Customer Reviews

Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

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The version I have is the small box and was listening to it the whole day today.The sound is not bad at all. Actually, It is quite good.
The music is great capturing Armstrong in a period that was so instrumental in defining Jazz and the roots of New Orleans Music.
The selections are a good sampler for further in depth listening of releases that are available.It all adds up to a totally enjoyable experience.
There are various surprises and probably hard to find cuts.
For those interested in further cd's I heartily recommend The Complete Hot 5's(both JSP and Columbia are fine to my ears.The JSP may sound better with some post live selections not on Columbia's box, while the Columbia book is great and has a few alternate sides if I am not mistaken and is a lavish affair),King Oliver's Complete sessions(The Dutch 2 cd set on Challenge),Louis Big Band recordings(JSP)that completes the 30's, and the 7 selections from the Red Onion Babies found on Milestone/Jazz Heritage King Oliver and Lois Armstrong cd that duplicates most of King Oliver's complete set mentioned above except the Red Onion Baby selections. Also Breaking Out Of New Orleans(JSP) is top ranking as far as sound and selection and overall quality of this genre offering quality from many bands from 1922-1929(It also has 4 selections from the Red Onion Babies found on Louis Armstrong/King Oliver cd).
The book inside this CD is wonderful as well.

I have to disagree completely with the previous reviewer. The JSP set sounds way better than these sets (I own both). Also, you cant compare this set with the JSP set in terms of content. The JSP set only includes recordings with the hot five and sevens. On this set, only 2 of the 4 CD's include that material. The rest is stuff recorded earlier as a sideman or later with RCA. Everything in this set is gold of the highest order. But the remastering is no longer the best it could be.

The most complete collection of the most important work by the most dominant American musician of the first half of the 20th century.

Too much hype?

Trust me, this is a great collection, worthy of that hype. These are the recordings that cemented Armstrong's reputation as the most important instrumentalist of the age.

This is a wonderful set of CDs. They range from the earliest recordings of Pops playing in groups led by others, through his own bands, including the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, and up until about the start of WWII. It is not comprehensive, but it contains all of the highlights of his amazing early and mid-career.

Louis was a stunning cornet player, and truly great singer, and a great band leader. In this collection, you can hear his evolution from a New Orleans jazz player to the leader of a small jazz ensemble, to a big band performer. And as you listen, you can hear the creation of jazz as we know it from the middle of the 20th century -- a tight rhythm section, melody played by one or more instruments, with improvisation taking off over the base laid down by the band. Armstrong essentially invented this form, and was the absolute master.

He was later derided by other, "pure," jazz artists for supposedly being a sell-out. When you listen to these recordings, you can hear that he was playing "pure" jazz long before most of those people were born, and playing it in a startling, amazing way.

<b>"Louis Armstrong: Portrait of the Artitst as a Young Man"</b>

This is the set of recordings that announced that jazz had matured to the level of an art form. The Hot Fives and Sevens, featuring the always brutally underrated Earl Hines (not to mention Johnny Dodds), is the fiery core of Planet Jazz. Louis' trumpet was never better, and with this small group in Chicago, Prince Armstrong took King Oliver's crown.

From the first to the last of this four disc set, there is a level of invention and innovation that can only be compared to the bebop revolution of the early 1940s. These superlative remarks aside, the music is a lot of fun to listen to, from the classics like "Potato Head Blues", "Struttin' with Some Barbeque", "Chimes Blues", "Weather Bird", "Sugar Foot Stomp", both takes of "Stardust", "Cornet Chop Suey", "Tight Like This" and the greatest of them all, "West End Blues."

King Armstrong he would have been called had he stayed in New Orleans. And who knows if he'd have been any more famous than Freddie Keppard today.

Instead, he's a beloved legend by both jazz hardcores and most if not all Americans (plus millions worldwide). He stands only alongside Bach and Beethoven in the pantheon.

Louis Armstrong is the greatest artist of the 20th century. Don't die without hearing "West End Blues". In fact, don't live one more day without this CD. I know what you're thinking. I looked at the years this box set covers and I thought, "Oh no. 4 CD's of 78s." The truth is the sound is tinny. And the truth is it doesn't matter.

Louis Armstrong created practically the entire vocabulary for jazz with his amazing performances. This collection gathers some of his earliest and most groundbreaking work and reveals just how much the blues has influenced jazz. This set is essential to any serious jazz fan.