Download Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions

Louis Armstrong and the “Hot Five” and “Hot Seven” Sessions
Between 1925 and 1928 Louis Armstrong recorded with his Hot Five and Hot Seven groups
but never with an audience. On 12 November 1925 Louis Armstrong made his first records
that bore his name as bandleader. The songs on the Okeh 78 rpm record were "My Heart",
and “Cornet Chop Suey”.
Louis Armstrong was jazz's first great soloist, his solos set a standard that musicians still
strive to equal in their beauty and innovation. Jazz writer and historian William Russell has
commented that other jazz trumpeters should avoid the imitations of Armstrong's introduction
on the number as they suffer in comparison to Armstrong's feeling and originality.
The Music of the Hot Five and the Hot Seven is considered by most critics to be among the
finest recordings in Jazz history. The “All Music Guide to Jazz” states that these recordings
radically altered jazz's focus.
The band was made up mostly of musicians from King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. The first
version of the band featured Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny St. Cyr
on banjo and Louis's wife, Lil Hardin-Armstrong on piano. These were informal settings that
all concerned remember as a good time. Louis picked all the musicians that he wanted to play
on the sessions and the record company generally left them alone to do what they wanted.
The song "Heebie Jeebies" is generally the first recorded example of scat singing, although
there are several examples on records that predate this recording. In 1927 Lonnie Johnson
joins the band for three tracks, "I'm Not Rough", "Hotter Than That", and "Savoy Blues".
Earl Hines plays piano on all of the 1928 sessions, and the beautiful celeste parts on "Basin
Street Blues". His solo on "Potato Head Blues" helped establish the stop-time technique in
jazz.
West End Blues (Composer Joe "King" Oliver)
It is most commonly performed as an instrumental, although it has lyrics added by Clarence
Williams. King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators made the first recording for Brunswick
Records on June 11, 1928. Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five recorded on 28 June 1928.
Armstrong plays trumpet with some scat singing backed by a band that included the pianist
Earl Hines. Armstrong played an eight-bar trumpet solo near the end of the record.
The "West End" of the title refers to the westernmost point of Lake Pontchartrain in Orleans
Parish, Louisiana. In its heyday, it was a thriving summer resort with live music, dance
pavilions, seafood restaurants, and lake bathing.