ARMSTRONG HAD BEEN a longtime friend of Columbia Records executive George Avakian, who, while still a student at Yale, broke into the music world by discovering some unissued Armstrong recordings from the 1920s. In the ensuing years, Avakian had become a major producer, responsible for what is generally regarded as the first-ever jazz “album” (a group of 78s of new music informed by a common theme), as well as the head of the popular-music department at Columbia, but he still oversaw Columbia reissues such as the multi-volume Louis Armstrong Story. Those sets sold spectacularly, but now Avakian wanted to make an album with Armstrong’s current band, an album of tunes composed by W. C. Handy, “the Father of the Blues.”
Armstrong, however, had been recording exclusively for Decca since 1949. When Avakian asked Joe Glaser when the Decca contract would end, Glaser simply responded, “Ask me again in a year and a half.” Avakian told Columbia president Jim Conkling about his idea and Conkling came up with a solution: “Our Armstrong reissues from the Okeh label have done really well,” he said. “They were made on a flat-payment contract. Tell Glaser that if he can get a release for Louis to make this one album now, we’ll guarantee that when we can sign Louis to a term contract, we’ll include a clause for royalties on the Okehs.” Glaser, never one to turn down more money, gave the project a green light. Naturally, Armstrong was more than eager to oblige, saying, “No problem getting Mr. Handy’s music ready!” Avakian selected the Handy tunes and Armstrong and the All Stars rehearsed much of the material on the road during a string of forty straight one-nighters. Avakian sent Armstrong only eleven songs, because he wanted the band to stretch the material out. One Sunday afternoon, Armstrong called Avakian: “I’m laying over in Chicago next month for a few days. Line up the studio and I’ll be ready.”1
The result was Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy, arguably the greatest album Armstrong ever recorded. Armstrong and the All Stars played with consummate authority, but the unsung hero of the album would be Avakian himself. Avakian took his job as record producer very seriously; he was always passionate about making the best possible album, even if he had to resort to heavy editing and tape splicing—anathema to some producers who decry these practices as violations of the supposed natural spontaneity and authenticity of jazz as improvised music. Avakian says he had approval from all of his artists to edit and splice because they themselves concurred that he had their best interests in mind. “I hate it when people get into the files at Columbia as they do now and then and come up with the terrific discovery that there were three takes used in something,” Avakian said in 2007. “That doesn’t matter! What matters is you’ve got to get the right performance that’s right for the artist.”2 Session reels exist containing all the material that didn’t make it onto the final album, including some fascinating rehearsals and alternate takes. Thanks to the generosity of Avakian and David Ostwald, a New York tuba player and Armstrong historian who helped Avakian prepare Sony’s 1997 reissue, which featured theretofore unheard performances, I have been fortunate to study two and a half hours of surviving session tapes. They offer insight into how one of Louis Armstrong’s greatest albums took shape and how professional Armstrong and the All Stars were in the recording studio.
While Avakian knew Armstrong, he had had scant interaction with the All Stars, but was quickly impressed by their work ethic. “A joy and a pleasure,” Avakian says of working with Armstrong’s group. “See, they were all nice people. They were fun to work with, they were very responsive, cooperative with everything. Especially Trummy, because [he] was like Louie’s other half, you might say. I never saw two musicians lock into each other the way those two did.” Avakian also met the group’s newest member, Barrett Deems, at this session for the first time. “I always thought he had a screw loose somewhere because he had a wild look to him and he was always mumbling to himself and muttering and so forth,” he recalls. “I never said anything to Louie like, ‘Hey, is this guy slightly off his head or something?’ Then, when I got to know him, I realized this is just the way he is. He’s kind of an introverted person, mumbles to himself, but he’s a very solid drummer. And Louie said of him, ‘He’s the best drummer I’ve ever worked with.’ I didn’t want to say, ‘Wait, what about Sidney Catlett? What about Zutty?’ But then I realized what he meant. He was rock solid. He hit the tempo properly and stayed there.”3
But, excepting Armstrong, perhaps the most valuable musician of the date was Billy Kyle. “I never realized how important he was until I worked with him in the studio,” Avakian says of the pianist. “Kyle was the one who knew what everybody else was going to do. He would be the first one to suggest things like a key change, which I like because I’m always suggesting key changes … He was like an assistant arranger, and he was very quick with any problems Velma had. Apparently they had a very good rapport.” Indeed, after listening to the session tapes, one might conclude that Kyle deserved an arranger’s credit. He’s always in charge, rehearsing the band, conceiving introductions, even giving the players harmony notes to play. As for Middleton, who had done a few Decca sessions with Armstrong, she was very nearly a co-star on the album, sharing vocals with Armstrong on four tracks. “Velma was a good singer,” Avakian says. “People would say to me, ‘Gee, why did you use her?’ I finally came up with the right answer. I said, ‘Because Velma was family.’ Louie hired her, he loved her, she was an asset to the group, so she was family. She was not a bad singer, either. I mean, she’s perfectly adequate. And Louie never had a better singer with the group anyway.”4
The band arrived in Columbia’s Chicago studio on July 12, 1954, with basic sheet-music versions of the Handy tunes, as well as simple sketches written out by Kyle. The group would rehearse the tunes, and when they were ready for a take, Avakian would begin recording. First up was “Aunt Hagar’s Blues,” a Handy composition from 1920. Armstrong was playing off the sheet music, unaccompanied, when Avakian started rolling. After two beats, Armstrong, who was supposed to start, missed on his first attempt. He stops and cheekily says, “ ‘Aunt Hagar’s,’ take two!” “Yeah,” Avakian responds, in keeping with Armstrong’s relaxed mood, as some members of the band chuckle lightly in the background. When he misses it again, Armstrong’s on it, saying, “ ‘Aunt Hagar’s,’ take three,” breaking up. This relaxed scene was common during the sessions, but Armstrong never let up in his playing for a minute. Once a routine was settled for “Hesitating Blues,” Armstrong and the band decided to do a rehearsal take with no intention of it being released. Nevertheless, Avakian let the tapes roll and caught a performance that was simply brilliant. It couldn’t be issued because Middleton used the opening choruses to go over her lyrics, singing them softly in the background, but Armstrong plays like a man possessed, especially in his obbligato to Middleton’s vocal. Avakian included this take on the 1997 reissue of the album, writing, “It remains a truly impressive stone-cold ‘first-timing’ of a song they’d never played before.”5
After a swinging romp through “Ole Miss Blues,” Armstrong turned in one of his finest blues solos ever on the next tune to be recorded, “Beale Street Blues.” The surviving session tape begins with Armstrong emboldening his fellow musicians, “Now if we can knock this on the nose, we’re straight.” As some of the other members continue carrying on a quiet conversation, Armstrong addresses them, “Y’all still talking. They’re waiting on you.” All business, Armstrong contributed some exceptional playing, needing only a couple of insert takes to straighten out the ending. At this point Armstrong had four tunes in the can, but he was playing at white heat and had breezed through the last couple of tunes in only a few takes.
Avakian then suggested a fifth, “Loveless Love,” Handy’s reworking of “Careless Love,” a tune Armstrong had accompanied Bessie Smith on in one of their 1925 recording sessions. Avakian decided to do something that, even more than fifty-five years later, remains a mystery to him: he let the tape run nonstop. He captured more than thirty minutes of Armstrong and the All Stars rehearsing, polishing, and perfecting “Loveless Love.” On the tape Armstrong wonders whether the key is right for Middleton or whether there should be a modulation. Middleton says she wouldn’t mind a change but wants to make sure it’s okay with Armstrong. “Well, I can jive in anything, you know what I mean,” Armstrong replies. “I want you to hit yours on the nose.” But then he changes his mind: “No, that’s too low for Velma.” Accordingly, Kyle modulates the tune and it sounds much better. Armstrong’s trumpet playing is so fierce on the first take as to move Avakian to remark over his control-room microphone, “I hate to think what’s going to happen when you get warmed up on this tune!” Armstrong laughs, but is quickly back in command, making sure that everyone is comfortable with the arrangement. Armstrong contributed two more excellent solos on “Loveless Love,” and for the master, Avakian edited the best parts together. When one listens to all of the trumpet playing done by Armstrong on “Loveless Love,” one can only be astonished by the sheer amount of creativity Armstrong displayed for one tune. All of the takes are different, confirming that Armstrong was still a formidable improviser, and contradicting the critical charge that he played only “set” solos with the All Stars.
Again, with the final tune, “Long Gone John (from Bowling Green),” Avakian let the tapes roll and caught more than a half-hour of rehearsal and performances. Armstrong is heard reading through the lyrics, cracking up in response to the humor of some, provoking Young to say, “It’s going to be a killer.” Clearly, the All Stars had never played the tune prior to the session, for Kyle plays the melody in a bunch of different keys, trying to find the one best for Middleton. “How many have we knocked off so far?” Bigard asks, seemingly ready to call it a day. “This will be the sixth one if we can knock it,” Armstrong responds. Avakian asks, “When’s the last time you made six in [one evening]?” “Man,” Armstrong says, “it’s been years since that shit. It’s wonderful.” Back to work, Armstrong wonders about an introduction for “Long Gone.” He comes up with an idea, singing an over-the-top trombone part and saying, “Why don’t you put one of those hokum vamps on it?” Kyle begins running over harmonies with Young and Bigard, again calling out specific notes for them to play. Armstrong, enticing his closest friend in the band, asks Avakian, “Hey, George, you don’t think it’s too long for Trummy to play two choruses?” “No, no,” Avakian says, “I’d like to have them.” More tinkering and rehearsals followed, including a couple of breakdown takes, but in the end the All Stars—with the help of a choir of studio guests—waxed perhaps the most infectiously fun song of the entire album.
And so one of the most productive evenings of Louis Armstrong’s entire career came to an end. Six songs—more than half the album—were finished. The next day, Armstrong and the All Stars were at it again, starting with Handy’s first blues composition, “The Memphis Blues.” One of the shortest tracks on the album, it was almost all vocal save two stunning blues choruses played at the end. In the first run-through Bigard is lost in the mix, something that was becoming a problem. “Barney, we can use a little more of you in the last ensemble,” Avakian tells the clarinetist. “You’re being overshadowed by Trummy.” The result is a fine performance, but a bona fide classic was to come: Handy’s most famous composition, “St. Louis Blues.” Avakian wanted the musicians to stretch out, but got more than even he expected. In 2008, he told me: “I did not expect what Pops gave me on that tune.”6 On the session tapes, there are a few false starts, but once the band got going it did not stop rocking for nearly nine minutes. The highlights are bountiful: two and a half minutes or so of brilliant instrumental playing at the start; Middleton’s vocal, with new lines about Armstrong himself and a decisive obbligato by the trumpeter; Armstrong’s impromptu quotation of a solo he had played on a 1924 record by the Red Onion Jazz Babies, “Terrible Blues”; Armstrong’s hilarious new lyrics, decidedly not in Handy’s original; Bigard’s thrilling solo, in the wake of Avakian’s exhortation during the recording of “The Memphis Blues”; one of the raunchiest solos of Trummy Young’s career with Armstrong (he growls, roars, snarls through two choruses, with mighty backing by the rhythm section); and, finally, two majestic rideout choruses, Armstrong leading the way, consistently pounding home high concert D-flats with a tone of breathtaking fullness.
As soon as the take ended, Armstrong was compelled to yell: “Wailin’!” amidst laughter and other verbal acknowledgments that these musicians knew they had just achieved something special. As good as the performance was, it had yet to be perfected; Avakian did not think it sufficiently polished. Still, over the control-room microphone he can be heard to say: “Louie, that was really a bitch!” The band breaks up laughing as everyone chants: “Wail! Wail!” When Shaw and Deems request a playback, Avakian implores, “Everybody relax for eight minutes and fifty seconds.” The surviving session tape then ends abruptly, but Armstrong and the All Stars reprised the song later, tightening it up here and there, completing the album’s momentous opening number. Even Barney Bigard would claim “St. Louis Blues”—a hallmark of Armstrong’s later years, perhaps even of his career—as his favorite recording with the All Stars.7
The last tune recorded that day was “Atlanta Blues,” Handy’s reworking of an old chestnut, “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor”—taken at the fastest tempo on the album. The group nailed the first take except for a botched ending, and Bigard’s attempt to pull a fast one. Bigard was supposed to play an obbligato behind Armstrong’s first chorus, but he was nearly inaudible on the first and each subsequent take, hoping for more takes to push the session into overtime. Avakian was onto him and, at the end of what would be the final take, told the musicians that everything was fine and they could go home. A surprised Bigard asked if he had been close enough to the microphone and Avakian lied, responding that he was. But Armstrong knew something had been fishy with Bigard, so he talked to Avakian about it. “Pops, I was onto him all the way,” Avakian said, “but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the guys. We’ll wait till you’re in New York. Come to the studio and I’ll overdub you with earphones, blowing against your own voice.”8 In the end, “Atlanta Blues” stood out for its overdubbed duet between Armstrong and Armstrong!
The third and final session would prove to be an easy one; nine of the eleven planned tunes had already been recorded. The song “Chantez Les Bas” had inspired Avakian to propose the idea of a Handy album. He had heard Katherine Handy singing it on a 1944 record with James P. Johnson and had always thought it would be a natural for Armstrong. The song featured a minor theme, something Armstrong always excelled at, while the eight-bar blowing strain was reminiscent of “My Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” but here the band opts for a lowdown, stomping medium tempo. On the first take, Armstrong had some trouble while singing the melody, but he remedied that between takes by consulting the sheet music. As for the music itself, it found the musicians simply playing at their peak. Armstrong dug in deeply, spurred on by Young’s trombone to a final chorus that consisted of repeated glisses to high concert E-flats. On the master take, Young pushed Armstrong to take an extra chorus at the end, one of the album’s most thrilling moments. Asked to name his favorite performance from the record, Armstrong responded, “Well, I liked the ‘Chantez Les Bas,’ that’s a Creole tune, and there was an incident I liked about the tune. When we was getting ready to play the last chorus—I mean, we were swinging in the last chorus, and everybody was getting ready to go out, and it got so good that Trummy, he wouldn’t stop—we had to go back again and play an extra chorus. He just kept on blowing.”9 “I got carried away, that’s all!” Young said with a laugh during a radio interview from the period. “I got carried away too,” Armstrong responded.10
“Yellow Dog Blues” went off without a hitch. Its only alternate take on the session reels is complete and rivals the album version, a relaxed affair for Armstrong’s singing, though it again features intense trumpet playing. With both songs out of the way, Armstrong decided to offer Trummy Young a present: he asked him to sing and play his old Jimmie Lunceford hit “ ’Tain’t What You Do.” After a swinging run-through take, Avakian, blinded by Armstrong’s star power, asks the trumpeter, “Louie, do you ever talk to Trummy during this vocal? You know, jive in between his lines?” “No,” Armstrong responds, “I don’t want to interfere with that.” He wants his trombonist to shine in the spotlight. Young jokes, “What he says to me, you can’t put it on wax, anyway!” To much laughter, Armstrong refers to his leaving Decca to record this album for Columbia: “He’s worrying about the contract. I said there ain’t no contract. We’re like a band without a country, man. We’re trying to get a contract!” Playing along, Avakian announces the next take as “Audition, take one.”
Listening to how this masterpiece of an album was put together in the studio is an illuminating experience. Armstrong is very serious about his playing and very humble about compliments, but he’s also quick with a joke to strike the right ambience. Middleton is clearly in awe of him, and Kyle’s importance to the arrangements and sketches cannot be underestimated. For the most part Bigard sounds bored, which, unfortunately, was not about to change anytime soon. Avakian did a masterful job in the control room, and with the final editing he crafted an album that led Armstrong to remark to his new producer, “I can’t remember when I felt this good about making a record.”11 Years later, Trummy Young said about the sessions, “Yes, I’ll never forget that. That stands out more than any other recording session. Louis was so inspired on this date, and he inspired all of us. I’m sure the band played better than they ever had before or ever after. All you have to do is listen to that album.”12
In the December 4, 1954, issue of DownBeat, Nat Hentoff gave the recording five stars and noted, “This LP is one of the greatest recordings not only of the year, but of jazz history. After years of wandering in a Decca desert (with very few oases) Louis finally had a full-ranged shot at the kind of material he loves, along with the kind of freedom that George Avakian provides at a jazz date.” Hentoff realized that Avakian deserved a lot of credit for the success of the album, writing, “This album is an accomplishment Avakian can well be self-congratulatory about. By arranging this session and supervising it with this much unobtrusive skill and taste, Avakian, too—as well as W. C. Handy and Louis—has made a lasting contribution to recorded jazz.”13
A few months later, after Armstrong listened to some playbacks with Handy himself and did the overdubbing on “Atlanta Blues,” he remarked to Leonard Feather, “Man, a cat came in from Columbia and said we gotta make some more of these. It was an album of W. C. Handy’s blues. Mr. Handy came in too and listened to all the records. They’re perfect—they’re my tops, I think.” And proving that he still refused to be pigeonholed, Armstrong told Feather, “I wouldn’t call them Dixieland—to me that’s only just a little better than bop. Jazz music—that’s the way we express ourselves.”14
Soon after, Armstrong participated in another of Feather’s “Blindfold Tests.” He was still uncomfortable with most modern jazz, including Shorty Rogers’s “Morpo,” of which he said, “It’s not a matter of being old-timey, but, shucks, we can get too damn modern, you know?”15 Of Charlie Parker’s “She Rote,” he complained about the alto saxophonist’s embellishments of the melody: “The saxophone player on this—nothing but variations!”16 But of the cool jazz of Chet Baker on “Imagination,” he said, “Sure is a perfect record; the tone is beautiful, but what puzzled me is how he can get in such a low register.”17 Armstrong positively reviewed Clifford Brown for his furious attack on “Cherokee”: “Let’s lay about four [stars out of five] on him,” Armstrong said, “because a trumpet player’s got to get a rating, regardless … that’s the toughest of all instruments.” By this point it should have come as no surprise that Armstrong was crazy about Guy Lombardo; he gave his recording of “Undecided” five and a half stars. Armstrong once told Murray Kempton, “They ask me my favorite band and I tell them Guy Lombardo. They say you don’t really mean that. And I say you asked me, didn’t you.”18
After the Handy album, the All Stars spent the rest of the summer of 1954 on the road, playing fifty-three one-nighters in a row at one point, before settling into a record-breaking two-month engagement at New York’s Basin Street. Surviving broadcasts show Armstrong and the band in prime form, but during this engagement Armstrong received one of the most scathing reviews of his career by Wilfred Lowe in England’s Jazz Journal: “Armstrong, with his clowning, rolling eyes, suggestive growls and obscene asides, and his childish tantrums—(remember the Benny Goodman affair?)—his puerile utterances, drags his choice of music from the heights of art to the level of black-face buffoonery,” Lowe wrote. “His concerts seldom rise above the plane of a coon carnival, complete with comedy splits and other vulgarities.”19
Of his trumpet playing, Lowe wrote, “His phrasing is par excellence, but technically—well, there are dozens of jazz men, traditionalists, too, who can leave him frozen. There’s nothing extraordinary about his range—a point which is always offered in his favor; the ‘warm vibrato’ in the upper range sounds more like a strenuous battle to reach the notes—there’s nothing that sounds effortless. And his inventiveness—his solos today seem to consist of three or four notes, well phrased and blown like mad.” He concluded:
The time has come for us to hand Louis Armstrong his cap and bells and to force his abdication before he can pull jazz music even further into the slime. Let us, by all means, treasure the memory of Louis when he was great. He has played his part. Now he must be allowed to either bow gracefully out or be forcibly ejected. We owe it to the pioneers as well as the future of jazz music to ensure that Armstrong does no more harm. Place the crown on a head more worthy; clothe Louis in more fitting apparel—that of a jazz jester.20
The review appeared at an inauspicious time, for Armstrong’s autobiography was about to be published that fall. In the writing of it, Armstrong had not gotten past 1922, but Prentice Hall decided to release it as Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans. Armstrong had typed the manuscript himself, and after comparing Armstrong’s own version to the published one, Dan Morgenstern wrote, “Though substantial editing was done, it was mostly a matter of changing Armstrong’s three-dot style to conventionally punctuated sentence structure. The words are essentially Armstrong’s own, and nothing of importance he did not write has been put in his mouth.”21 Whitney Balliett, for one, was disappointed to see Armstrong’s idiosyncratic writing style not represented in the book. “Perhaps if the publisher had let the manuscript alone—Louis has a written style, typographically and otherwise, that makes E. E. Cummings’s seem like ladyfingers on a spree—and not hoked it up with grammar and sentences that its author could never have written, [Armstrong’s] personality might have come closer to the surface.” Balliett, of course, couldn’t resist taking some digs at the present-day Armstrong: “Now, of course, Louis, who was born on July 4, 1900, is past [his] peak; his trumpet-playing is only rarely evocative of the clarity and surge it possessed twenty years ago, and his singing, although still capable of making one’s skin travel, has become bearish in comparison with the delicate, quarreled instrument it once was.” But he concluded on a positive note: “He has also become, in his way, as noble a figure as we ever allow any creative person in this country to be.”22
On September 5, during his long engagement at Basin Street, Armstrong starred in an episode of the CBS television show You Are There titled “The Emergence of Jazz.” In the show, Armstrong played King Oliver while Bobby Hackett played Nick LaRocca, the leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz group to ever appear on record. Armstrong was given a touching speech to deliver about how blacks and whites were now playing jazz together. However, CBS feared the South’s reaction to an integrated group, and took appropriate, if unseemly, measures: Hackett was kept offscreen and Barrett Deems was forced to wear blackface. As Deems told it, “They told Louie, ‘You gotta use another black drummer.’ And Louie said, ‘No, that’s my drummer.’ So finally Joe Glaser and him figured out something. They said, ‘We’ll make him use blackup.’ So we put the blackup on … and Louie said, ‘Boy, you look great!’ ” After the show, Deems couldn’t entirely remove the blackface. “We ended up in California with black makeup,” he said. “So when I got to the airport, all of the black cats that I knew out there, they said, ‘Welcome to the race!’ ”23
Meanwhile Decca all but ignored the W. C. Handy masterpiece and—to cash in on the latest hits—continued making records with the trumpeter. In August 1954, Armstrong had covered a popular tune called “Skokiaan,” playing a trumpet solo of earth-shaking force. He would later sing dopey new lyrics to “Muskrat Ramble,” as the McGuire Sisters had recently had a hit with their vocal version. By the dawn of 1955, Decca was paying closer attention to the emerging sounds of rock and roll, and with good reason: producer Milt Gabler was the man behind Bill Haley’s historic recording of “Rock Around the Clock,” released on Decca in April 1954. So the record company gave Armstrong two early rock ballads, “Sincerely” and “Pledging My Love,” to record in January. Armstrong does his best with them, but neither is an ideal fit. Decca also teamed Armstrong with Bing Crosby’s son Gary for a forgettable cover of “Ko Ko Mo,” a novelty hit by the Crew Cuts, performed complete with a 1950s “ooh-wah” chorus by Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires (though Armstrong had more success performing it live with Velma Middleton).
Decca made up for its lack of judgment by recording an entire evening of the All Stars, live at Hollywood’s Crescendo Club, one of the finest live accounts of the band, capturing every side of Armstrong’s persona: from jazz genius (“Indiana” and “Basin Street Blues”) to pop singer (“The Gypsy” and “C’Est Si Bon”) to comedian (“Me and Brother Bill” and a duet with Middleton, “Don’t Fence Me In”). But as great as the Crescendo Club recordings are, Decca was clearly losing its grip on Armstrong’s studio recordings, eager as it was for Glaser-driven commercial success, however vapid the music. Timeless music, such as the Columbia W. C. Handy album, was not part of its Armstrong marketing plan.
Armstrong was now appearing on the tube more frequently than ever. On April 17, he was on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town, broadcasting live from the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas to boot. On the show he appeared with opera star Robert Merrill, which Armstrong remembered fondly: Merrill sang “Honeysuckle Rose” and Armstrong “Vesti la giubba” from Pagliacci after his own fashion (“Ridi, Pagliaccio, come and dig little Satchmo!”). As entertaining as his appearance on the Sullivan show was, Armstrong had likely enjoyed something that happened earlier in the day more. “They had rehearsals before the show, the afternoon of the show,” Jack Bradley remembered. “And Louie, like he did with everything, when rehearsal began, he talked to Robert Merrill. He said, ‘You’ve got to try some of this shit. It’s Swiss Kriss and it will cure cancer and cure everything and you’ll love it. I take it every day.’ So to be nice, he took some. And after the rehearsal, [Merrill’s] in his dressing room, warming up. He hit a high C and shit his pants. You can imagine how Louie loved it. Anything to do with shitting and Swiss Kriss, he loved.”24
Nine days later Armstrong was scheduled to return to Columbia’s studios to record an album featuring “Honeysuckle Rose,” among other songs by Fats Waller—an album again conceived by George Avakian. It would feature the All Stars renditions of nine songs by Waller, a legendary stride pianist, rakish composer, and old friend of Armstrong’s. Armstrong had recorded five of the nine in the late twenties and early thirties, and while some of the earlier versions weren’t surpassed this time around, there are enough great moments on this disc to make it an essential part of Armstrong’s later discography. As accomplished as the finished product was, though, George Avakian still has regrets about it. “The Fats Waller album was not as well prepared, possibly because [Armstrong] was not as excited about the music,” he says. “Mr. Handy meant something to him as a symbol. And Fats Waller meant a drinking buddy to him!” Avakian also proposed that some of Waller’s lesser-known works be recorded. “There were a couple of other songs we could have done,” he said. “I looked for any obscure Fats Waller songs that Fats had never done. One of them was ‘Clorinda,’ which Bix Beiderbecke did on a very early session. When I mentioned it, Louie knew it. How do you like that? He even sang it back to me. And he said, ‘No, but I can’t do that, that’s Bix’s song, that’s Bix’s song.’ Just like all his life, Louie refused to record ‘Singin’ the Blues’ because it’s Bix’s song. I think we might have done ‘Willow Tree,’ and I can’t remember the rest. We talked about it, but we never got serious about it. Louie was so busy I decided nine tracks will do.”25
Avakian was kind enough to share the session tapes for this album with me, though they have none of the long rehearsals or studio discussions of the Handy session tapes. All the same, they capture Armstrong’s seriousness of purpose and drive. On the first run-through of “Honeysuckle Rose,” Armstrong plays the melody an octave higher than written, a stunning bit that never made it onto the final album. Avakian had his work cut out for him in the editing room: Armstrong’s solos were a burden of riches. The high point is arguably a touching version of “Blue Turning Grey Over You,” clearly a stronger performance than Armstrong’s first recorded version from 1930. “Keeping Out of Mischief Now” also surpasses its 1932 rendition, featuring as it does a medium tempo allowing for irresistible swing. There is a masterful “Black and Blue” as well as a roaring “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the song Armstrong brought the house down with on Broadway in 1929. He had recorded it numerous times, but while his singing on the 1955 version hardly compares with that of 1929, his playing—indeed, the playing of the entire band, especially Young—swings with tremendous power. Avakian is justly proud of the album and of especially “two fantastic tracks. I mean, that ‘Black and Blue’ he did and ‘Blue Turning Grey,’ which was Lucille’s [Armstrong’s] favorite song. In both cases, I think he topped the original records.”26
But it cannot be denied that Bigard proved a drawback on the album, even if he sounds competent. Deems had to switch his style of playing from heavy, swinging patterns behind Young’s trombone roars to quiet cymbal playing behind Bigard’s liquid solos because Bigard was not projecting sufficiently. Listening to the complete session tapes (nearly three hours of continuous takes), one must conclude that Bigard did not acquit himself well throughout the album’s three sessions. He sounds out of gas, when not sloppy, even squeaking a few times. Avakian probably had Bigard in mind when he wrote to Joe Glaser a few weeks after the sessions: “The results are very good although the sidemen were not tremendous by any means and I had to do a great deal of splicing and editing to produce really good tapes. Louis himself was, as always, truly wonderful. The album is one that we can all be very proud of.”27
Bigard hit rock bottom during a broadcast from Basin Street in July 1955—possibly his lowest moment with the All Stars—on a messy, poorly performed “Rose Room” feature. He meandered aimlessly, as if he were simply going through the motions. “When you listen to Barney’s features, I mean, they’re basically, totally empty of any musical content,” Dan Morgenstern says. “They’re just exercises and they’re displays … That was one thing that became annoying if you followed the All Stars.”28 Clearly, Bigard’s heart wasn’t in it anymore and in September of 1955, he quit the band. “It had gotten harder because Louis was always getting more and more popular,” Bigard wrote. “That meant we had to work twice as hard to satisfy the people. It was getting to be a drag again, on the road for months on end, and so I decided that I would quit once and for all.”29 Bigard would be replaced by a native of Louisiana and a master of the New Orleans clarinet idiom, Edmond Hall. After playing with New Orleans bands led by the likes of trumpeters Kid Thomas Valentine and Lee Collins, Hall headed for the North in the late twenties and was in great demand for the next two decades, working with Claude Hopkins, Lucky Millinder, Zutty Singleton, Joe Sullivan, Red Allen, Teddy Wilson, and Eddie Condon. Hall brought the All Stars more fire, power, and swing than Bigard could muster; his uniquely dirty tone was a godsend to the group’s ferocious front line. “His hot, swinging approach added bite and energy to the All Stars’ music,” wrote Dan Morgenstern. “To these ears, Hall was the greatest clarinet the band ever had.”30 Armstrong immediately agreed. “The new clarinet man arrived last night (Thursday),” Armstrong wrote on September 8, 1955, in a letter to Joe Glaser. “He spent the night out at the club with us … You sure did send a good man this time … Yea—Edman [sic] Hall is one of the very best, there is, on the Clarinet … A man whom I’ve always admired as a great musician, from the very first time I heard him, until, this very day … I personally, think that he will lift up the band a hundred percent.”31
The All Stars never sounded better, now that they were on the verge of becoming more popular than ever.