Louis Armstrong – An American Icon
Louis Armstrong
An American Icon
One of the greatest jazz musician who ever lived, Louis Armstrong was a worldwide ambassador of Jazz.
Hip-O Records has released a beautifully packaged deluxe 3-CD box set with accompanying 50-page booklet that offers a comprehensive survey of “Satchmo’s” finest recordings of the post-World War II era, 1946 to 1968. During this period, Louis Armstrong’s most successful, he scored “Hello Dolly!,” “Mack The Knife,” and, of course, “What A Wonderful World” and appeared on the covers of the national weekly magazines, headlined concerts around the world, as well as being a familiar face in film and television.
Born in New Orleans in 1901, Louis Armstrong grew up surrounded by the sounds of jazz, then in its formative stages. An accomplished self-taught trumpet player, he joined King Oliver’s band in 1922, and by 1929 had become one of the most recognizable figures in American music. His style of playing and singing utterly revolutionized jazz, taking it from the honky-tonks of New Orleans to the world’s leading stages. He worked with virtually every important popular musical artist of the century – from Sinatra to Elvis – and was himself one of the true immortals. Armstrong died in 1971, earned a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy from NARAS the following year, and in 1990, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a forefather of rock.
Songs included on Louis Armstrong – An American Icon feature Satchmo in a variety of settings, from the large-scale Sy Oliver or Gordon Jenkins Orchestras to his own classic ensembles, the All-Stars and the Hot Seven (which often featured such legends as trombonist Jack Teagarden and pianist Earl Hines). No matter what the setting, Armstrong’s endearing and enduring style shines through in every performance. The set, culled from the Decca, RCA Victor, Roulette, Verve, Columbia, Kapp, ABC-Paramount, GNP-Crescendo, and Mercury Records archives, includes Armstrong’s most familiar hits, remarkable live recordings of many of his legendary early classics, duets with Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and much much more.
