collection is a nice double-disc set that collects definitive performances of Gershwin standards from Rhapsody in Blue to Funny Face. It's a wildly eclectic collection, containing cuts from Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Audrey Hepburn, Sarah Vaughan, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and the Boston Pops ...
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong make for a charming team on this CD. Accompanied by pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Buddy Rich, Fitzgerald and Armstrong perform 11 standards with joy and swing. There are touches of Satch's trumpet, but this is primarily a vocal set with the emphasis on tasteful ...
The Best of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong from Verve contains a selection of 15 duets the two jazz legends recorded for the label over the years. Clearly, this set isn't of particular interest to hardcore collectors, since they'll already own much of the material, but as a sampler targeted at casual fans, this is quite nice indeed, since it ...
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were (and are) two of the main stems of jazz. Any way you look at it, just about everything that's ever happened in this music leads directly -- or indirectly -- back to them. Both men were born on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries, and each became established as a leader during the middle '20s. Although ...
Louis Armstrong & Friends' Christmas Collection is a lot of fun. Along with Satchmo, the represented artists on this 14-song collection include Dinah Washington, Mel Tormé, Peggy Lee, Lionel Hampton, Eartha Kitt, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, and Louis Jordan. While the main focus is on hipster tunes like "Cool Yule," "Merry Christmas, Baby," "May ...
Even at two discs and 37 tracks, it's difficult to say that this set contains everything that is truly essential from Louis Armstrong's monumental five-decade career. It does, however, do a great job of touching down at key points, and nicely balances Armstrong's various guises as a groundbreaking sideman, soloist, bandleader, singer, and ...
With their vast back catalog of classic vocal sides, the Verve label has been releasing a seemingly endless line of songbook collections featuring a who's who of jazz greats. Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Ellington, and Rodgers & Hart have all been feted. Now it's Cole Porter's turn. Over the course of the 17 chestnuts heard here, the likes of Fred ...
In conjunction with the release of Ken Burns' ten-part, 19-hour epic PBS documentary Jazz, Columbia issued 22 single-disc compilations devoted to jazz's most significant artists, as well as a five-disc historical summary. Since the individual compilations attempt to present balanced overviews of each artist's career, tracks from multiple labels ...
As part of its pact with Turner Entertainment, which controls the vaults of several of the great movie studios, Rhino Records has issued many compilations of soundtrack material from the movie musicals of the 1930s to the 1960s. Somewhere Over the Rainbow: The Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals is an attempt to present the musical highlights of the ...
Reissued together for the first time on CD, Louis Armstrong's Complete New York Town Hall & Boston Symphony Hall Concerts provides an enjoyable and complete presentation of Satchmo and the All-Stars. On May 17, 1947, Armstrong took the Town Hall stage alongside trombonist Jack Teagarden, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko, cornetist Bobby Hackett, pianist ...
The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is itself somewhat of a classic, referred to in many books, and used as the main learning source in at least one. If you don't know what you like in jazz and are looking for a well-put-together introduction, this set is a good bet. It starts with ragtime's Scott Joplin, and proceeds through Bessie Smith, ...
Though it's part of the Pure series, Verve's Pure Jazz almost seems more as part of the Ken Burns Jazz multi-disc series, especially since it was released during that documentary's airing on PBS. Any of the tie-in discs to Ken Burns Jazz were designed to give an overview, either of an artist or an entire jazz style, while Pure Jazz is designed to ...
Part of Verve's extensive For Lovers series, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong for Lovers features timeless duets from the '50s including "Nearness of You," "Stars Fell on Alabama," "Moonlight in Vermont," and "Dream a Little Dream of Me." There are plenty of Ella and Louis compilations out there, all of which are fairly good. This one is no ...
16 Most Requested Songs is a mid-priced collection that attempts to spotlight many good performances by Louis Armstrong, including "Mack the Knife" and "Blueberry Hill." The collection claims to present his "most requested" work, but any set that leaves off "What a Wonderful World" and "Hello, Dolly!" can't deliver. At the same time, these are ...
This CD is part of RCA's extensive Greatest Hits jazz program, a beginner's series designed to introduce listeners to jazz, specifically RCA's jazz catalog. The 13 selections on this...CD jump back and forth between three different periods: 1933 (highlighted by "St. Louis Blues"), 1946-47 (the best music on the set) and Armstrong's next-to-last ...
A hoppin' visit from Saint Nick via some of his happier elves, Yule B Swingin' Too is the second release in a series of vocal jazz holiday albums from Hip-O Records. Having released some real classics on the first volume, this edition suffers a little, but several tracks really shine: Ann Margaret and Al Hirt's take on "Baby It's Cold Outside" is ...
The Definitive Collection devoted to Louis Armstrong takes a reverse chronological view of the pop giant's career, a format that functions surprisingly well considering its intended purpose. Beginning with his last major performance, 1967's "What a Wonderful World," the disc takes listeners on a 75-minute tour that pays closest attention to his ...
This 15-song compilation of performances emphasizes Armstrong's vocals and romantic material. Although the material spans 1929 to 1961, because of what Columbia has access to, the chronological balance is skewed; half a dozen tracks were done between 1929 and 1930, and the rest between 1955 and 1961, leaving a large gap between the two periods. It ...
Over the years, there have been different incarnations of Ella and Louis Again, which has been a single LP, a two-LP set, a single CD, and a two-CD audiophile set from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. There are no compelling reasons why someone who already owns the audiophile version of Ella and Louis Again that Mobile Fidelity put out in 1995 would ...
This two-CD set is an unusually successful sampler. Although there are a few hits among the 40 selections, many obscurities are also included, and not all of the big bands represented are major names, such as Tiny Bradshaw, Noble Sissle, Spud Murphy, Teddy Powell and Jan Savitt. The emphasis is very much on jazz, and this worthy reissue is ...
For those who don't want all the extra rarities included in the limited-edition two-disc set, yet still would like to own the most popular theme songs from the James Bond films, this single-disc collection will satisfy their needs quite nicely. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide
Covering over 50 years of Louis Armstrong's career, this three-CD set from the Verve archives starts in the juke joints and speakeasies of the '20s and ends up documenting his pop hits of the '60s. Chronicling the achievements of a prolific and diverse performer of Anderson's caliber is difficult, but this release gives a strong, broad overview of ...
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