fahrenheit 451! | Hot Fives & Sevens

As good as classic jazz gets | Hot Fives & Sevens | Louis Armstrong

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	• Hot Fives & Sevens Louis Armstrong Jsp Records, 1999 average customer review:based on 61 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Benchmark and the Rosetta Stone of Jazz

When I first heard these recordings I was stunned by the ferocity of the playing and the remarkable sound quality. I later heard the Columbia records releases and was appalled. I guess that Columbia has improved on their recordings but this company (JSP) really does something magical with old recordings. I primarily like jazz of the fifties and sixties but these recordings when you listen closely to the playing are every bit as modern as later bands. I am now a huge fan of Armstrong and these recordings are still my favorite. I can not believe the price on this box set, either. This is a steal. I was so inspired by the sound quality of these recordings and the JSP box sets of Joe VenutiThe New York Sessions 1926-1935/Eddi Lang and Jelly Roll Morton that I recently played an hour of music from the 1920's on my local radio show. I primarily used recordings from this fabulous label with a very heavy rotation of tracks from this amazing collection.

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fahrenheit 451!

There are very few box sets that I can stand to listen to wire to wire. That being said, this is one of them. This is plain and simple just great music that goes with anything. Come rain or shine, blue skies or grey, this music never gets old. Hour after hour it plays on, singing a lilting melody that drifts from light sprite chipper forest birds to low down in the gutter blues and back into the drifting cotton clouds. Ahhhhhh.

As good as classic jazz gets

Prior to purchasing this set, I read a lot about the competing versions of the complete hot fives and hot sevens. Reviews and articles seemed evenly divided, with about half preferring this set, and about half preferring The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings. In the end I chose this one because the reviews were slightly more favorable, and the packaging fits well with my collection, whereas the other set was said in some cases to have even faulty packaging. I would have to say that as far as I am concerned, the "quality of recording" issue was a non-starter. Sure there are occasional snaps and glitches and runs of white noise, but I have a lot of recordings that are far, far worse than these, and to my ears, these sound pretty clean overall. As for the music itself, well, it's Satchmo at his best mostly accompanied by the group that helped him make his name. Of course the songs are quaint and dated now, but I found everything quite entertaining nonetheless. (If you're a jazz fanatic, you know: you can't listen to the same kind of stuff all the time; you've got to mix it up!) All four CD's have a good mix of songs, even including some background (or up-front) studio talk, and the liner notes are generous and educating. Lots of classic songs, classic performances, and a wide-open window looking into the history and evolution of the American art form that is jazz. This set has a great return on investment and hours of enjoyable music. It's wonderful!

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Armstrong's hot 5 and hot 7

What can I say - it is Armstrong's groundbreaking period in Music history.
There was no band before, that played this way, making Armstrong a musical innovator. So simply for his awesome music (Gully Low Blues, Skid Dat De Dat, Cornet Chop Suey, Potatoe Head Blues, Melancholy Blues, the list goes on) 5 stars!
As for the sound quality - people keep arguing about this box set and the Columbia set, which I unfortunately have not heard. Those judgments ALWAYS depend on the sound equipment (mainly loudspeaker system) one set might sound better on one system as the other. Then again not quite as good on another system, while the other set sounds better, simply depending on the mix of each set and what frequencies each sound-system "favors"- generally I don't think there's too much of a difference in sound, to significantly make a difference, especially not with average Sound equipment. And don't forget "Modern" technology can only do so much with a single track recording - push it toward the mid, high or low (there's more to it, but you get the idea) - so go ahead and pick up this CD-Box set for yourself - you won't regret it - unless you're a sound maniac in which case you simply have to get both CD-sets.
J.S.

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Between 1925 and 1929, Louis Armstrong created one of the first great bodies of work in jazz. While he worked regularly as a soloist with big bands, he began his career as a leader with the first all-star studio group in jazz, the Hot Five. The other four musicians were Armstrong's wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, on piano; Johnny Dodds on clarinet; Kid Ory on trombone; and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo. The music's first great soloist, Armstrong was reshaping jazz by sheer improvisational magic, gradually diminishing the role of the traditional New Orleans ensemble with the clarion brilliance of his trumpet. Possessing an uncanny blend of exuberance and creativity, he combined virtuosic declarations with a talent for the subtlest shifts in phrasing and melodic variation, creating rich emotional statements that could hint at loss in the midst of joy or the promise of better things in the most sorrowful blues. The band expands here, to the Hot Seven and larger ensembles, and it gains soloists who applied Armstrong's lessons to their own instruments--musicians such as pianist Earl Hines and trombonist Jack Teagarden--but all come under the imprint of Armstrong's flowering genius, as both trumpeter and singer.

It's almost impossible to overrate this material. It may be the most influential music in jazz history, establishing standards for originality and sustained invention that have rarely been matched. The JSP set is a superb reissue of Armstrong's essential work. The remastering is by John R.T. Davies, widely acknowledged as the dean of engineers in the field of early jazz, and the resultant sound is simply the best this work has ever enjoyed. There are alternate takes of the later material on Columbia Legacy (including Louis in New York and St. Louis Blues), so collectors will want both. But this recording is superior listening, at a price that also makes it an ideal introduction to one of the few titans of jazz. --Stuart Broomer

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