Jazz aficionados are abuzz about a massive boxed set recently published by Mosaic Records, The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66.
It’s a gorgeous, seven-CD collection of important work Armstrong did during the latter half of his career.
The $119 set includes a thick and glossy, 44-page coffee table-style book that is chock full of wonderful Armstrong stories and rare photographs, a real collector’s item in itself. The book contains a 30,000-word essay from Armstrong biographer Ricky Riccardi, and more than 40 photos from the Louis Armstrong House Museum, many never before published.
Why all this fuss about a jazz musician — icon or not — who died in New York 50 years ago this month, on July 6, 1971?
Because he’s that big of a deal to the history of jazz and to American music in general.
In the words of Toledo-raised New Orleans jazz trumpeter Duke Heitger, Armstrong had it all as both an entertainer and a musician, with a personality as big and affable as his trumpeting and vocal skills.
“It’s a rarity when you combine that level of musicianship with that level of ability to entertain. I usually find one or the other suffers,” Heitger said. “His vocal abilities were in line with his trumpet abilities. He went wherever he wanted [to excel] with his voice or trumpet.”
This is not Mosaic’s first Armstrong project.
The latest is a superb follow-up to Mosaic Records’ 2014 release, The Columbia and RCA Victor Live Recordings of Louis Armstrong and The All Stars 1947-1958, which was even longer at nine discs.
It was such a hit with jazz buffs that it’s currently out of print and unavailable for purchase, even through Amazon.
“Personally, I feel like I owe my living to Louis Armstrong,” said Heitger, son of Toledo’s Cakewalkin’ Jass Band founder-clarinetist Ray Heitger. “I fell in love with him at an early age and [his style] profoundly influences not only how I play the trumpet but how I play music.”
After growing up in Toledo, Heitger moved to New Orleans and has been performing there and in other parts of the world for years. In New Orleans, he is one of the longest tenured bandleaders performing regularly on the Steamboat Natchez.
“Everything he touched, he touched with sincerity and musicality,” Heitger said. “He could take a bad song and turn it into brilliance. He had it all. He had that musicianship and genius. It’s perfection on a level you can hardly describe.”
Heitger said he was honored to have performed earlier in his career with the late clarinetist Joe Muranyi and the late bassist Arvell Shaw, two members of Armstrong’s famous band, The All Stars, plus others who gigged with Armstrong from time to time. He said when the old guys got together for rehearsals they practically held court with one another, carrying on with one Louis Armstrong anecdote after another.
“The thing I know is the people who spent time with him sure liked to talk about him,” Heitger said.
Heitger’s father, Ray Heitger, said the “biggest musical regret in my life is that I never got to see Armstrong live.”
“His influence as a trumpeter is unparalleled in jazz,” Ray Heitger said. “Armstrong’s home in New York is a major tourist draw. And as long as people listen to jazz, Armstrong will be the pinnacle.”
Also known as “Satchmo” or “Pops,” Armstrong is loved in New York.
He’s loved just about everywhere.
But it’s hard to beat the affection for him in his birthplace and his hometown of New Orleans, where musicians continue to talk about him and emulate him. The city’s airport is called Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and, among the many other tributes, there’s a city park named after him, Louis Armstrong Park.
A review of Blade archives shows that Armstrong performed in Toledo a number of times over the years at such venues as the Toledo Museum of Art’s Peristyle, the Toledo Sports Arena, the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater, the Tropicana Ballroom, the State Theater, and the Trianon Ballroom.
Few people today probably realize he purchased two of his trumpets in Toledo, from downtown’s former V. DePrisco Music Store.
One of the more charming anecdotes about Armstrong’s occasional visits to the Glass City was from 1958 after he finished a show at the old Toledo Sports Arena.
Gene Parker, now 78 and one of northwest Ohio’s best-known jazz musicians, was an eighth grade student at Maumee’s Union School back then, one of several kids in the school’s jazz band. One of the parents arranged a post-concert meetup.
Parker said he was stunned how long Armstrong spent with them, a half-hour or longer.
Armstrong playfully gave each of them nicknames and dismissed suggestions to save time for other people, including Toledo’s mayor. He told his crew he wanted to spend more time with “my kids.”
Finally, he got whisked away as his crew explained they were on a tight schedule for the next stop on the tour.
“I would list that as one of the high points of my life,” said Parker, who plays several instruments and teaches at Wayne State University. “He spent a lot more time with us than he had to. He just wanted to hang. He was interested in us.”
Parker said there was something truly genuine about that extended conversation, when Armstrong “said goodbye to us, not really wanting to leave us.”
“It was unbelievable,” he said. “All of the important people wanted to meet him, but he blew them off. He wanted to be with us kids.”
Armstrong “was just jovial, upbeat, and would roll his eyes and be very animated,” Parker recalled.
“He was really bigger than life,” he said. “He just lit up a room.”
One of the set’s highlights is Disc 6, which includes more than 75 minutes of material not originally found on The Real Ambassadors, a 1961 collaboration between Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Carmen McRae, and the three members of the groundbreaking jazz vocalese trio known as Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross. The trio consisted of singers Dave Lambert, Toledo’s own Jon Hendricks, and Annie Ross.
The album, released in 1962, was produced in connection to a jazz musical written by Brubeck and his wife, Iola Brubeck, that explored the civil rights movement, the music business, America's place in the world during the Cold War, the nature of God, and a number of other themes. It was set in a fictional African nation called Talgalla, and its central character was based on Armstrong and his time as a jazz ambassador.
The project drew upon experiences the Brubecks and Armstrong had while part of a U.S. State Department campaign with other jazz musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington.
It was one in which the government was trying to spread American culture and music around the world during the Cold War.
The Real Ambassadors was about the role that musicians play as unofficial ambassadors for their countries.
Tim Hagans, a New York-based trumpeter-composer now serving as Toledo Jazz Orchestra artistic director, said he’s been drawn more to Armstrong’s music over the past 10 to 15 years.
“For many years, of course, I was aware of him, but it wasn’t a concentrated listening experience like it was later,” said Hagans, who also has been a performer and bandleader for years in Europe. “I hear his relevance even in what’s going on today.”
Dave Kosmyna, Cakewalkin’ Jass Band trumpeter, said he “was enamored with him before I ever became a trumpet player.”
“While it’s cliche, his influence is almost impossible to overstate,” Kosmyna said “His range, tone, technique, ideas, and sense of swing are often cited and admired by Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, but what really grabs me is the drama and emotion of his playing.”
He said he believes Armstrong was influenced himself by the opera houses of New Orleans and that he brought “the concept of the soloist to the forefront of jazz, to lead the performance, like a great operatic tenor or soprano soloist with decadent virtuosity.
“He influenced everything,” Kosmyna said. “He influenced every jazz instrumentalist, every jazz singer, every rock ‘n’ roll musician, every blues singer, every country singer, every composer, possibly every person. I feel his reach is so profound, I almost don’t feel the previous statement [is] hyperbole.
“His joy,” he continued, “was as contagious in his music as it was in his persona. I think there’s a strong case to be made that he influenced 20th century music more than Igor Stravinsky — and that’s no small charge. To me, Armstrong was a divine balance of intuitive rhythm, architectural perfection, and emotional honesty all through the lens of the blues.”
First Published July 18, 2021, 2:00 p.m.
