Album Reviews

Still raw from 9/11? It's difficult to believe a decade has passed. So imagine this Louis Armstrong concert from 1956. For most of the audience, and for much of America, except for the "Baby Boomer" youngsters too young to remember, World War Two and the enormous human toll it took on families across the country was still a current event.

Still raw from 9/11? It's difficult to believe a decade has passed. So imagine this Louis Armstrong concert from 1956. For most of the audience, and for much of America, except for the "Baby Boomer" youngsters too young to remember, World War Two and the enormous human toll it took on families across the country was still a current event.

But there was the eternally happy and entertaining Armstrong touring the world with his variety show-like entourage, showing people how its done, playing his heart out every time. How many entertainers could segue "Mack the Knife", "Tenderly," "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "Stompin' at the Savoy" as Louis does on this live set.

It's called "The Great Chicago Concert" but it's not really special. It's what Armstrong did every night. This set was taken from a live radio broadcast that sat on the shelves for decades, though producer George Avakian did cull a few tracks and put them on albums without attribution. 

The show at Medina Temple in Chicago was a charity benefit for Multiple Sclerosis. The first half was supposed to be a presentation about Armstrong read by actress Helen Hayes but....well to get the whole story you'll have to read Avakian's terrific notes and those by jazz historian Dan Morgenstern.

In any case, this set covers as much of the concert as was recorded, which was a great deal of it because it takes up six  mono LP sides. As a document of what it was like to attend an Armstrong show back in the 1950s it can't be beat. The band was filled with notable musicians of that era (or you could say  of a previous era) but this music really doesn't date.

The mono recording quality is quite good but of course it was a remote in a big venue at a time when the technology was somewhat limited so don't expect audiophile quality. That said the recording is wideband and  transparently immediate, though the minimal miking means some instruments will be heard from a distance.

Make believe you're sitting in the cheap seats and you are there!

The presentation is excellent, including a full sized booklet in a well constructed box and of course three well pressed at Pallas LPs. 

For Louis fans who wished they could have attended one of these legendary road shows, well now they can in AAA sound.