LOUIS ARMSTRONG III
Geoffrey Smith, presenter of Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz, on the trumpeter’s late triumph, the All Stars band
Seventy years ago, Louis Armstrong delighted hardcore Satchmo-lovers by appearing in concert with a small group, the kind of New Orleans combo with which he’d revolutionised jazz in the 1920s, rather than the pedestrian big band he’d been leading through the 1930s and ’40s. It was what everyone had been waiting for, not least Armstrong himself, a return to the style of his greatest achievements, a free-wheeling format made for mutual inspiration and joy.
Its success also presented, as his manager Joe Glaser saw at once, a golden business opportunity. Glaser sacked the big band and launched Louis Armstrong and the All Stars, the ensemble with which Armstrong became synonymous, touring the world almost until his death in 1971. The band introduced a new generation of listeners to Satchmo’s genius and charisma, which shine through The Armstrong Box, a Storyville set chronicling the All Stars in live broadcasts and concerts from 1947-67, in seven CDS and one DVD.
Though in later years the band’s shows came to be criticised as formulaic, its first line-ups are starry indeed, with the kind of creative fire you’d expect from a gathering of jazz immortals. Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, Barney Bigard, Big Sid Catlett: these are natural peers of the Armstrong realm, following his clarion lead in such classics as ‘Basin Street Blues’ and ‘Muskrat Ramble’. Teagarden and Satchmo were particularly close – like brothers, the trumpeter said – playing and singing with shared warmth and wit.
But throughout, Louis reigns supreme. Whether delivering jazz standards or pop tunes, his musicality and power are remarkable, making everything he touches his own, illuminating the simplest phrase. His showmanship was as natural as his musicianship; in both he reached out to his audiences, as you can hear in their applause. And you can hear why younger musicians, even if sceptical of Louis the entertainer, remained awed by Louis the master of jazz and life force – in the words of his biographer, ‘less a man than a miracle’.