Search - Louis Armstrong :: The Complete Town Hall Concert Jazz Tribune No. 43

Sound quality a problem

Tony Thomas | 02/02/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"while the performance is fantastic, the sound quality of the cd really detracts from an enjoyable listening experience. try the W.C. Handy cd instead for a real treat!"

This Historic Concert needs to be reissued

Tony Thomas | SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA | 01/23/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was an historic concert. Louis had gotten through the late 1930s and 1940s, fronting various big mediocre swing bands with his trumpet and vocals, and frankly,even on the best of the records the excitement was the contrast between Louis's excellence and the stiffness of the swing bands. For this concert a smaller band, close to the hot fives and sevens and the King Oliver, to the Dixeland units Louis had made his historic recordings of the 1920s was put together, a great hall in NYC was hired, and the rest is history. The beat here is stronger and better heard than in the records of the 1920s, Louis is more at ease, more in charge, and is sharing the fact that he is having fun, more than on those record. Of course we don't have any live recordings of Louis from the 1920s. We do know that one of the numbers on this record, Ain't Misbehavin', though written by Fats Waller was introduced by Louis in a Broadway Play in the 1920s. Louis's performance was so good that the show was usually interrupted for two or three encore performances of Ain't Misbehavin'. People who'd already seen the show would often show up at the theater trying to get in just to hear the song! We see the first time on record what would become a collaboration for the rest of their playing lives of Louis and the great Jack Teagraden, a collaboration of mutual fun, mutual music and, one suspects mutual appreciation of non tobacco cigarettes. This is where Louis Armstrong decided to stop fronting a big swing band and establish Louis Armstrong's all-stars, a small dixieland band like this featuring such veterans of the music at various times as Teagarden, Trummy Young, Barney Bigard, Sid Catlett, and Earl Hines. From this point, Louis Armstrong returned to the repertoire of the 1920s and early 1930s leavened with new songs done in those styles. This group, the Louis Armstrong All Stars recorded some of the swingest records ever made at any time. Moreover, they helped kick off the now-forgotten Dixieland revival of the 1950s!
To be sure, the many recordings they made including some alluded to by other reviewers, are better recorded and better practiced than these cuts. However, the spontaneity, the personality, and Louis's reactions to and from the musicans and the audience and the history being made here make this a unique and necessary recording.Who do we have to write, petition, boycott, picket, or plead to get this CD reissued!!!!!"

Tremendous small group interaction

Tony Thomas | 05/14/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of my all-time favorite jazz albums, combining Louis Armstrong on trumpet with the perfect counterpoint of Jack Teagarden on trombone, plus the rest of the all-starts. One for the record books."