Hot Fives & Sevens

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Hot Fives & Sevens
Studio album by Louis Armstrong

Publication
(s)

2000

Label (s) JSP records

Format (s)

4xCD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

89

running time

276: 23

occupation

Studio (s)

Chicago , New York City

Hot Fives & Sevens is a four-CD collection that contains all of Louis Armstrong's and His Hot Five's recordings, as well as some similar combos (especially his Hot Seven and Savoy Ballroom Five ). The box set includes important recordings of early hot jazz from 1925 to 1930, which were made in Chicago until 1928 and in New York since 1929; on the first two CDs all recordings of the original Hot Five (as well as the Hot Seven) are collected. The third CD features recordings of the newly cast Hot Five (now a sextet ), who also appeared as part of Carroll Dickerson 's Savoyagers , as Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five and even as Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra . On the fourth CD there are further recordings of Armstrong (mostly recorded with larger-format ensembles) from the years 1929 and 1930, which follow on from this line-up.

History of origin

Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago in November 1925 from New York, where he had played with Fletcher Henderson . While performing with various groups in the clubs and theaters in the evenings, he used musicians he knew from his time with King Oliver in 1923, as well as Kid Ory, with whom he had already played in New Orleans , for recordings . Armstrong recorded with these Hot Five , which were expanded to the Hot Seven in 1927 , for Otto Heinemann's Okeh Records in Okeh Studios on Washington Street. The recordings appeared as shellac records and were not bundled into long-playing records until the 1950s .

meaning

Armstrong's studio quintet Hot Five “went down in jazz history ” and in the next few years, in the golden age of jazz, “produced a series of recordings that are still unsurpassed today.” For Ralf Dombrowski , the recordings are the Hot Five and Hot Seven “one of the foundations of jazz in general.” Unlike Armstrong's later recordings, here his virtuoso playing is still integrated into the band as primus inter pares ; he is not yet the dominant soloist. "That's what makes this studio ensemble so big ." "With this dynamic combo, the level of interpretation suddenly jumped to a new level." The band not only achieved numerous hits such as Heebies Jeebies (with the first virtuoso scat song in jazz history) , the Muskrat Ramble or Basin Street Blues , but rather the interpretation of pieces such as Cornet Chop Suey or Potato Head Blues showed an artistic potential that could help "jazz to become a serious music".

The critic Odilo Clausnitzer judges Armstrong's Hot Five : "If only he had made these recordings and nothing else, he would still be one of the most important personalities in the history of jazz."

Title list and information about the recordings

Unless otherwise noted, the songs are written by Louis Armstrong.

Disk 1

  1. My Heart ( Lil Armstrong ) - 2:27
  2. Yes! I'm in the barrel - 2:40
  3. Good Bucket Blues - 2:45
  4. Come Back Sweet Papa ( Paul Barbarin , Luis Russell ) - 2:32
  5. Georgia Grind ( Spencer Williams ) - 2:36
  6. Heebie Jeebies ( Boyd Atkins , Herbert Stothart ) - 2:56
  7. Cornet Chop Suey - 3:19
  8. Oriental Strut ( Johnny St. Cyr ) - 3:03
  9. You're Next - 3:17
  10. Muskrat Ramble ( Ray Gilbert , Kid Ory ) - 2:34
  11. Don't Forget to Mess Around (Armstrong, Barbarin) - 3:04
  12. I'm Gonna Gitcha (Lil Hardin) - 2:46
  13. Droppin 'Shucks (Lil Hardin) - 2:54
  14. Who 'Sit (Jones) - 2:47
  15. He Likes It Slow ( J. Edwards ) - 2:44
  16. The King of the Zulus (A Chit'lin 'Rag) (Lil Armstrong) - 3:07
  17. Big Fat Ma and Skinny Pa ( Richard M. Jones ) - 3:02
  18. Lonesome Blues (Lil Hardin) - 3:05
  19. Sweet Little Papa ( Kid Ory ) - 2:47
  20. Jazz Lips (Lil Hardin) - 3:03
  21. Skid-Dat-De-Dat (Lil Hardin) - 3:07
  22. Big Butter and Egg Man (Armstrong, Percy Venable ) - 3:01
  23. Sunset Cafe Stomp (Armstrong, Venable) - 2:47
  24. You Made Me Love You (Armstrong, Venable) - 2:54
  25. Irish Black Bottom (Armstrong, Venable) - 2:37
Recording dates
  • November 12, 1925: [1] - [3]
  • February 22, 1926: [4]
  • February 26, 1926: [5] - [10]
  • June 16, 1926: [11] - [14]
  • June 18, 1926: [15] + Joe & Susie Edwards ( Butterbeans and Susie ): voc
  • June 23, 1926: [16] - [19] (on [16], [17]: + Clarence Babcock: speaker)
  • November 16, 1926: [20] - [23] (on [22], [23]: + May Alix : vocals)
  • November 27, 1926: [24] - [25]; probably Hy Clark instead of Kid Ory

Disk 2

  1. Willie the Weeper ( Marty Bloom , Walter Melrose , Grant Rymal ) - 3:10
  2. Wild Man Blues (Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton ) - 3:13
  3. Chicago Breakdown (Morton) - 3:21
  4. Alligator Crawl ( Joe Davis , Andy Razaf , Fats Waller ) - 3:04
  5. Potato Head Blues - 2:58
  6. Melancholy Blues (Bloom, Melrose) - 3:05
  7. Weary Blues ( Artie Matthews ) - 3:01
  8. Twelfth Street Rag ( Euday L. Bowman ) - 3:06
  9. Keyhole Blues ( Wesley Wilson ) - 3:29
  10. SOL Blues - 2:55
  11. Gully Low Blues - 3:18
  12. That's When I'll Come Back to You ( Frank Biggs ) - 2:58
  13. Put 'Em Down Blues ( EJ Bennett ) - 3:17
  14. Ory's Creole Tombstone (Ory) - 3:07
  15. The Last Time ( Billy H. Ewing , Sara Martin ) - 3:32
  16. Struttin 'with Some Barbecue (Hardin, Don Raye ) - 3:06
  17. Got No Blues (Hardin) - 3:26
  18. Once in a While ( William Butler ) - 3:19
  19. I'm Not Rough (Armstrong, Hardin) - 3:05
  20. Hotter Than That (Armstrong, Hardin) - 3:05
  21. Savoy Blues (Ory) - 3:28
Recording dates and different line-ups

Disk 3

  1. Fireworks ( Clarence Williams , Spencer Williams ) - 3:09
  2. Skip the Gutter (S. Williams) - 3:10
  3. A Monday Date ( Earl Hines , Sid Robin ) - 3:15
  4. Don't Jive Me (Hardin) - 2:50
  5. West End Blues ( King Oliver , C. Williams) - 3:21
  6. Sugar Foot Strut (Pierce) - 3:23
  7. Two Deuces (Hardin) - 2:58
  8. Squeeze Me (Waller, C. Williams) - 3:26
  9. Knee Drops (Hardin) - 3:28
  10. Symphonic Raps ( Maurice Abrahams ) - 3:15
  11. Savoyagers' Stomp (Armstrong, Hines) - 3:13
  12. No, Papa, No ( Victoria Spivey ) - 2:54
  13. Basin Street Blues (S. Williams) - 3:16
  14. No One Else But You ( Don Redman ) - 3:24
  15. Beau Koo Jack (Armstrong, Alex Hill , Melrose) - 3:01
  16. Save It, Pretty Mama (Davis, Paul Denniker , Redman) - 3:19
  17. Weather Bird - 2:42
  18. Muggles (Armstrong, Hines) - 2:52
  19. Hear Me Talking to Ya? (Armstrong, Redman) - 3:17
  20. St. James Infirmary ( Joe Primrose , Traditional) - 3:14
  21. Tight Like This (Armstrong, Langston Curl ) - 3:12
  22. Knockin 'a Jug (Armstrong, Eddie Condon ) - 3:15
Recording dates and cast
  • June 27, 1928: [1] - [3]: Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five : Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fred Robinson (trombone), Earl Hines (piano), Mancy Carr (banjo), Zutty Singleton (drums )
  • June 28, 1928: [4] - [6] (same cast)
  • June 29, 1928: [7] - [8] (same cast)
  • July 5, 1928: [9] (same cast)
  • July 5, 1928: [10] - [11]: Carrol Dickerson's Savoyagers (with Armstrong and Homer Hobson (trumpet), Fred Robinson (trombone), Bert Curry , Crawford Wethington (alto saxophone), Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Earl Hines (piano), Mancy Cara (banjo), Zutty Singleton (drums)
  • December 4, 1928: [12] - [13]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra : Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fred Robinson (trombone), Earl Hines (piano), Mancy Carr (banjo), Zutty Singleton (drums)
  • December 5, 1928: [14] - [16]: Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five : Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fred Robinson (trombone), Earl Hines (piano), Dave Wilborn (banjo), Zutty Singleton ( Drums)
  • December 5, 1928: [17]: Louis Armstrong with Earl Hines
  • December 7, 1928: [18]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra : Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fred Robinson (trombone), Earl Hines (piano), Mancy Carr (banjo), Zutty Singleton (drums)
  • December 7, 1928: [19] - [21]: Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five: Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fred Robinson (trombone), Earl Hines (piano), Mancy Carr (banjo), Zutty Singleton ( Drums)
  • March 5, 1929: [22]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra: Happy Caldwell (tenor saxophone), Jack Teagarden (trombone), Joe Sullivan (piano), Eddie Lang (guitar), Kaiser Marshall (drums)

Disk 4

  1. I Can't Give You Anything but Love ( Dorothy Fields , Jimmy McHugh ) - 3:26
  2. Mahogany Hall Stomp (S. Williams) - 3:18
  3. Ain't Misbehavin ' ( Harry Brooks , Razaf, Waller) - 3:16
  4. Black and Blue (Brooks, Razaf, Waller) - 3:03
  5. That Rhythm Man (Brooks, Razaf, Waller) - 3:05
  6. Sweet Savannah Sue (Brooks, Razaf, Waller) - 3:09
  7. Some of These Days ( Shelton Brooks ) - 2:55
  8. Some of These Days (S. Brooks) - 3:07
  9. When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You) ( Mark Fisher , Joe Goodwin , Larry Shay ) - 2:53
  10. When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You) (Fisher, Goodwin, Shay) - 3:25
  11. After You've Gone ( Henry Creamer , Turner Layton ) - 3:17
  12. I Ain't Got Nobody (S. Williams) - 2:41
  13. Dallas Blues ( Lloyd Garrett , Hart A. Wand ) - 3:11
  14. St. Louis Blues ( WC Handy ) - 2:58
  15. Rockin 'Chair ( Hoagy Carmichael ) - 3:17
  16. Song of the Islands ( Charles E. King ) - 3:32
  17. Bessie Couldn't Help It ( Charles A. Bayha , Jacques Richmond , Byron Warner ) - 3:24
  18. Blue Turning Gray over You (Razaf, Waller) - 3:31
  19. Dear Old Southland (Creamer, Layton) - 3:21
  20. Rockin 'Chair (Carmichael) - 3:16
  21. I Can't Give You Anything but Love (Fields, McHugh) - 3:27
Recording dates and cast
  • March 5, 1929: [1] - [2]: Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five : Albert Nicholas , Charles Holmes (alto saxophone), JC Higginbotham (trombone), Luis Russell (piano), Eddie Condon (banjo), Lonnie Johnson (Guitar), Pops Foster (bass), Paul Barbarin (drums)
  • July 19, 1929: [4] - [8]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra : Carrol Dickerson (violin, conductor), Homer Hobson (trumpet), Bert Curry, Crawford Wethington (alto saxophone), Jimmy Strong (clarinet, tenor saxophone), Fred Robinson (trombone), Gene Anderson (piano, celesta ), Mancy Carr (banjo), Pete Briggs (tuba), Zutty Singleton (drums)
  • September 11, 1929: [9] - [11]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra (same line-up)
  • December 10, 1929: [12] - [13]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra : Otis Johnson , Henry Red Allen (trumpet), Albert Nicholas, Charles Holmes (alto saxophone), Teddy Hill (tenor saxophone), JC Higginbotham (trombone), Luis Russell (piano), Will Johnson (guitar), Pops Foster (bass), Paul Barbarin (drums)
  • December 13, 1929: [14] - [15]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra (same line-up) + Hoagy Carmichael (vocals)
  • January 24, 1930: [16]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra (same line-up + strings)
  • February 1, 1930: [17] - [18]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra (same line-up without strings, William Blue replaces Nicholas)
  • April 5, 1930: [19]: Armstrong with Buck Washington (piano)
  • December 13, 1929: [20]: Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra (same line-up) + Hoagy Carmichael (vocals)
  • March 5, 1930: [21]: Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five (cast as above, same date)

Edition history

The first collections of recordings of the Hot Five and Hot Seven brought the Dutch Philips (1956) and, more comprehensively, the British Parlophone and the German Odeon label onto the market around 1960. In 2000, in addition to a complete edition of Columbia Legacy, the 4-CD box discussed here followed on JSP Records, which was later published by Definitive . JSP commissioned the well-known sound engineer John RT Davies to remaster the recordings .

Reviews

The collection received very positive reviews from the critics. It has received five (out of five) stars from Allmusic . Its critic Cub Koda noted that the CD box, the material of which was already available several times in advance in a different form, was characterized by an excellent sound processing. For the Penguin Guide to Jazz , Hot Fives & Sevens (at least the first three CDs) is at the core of collections; In addition to the four (possible) stars, the box is therefore also awarded a crown. Richard Cook and Brian Morton think the remastering of John RT Davies deserves superlatives. The collection is just as good as Columbia’s edition The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings , which many fans considered definitive. In 2008, Jazz: The Basics came to the same conclusion, especially when the price-performance ratio is taken into account . Michael Minn states in his Armstrong discography that due to the remastering by John RT Davies, this edition is the best sounding collection of the recordings of the Hot Five and Hot Seven . In the Columbia edition The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings , the surface noises were largely eliminated. Still, the pieces in the JSP box would have more "life", as the Sony-Cedar noise reduction software would also have cleaned up some of the harmonic imbalance associated with these recordings and made them more real in the Columbia collection. On the other hand, Ben Ratliff only found a “tolerable alternative” to the edition The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings by Columbia Legacy (C4K 63257), whose clear sound he preferred.

literature

  • Gene H. Anderson The Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong (Cms Sourcebooks in American Music) Pendragon Press 2007, ISBN 978-1576471203
  • Brian Harker Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz) Oxford University Press 2011, ISBN 978-0195388411

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dietrich Schulz-Köhn ( Liner Notes :) Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven. Volume 1 Odeon C-062-04-873 M
  2. ↑ a b c Ralf Dombrowski : Basis-Diskothek Jazz (= Reclams Universal-Bibliothek. No. 18372). Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-018372-3 , p. 14f.
  3. ↑ The Big Bang: Louis Armstrong's Legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings , SWR2 , October 5, 2013
  4. ↑ The day before Armstrong accompanied the singer Lillie Delk Christian with his Hot Four ( Jimmy Noone , Earl Hines , Carr) .
  5. ↑ Bob Belden : Obituary in JazzTimes
  6. ↑ Cub Koda: Hot Fives & Sevens (review) . allmusic . Retrieved December 26, 2012.
  7. ^ A b Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings . 9th edition. Penguin, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-14-103401-0 , p. 41.
  8. ^ Christopher Meeder: Jazz: the basics . Taylor & Francis, 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-96693-1 , p. 258.
  9. ^ Michael Minn The Louis Armstrong Discography: Releases
  10. ↑ Ben Ratliff: Jazz: a critic's guide to the 100 most important recordings . Macmillan, November 6, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8050-7068-2 , p. 14.