Customer Reviews

Hello Dolly

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Released in 1964, this hep cat album from a 60+-year-old American legend featured the title song that pushed the Beatles off their #1 perch on the charts at the peak of their popularity. A must-have album in which Satchmo shows the world he's still got it by blaring that famous trumpet to then-current Broadway tunes,old standards and pop hits. Listen for his inside joke "broken record" that only us "old" people can grin at in this digital age. I dare anyone to groove to "Jeepers Creepers" and not find themselves snapping their fingers!
PS: An earlier review mentions missing/out-of-sequence songs. I did not find this to be the case on my "black and white" (and red)CD, but perhaps that is the case on the CD with the "color" album cover.

Matt's right, a nice re-issue for collectors. "Louis Armstrong's 'Hello Dolly!'" may have been one of the last acoustic jazz hit records in the sixties. Unlike Matt's copy, however, my recently purchased MCA CD has all the tracks extant, but MCA hasn't gotten the credits completely correct: Russell Moore IS playing trombone on one of the sides that the liner notes say he's not. In fact, Louis calls for him to solo as part of his lyric. No mention either of the strings that subtley underplay on "Jeepers Creepers."

Louie doesn't seem at peak form here -- as he does on his recordings paying tribute to Fats Waller and J.C. Handy, for example -- and the relationship of these tune selections to each other seems random, but it is nonetheless delightful to hear the master player/singer in his waning years, when many of us were enjoying the Beatles and loosing our jazz footings a bit. An historically significant recording.

If you take this album on its own terms, as a solid day's work by one of the greatest pop singers of all time who was still making hits in his Sixties, in the Sixties, it's pretty darned good. He defines the title cut - an unswinging Broadway number few would have nominated for The Great American Songbook - & makes it a standard that paid Jerry Herman's utility bills thereafter. On the others, mostly with minimal small band accompaniment, in a matter of a minute or two Louis pulls everything worth getting out of them & tosses off a trumpet solo for icing on the cake. It's a masterful demonstration if not a masterpiece. Of course, it's no substitute for Armstrong's peerless jazz & pop recordings from the Twenties & Thirties. But, oh my, he knocked The Beatles out of #1 & showed 'em who was The Boss, laughed about it, & to my knowledge never knocked the Fab Four in doing it. Even Sinatra was awed.

This is a nice album to have even if you are only mildly interested in Armstrong's playing and singing (like me). There are some really endearing songs, like "It's Been a Long, Long Time" and "A Kiss to Build a Dream On." However, on the reissue, they may have messed up. "Blueberry Hill" is missing. Either the song listing is incorrect or the song was to be included and the disc was pressed incorrectly. In either case, this reissue (with the mistake) may turn out to be somewhat collectible.