Music and Recording Features

In large measure, that's where the fun in this set is to be found: in comparing different versions of the same song. As his critics at the time never let him forget, Armstrong worked from a fairly predictable set list during the All Stars years. As quoted in Riccardi's notes, some of the criticism was offensive and downright racist, observing that the All Stars sets seldom rose "above the plane of a coon carnival" and that Pops was "lowering himself as a human being." These recordings will never be mistaken for the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, but the fabulously vital and energetic music in this set proves, again and again, that Armstrong and his mates didn't play by rote—they didn't drone along, playing endless cookie-cutter versions, reproducing facsimiles of themselves for every new crowd. As Riccardi recently said to me, debunking the notion that, following his early triumphs, Armstrong spent the rest of his life coasting "is the whole point of this set."

Scott Wenzel says, "I was concerned that we were going to have a multitude of 'Mack the Knife's, a multitude of '(Back Home Again in) Indiana's, and you get that because this is how he did gig after gig. With that said, there is enough . . . it's not carbon-copied. He played for the people. He performed and they ate it up, so why mess with a good thing? If Groucho didn't move his eyebrows up and down, you'd be upset.

"Actually, though, Louis did a little bit of everything," Wenzel continues. "He had real classics, like 'Indiana,' and '[When the] Saints [Go Marching In].' He'd throw in Velma Middleton with her blues features. He'd do pop tunes like 'The Gypsy' or 'That's My Desire.' Then you had the Armstrong hits like 'Mack the Knife' or 'Blueberry Hill.' Then there were swing tunes like 'Stompin' at the Savoy' and 'Undecided.' He even threw in a little bebop with 'Mop Mop.' He made sure it was well paced, and he had all different styles of jazz in his concerts. He had enough vocals. And he featured all the players."

Still, most longtime fans will agree that it would have been nice to hear a little more ambition from the man once in a while. For example, it's a mystery why the tunes on Satch Plays Fats and Satch Plays W.C. Handy, his two most successful All Stars records, always got short shrift in his live shows. Where was "Honeysuckle Rose" or "Ain't Misbehavin'" (though this set includes one take of the latter)—or even "St. Louis Blues," which, in 1925, long before W.C. Handy, Armstrong had memorably recorded with Bessie Smith? But Armstrong was from a different generation of jazz musician—he valued the art of sculpting a solo over time and then, once he had it where he wanted it, concentrated on reproducing it, with slight varations, over and over again.

Most of all, Louis Armstrong, who became a fabulous singer as well as a world-class trumpeter, was also a happy, welcoming, funny, and enormously entertaining frontman. After his early musical shocks heard and felt around the world, he became an entertainer—which, as this set shows, is nothing to be ashamed of, and quite an achievement in its own right. Not only that, but from all the audible hilarity among band members, not to mention the way Armstrong laughs and roars after every tune, the man had a ball doing it!

That Louis Armstrong and his music are a continuing influence on American music is made apparent yet again thanks to Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, and his new tribute record to Pops, Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch. Although the track list contains Armstrong classics, many are not readily recognizable—like "What a Wonderful World," which is turned from a tender ballad into a funk fest, and includes a solo from trumpeter Nicholas Payton and background vocals by the Blind Boys of Alabama. Throughout the album, the arrangements will attract some listeners and repel others.

While the project had several false starts over the past several years, Mac has always felt strongly connected to Armstrong. "I always used to hear my father say, 'This is where Louis Armstrong was born,'" he remembers. A little like jazz legend Lester Young, Mac has his own patois, in which certain common words have idiosyncratic pronunciations: father becomes fauh-der. "He would always say 'Louis,' he wouldn't say 'Pops' or nuttin' else. It wasn't that far from where I was living then. I'd always get a real weird thrill from that. And my pa had all these guys that he loved, like Kid Ory, who had worked with Louis. Louis was the only ambassador to the world that this country ever had. He was very special."

Mac claims that Armstrong came to him in a dream and asked him to make this record. "He said, 'Play my songs the way you would do it,' and that's basically all he said. I never even thought of Louis coming to me in a dream, you know. I mean, I always got my partners that comes to me in dreams, like Jessie Hill [grandfather of Troy Andrews, aka Trombone Shorty], but I never thought . . . I only knew him for three years and change, or something like that."

Mac met Armstrong thanks to Joe Glaser, Armstrong's longtime manager and confidante, who eventually became Dr. John's booking agent as well. "I had a few meetin's with him in Joe's office. Every time, he was a character [pronounced ca-RACK-ter] from his heart, and he just couldn't help that. That was his specialty. You could look at his lip and see that there was a lot of stories in that.

"Joe was booking me back then, and that's what got everything started for me. He told me stories, in front of Louis, that was really strange. Like that he fired up a joint in J. Edgar Hoover's office and stuff like that. I mean, who the hell . . . you gotta know that Louis was right there when he said all of this. It's pretty off the hook. There was a ton of stories like that, that was way the hell off the hook. He was a special ca-rack-ter. Then again, what the hell do I know. I was just a youngster, lost like how you can get lost."

Not surprisingly, along with a bravura vocal performance from the great Bonnie Raitt, many of the cameos on Ske-Dat-De-Dat are by trumpeters, including the great New Orleans player Terence Blanchard. "Terence, he's my partner, and he's a playin' son of a bitch," Mac says. "I also love Nicholas Payton, Arturo Sandoval. All of these cats is playing, and they're all special. And Wendell Brunious, even though I knew his brother [John Brunious Jr.] better than him, I know him now. All of the trumpeters that's playing on the record, and then the Dirty Dozen guys. All of them were slammin'!"

Asked what he respects and remembers most about Armstrong's playing, Mac thinks for a second before rumbling into his answer. "Louis always played in registers that was above where guys played in those days. In them days, Louis was shootin' for the moon. And he didn't have no worries about it. He was just rollin'."