Louis Armstrong’s going to Storyville!

The venerable Copenhagen-based jazz label, founded in the early 1950s by Kurt Emil Knudsen, has just released a new box set that happens to be third major box in 2011 alone for the one and only Louis Armstrong.  Following Universal’s Satchmo: Ambassador of Jazz and The Complete Masters, Storyville’s efficiently-titled The Armstrong Box arrived last Tuesday.  The 7-CD/1-DVD set falls somewhere between those two projects; Ambassador of Jazz is the first cross-licensed set to encompass Armstrong’s entire career, while Complete Masters presents the released takes of each Satchmo performance between 1925 and 1945.  The Armstrong Box, then, spans the period between 1947 and 1967 and is derived from the catalogue of Storyville.  It’s primarily devoted to live performances from the various groups of Armstrong’s famed All-Stars.  Louis Armstrong has been a presence on Storyville since the days of LPs, and some of those previously-issued performances appear here on compact disc, but there’s also a plentiful amount of never-before-reissued material, too.

The Armstrong Box is packaged with a 32-page booklet with liner notes written by Ricky Riccardi, the author of the must-read What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years.  Riccardi’s book puts the great trumpeter’s music and personal life in historical perspective in his book, and no doubt his contribution to this box set will do much the same.  Riccardi’s always-entertaining The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong blog has clued readers in as to what to expect on The Armstrong Box.

Among the box set’s 160 tracks, some highlights from the 1940s include a June 1947 performance at the Winter Garden with the band not yet named The All-Stars; a December 1948 gig at Chicago’s Blue Note; and an entire disc devoted to the Jack Teagarden/Earl Hines/Sid Catlett line-up from the Hollywood Empire in 1949.  From the 1950s, you’ll hear a rare broadcast from American Legion Park in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, circa 1954; a broadcast from the same year originating from San Francisco’s Club Hangover; a 1955 New Year’s Eve date, also from San Francisco (with the Trummy Young/Barney Bigard/Billy Kyle/Arvell Shaw/Barrett Deems iteration of the group); and the Trummy Young/Edmond Hall/Billy Kyle/Barrett Deems group from Copenhagen in 1955 and New York in 1956.  The final decade represented in the box set, the 1960s,has yielded the soundtrack to 1962’s Goodyear Jazz Concert film; a near-complete gig from Nice, France in 1962; a Chicago concert from the same year; and an unissued concert from Copenhagen in 1967 featuring the final edition of the All-Stars.  Whew!

The DVD has an approximate running time of 36 minutes, and it’s culled from highlights of Armstrong’s Timex All-Star Jazz Shows.  The DVD captures Armstrong collaborating with such greats as Jack Teagarden, Hoagy Carmichael and Dizzy Gillespie.  Riccardi offers insights into the performances on this box set on his blog.

The Armstrong Box is available now from Storyville Records at a budget price (currently running just above $60 at Amazon.com!) and you’ll find a pre-order link and track listing after the jump!

Louis Armstrong, The Armstrong Box (Storyville Records, 2011)

CD 1

1. Intro Fred Murray A
2. Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
3. Basin Street Bleus
4. Muskrat Ramble
5. Dear Old Southland
6. Do you Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
7. Someday You Will Be Sorry
8. Tiger Rag
9. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
10. Muskrat Ramble
11. A Song Is Born
12. Basin Street Blues
13. St. Louis Blues
14. High Society
15. Royal Garden Blues
16. I've Got a Right To Sing The Blues
17. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
18. Indiana
19. Big Butter And Egg Man
20. High Society
21. Auld Lang Syne
22. Back O'Town Blues
23. 12th Street Rag

CD 2

1. Intro
2. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
3. Panama
4. Back O'Town Blues
5. Pale Moon
6. Don't Fence Me In
7. Lover
8.  Body And Soul
9. A Song Was Born
10.  Whispering
11. Mahogany Hall Stomp
12. Me And Brother Bill
13. C Jam Blues
14. A Hundred Years From Today
15. Boogie Woogie On St. Louis Blues
16. Blue Skies
17. Rockin' Chair
18. The Sheik Of Araby
19. Confessin'

CD 3

1. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
2. Shadrack
3. When The Saints Go Marching In
4. West End Blues
5. The Dummy Song
6. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
7. Tin Roof Blues
8. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
9. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
10. Tin Roof Blues
11. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
12. 'S Wonderful
13. Perdido
14. Velma's Blues
15. The Dummy Song
16. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
17. Intro (The All Stars introduced by Lucille Armstrong)
18. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
19. A Kiss To Build A Dream On
20. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
21. Stompin' At The Savoy
22. When It's Sleepy Time Down South

CD 4

1. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
2. Indiana
3. Someday You'll Be Sorry
4. Ole Miss
5. Dardanella
6. A Kiss To Build A Dream On
7. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
8. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
9. You Can Depend On Me
10. Baby It's Cold Outside
11. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
12. C'est Ci Bon
13. Someday You'll Be Sorry
14. Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
15. Jerry
16. Now You Has Jazz
17. Yellow Dog Blues
18. New Orleans Function
19. When The Saints Go Marching In

CD 5

1. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
2. Indiana
3. A Kiss To Build A Dream On
4. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
5. Tiger Rag
6. Now You Has Jazz
7. High Society Calypso
8. Ole Miss
9. Perdido
10. Tin Roof Blues
11. Yellow Dog Blues
12. All Of Me
13. Georgia On My Mind
14. Bill Bailey Won't You Please Come Home
15. Stuttin'With Some Barbecue
16. C'est Ci Bon
17. Jazz Me Blues
18. Basin Street Blues
19. Blueberry Hill
20. Margie

CD 6

1. The Man I Love
2. Mack The Knife
3. Stompin' At The Savoy
4. Lover Come Back To Me
5. St. Louis Blues
6. After You've Gone
7. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
8. Indiana
9. A Kiss To Build A Dream On
10. My Bucket's Got A Hole In It
11. Tiger Rag
12. Mack The Knife
13. Blueberry Hill
14. When The Saints Go Marchin' In
15. Ole Miss
16. When I Grow Too Old To Dream
17. Basin Street Blues
18. C'est Ci Bon
19. La Vie En Rose
20. The Faithful Hussar
21. When It's Sleepy Time Down South

CD 7

1. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
2. Indiana
3. Back O'Town Blues
4. Tiger Rag
5. Tiger Rag - Encore
6. Hello, Dolly!
7. Hello, Dolly! - Encore
8. Pee Wee Blues
9. Teach Me Tonight
10. Mack The Knife
11. Mack The Knife - Encore
12. Tenderly/You'll Never Walk Alone
13. Ole Miss
14. St. James Infirmary
15. The Girl From Ipanema
16. Volare
17. Misty
18. When It's Sleepy Time Down South
19. This Could Be The Start Of Something Big
20. What The World Needs Now Is Love
21. There'll Be Some Changes Made
22. Cabaret
23. Cabaret - Encore
24. The Song Is Ended
25. When The Saints Go Marchin' In

DVD: Louis Armstrong on the Timex All-Star Jazz Shows

Track origins TBD.