Louis Armstrong 'Satchmo Plays King Oliver' (AFSD 5930, Audio Fidelity 1930

Louis Armstrong 'Satchmo Plays King Oliver' (AFSD 5930, Audio Fidelity 1930, now manufactured by Classic records)
Recorded on an Ampex tape recorder, with Telefunken MS 2 & M 251 microphones, mastered on an Automatic Scully Record Lathe with a Westrex cutting head, meant this album had a start that could not be dealt with, other than with respect.

The 'MS' (Maximum Stereo) recording as it is named, used the microphones with a 90 degree angle each other but housed together, creating a virtually fixed source position, which means: Anywhere you sit in the room, you can hear all the instruments, and a fixed sitting position is not needed.
Louis Armstrong trumpet, Peanuts Hucko clarinet, Trummy Young trombone and Billy Kyle piano, Mort Herbert bass and finally Danny Barcelona on the drums.

Imagine the scene; The year is 1922, mid afternoon, hot as hell outside in New Orleans, your Louis Armstrong, and you have just got home from playing in a parade with the 'Tuxedo Brass Band'. You open a telegraph, and you find yourself receiving an invitation to join one of the best, if not the best Chicago jazz band, to play alongside King Oliver in the celebrated 'King Creole band'. You think about it for a few seconds, and then take the first Concord to Chicago.

For the next two years the two horn team would form the most formidable jazz duet in the world at the time (according to me, if you want an objective review go somewhere else).This album is nothing more or nothing less than a pick of Armstrong's favorites to dedicate to his master colleague and mentor, Joe (King) Oliver.


It would be a disgrace if I didn't talk about each song individually, but alas, the lines I am allowed to write up on an album, forces me to keep things short.

I must mention 'I ain't gonna give nobody none of my jelly roll', where Armstrong, runs out of lyrics on his vocals and fills in with scat singing until he reaches the final couplet which he made up on the spot. This along with the recording of 'Heebie Jeebies' in 1926, has gone down in history as the tentative cause of the invention of scat singing when Louis dropped his lyric sheet half-way through his vocal and finished it with a set of mumbo jumbo syllables.

As for St. James infirmary, Louis's voice comes clear and reality like, no matter what stereo you have. With my Denon 103 MC cartridge it sounded magic, the Quads love this type of music and the Synergistic cables, on power, phono and active speaker cables make sure the trumpet is deep and musical.

This album is not to be played on a Walkman, it needs space and a scotch on the rocks to accompany the reality of what music was, in an era, when music simple was, the only way of entertainment for many to live by. In New Orleans singing was for free, because it was a gift from god. This album shows us how we can come to New Orleans. The rest is for us to understand.