Customer Reviews

Louis Armstrong With King Oliver

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

 

 

'Louis Armstrong And King Oliver' should be considered a preview of the Hot Fives & Sevens that was to come. Armstrong's first recordings with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band are more ensemble oriented. He's the second cornet to King Oliver's cornet. (The cornet was a predecessor to the modern trumpet.) The double cornet breaks make for some lively dancehall jazz. . . This one also has seven tracks from the Red Onion Jazz Babies. They hail from Armstrong's first stint in New York City. "Cake Walking Babies From Home" is some of the earliest magic that Armstrong put to wax. This version is worth the price of admission. . . The sound quality for these 1923/1924 recordings is terrific. The early 90's compact disc are a lot better than the 1980's cassette of this material. This release does justice to the early recorded work of Louis Armstrong.

This is one of the most overly-filtered CDs I have ever heard. The Gennett sides often get dissed for being poorly recorded. It is reissues like this that give them a bad name. They are actually very lively recordings, but you'd never know it from listening to this dismal effort. Milestone has filtered every bit of scratch out -- and a tremendous amount of music was lost along with it. Dull, bland, lifeless, boxy -- any of these words could describe this reissue. I suspect they started with Nick Perls' work on the 1974 Herwin reissue and began filtering from there.

Don't waste your money on this awful CD.

You can hear from the Windows Media samples that the tracks have been filtered to death. A much more vibrant transcription of the same recordings is the wonderful "King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set".

This CD contains the Gennett, not the Okeh sides, less than half of the seminal early 78's recorded by Joe Oliver & Louis Armstrong. The two-CD set on Challenge includes all of these important early recordings of African American jazz music, re-mastered by the late great John R.T. Davies. To my ears, the Challenge set offers enormously better sound quality. And, oddly enough, it's cheaper on Amazon than the Milestone product, at least at this writing. But caveat emptor! I have seen a bootleg of the Challenge set floating around the used jazz bins in Chicago.
However, enthusiasts of the young Louis Armstrong may want to consider this CD for its inclusion of the Red Onion Jazz Babies sides, prototypes, you might say, of the Hot Five's and Hot Seven's. I don't know where else these might be available on CD. And these transfers, for some reason, are a bit more listenable on the Milestone issue than are the King Oliver numbers.

This CD belongs in any comprehensive jazz library, these are the historical and highly enjoyable sides that Louis Armstrong recorded with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, though on the CD Armstrong gets top billing, in reality King Oliver was the leader of these sessions which featured Armstrong as one of the sidemen, along with Lil Hardin on piano(the future Mrs. Armstrong, who would also record with Armstrong on his Hot Five & Seven sessions later in the 20's) these sides were originally released on 78's as King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. All the sideman get heatet solos(including Harding) Armstrong's and Oliver's solos are both hot and historicly important as being the 1st hot dixieland/New Orleans band to play it hot(not like Original Dixieland Jazzband). This innovative group was the finest at the time or anytime. Highly recomended.

I will probably get the Challenge set as the prior reviewer mentioned because I want more of this band and also like John Davies's work..you should know that JSP's Breaking Out Of New Orleans box has 4 of the 7 Red Onion Babies tracks on my Jazz Heritage(licensed from Milestone) release we are reviewing here and all I can say is that I enjoy the music to the max.I am assuming the Jazz Heritage and Milestone sound is the same(?).
Breaking Out Of New Orleans is a must buy for those enjoying this genre as well.