In the previous post of this series, we shared many of the advertisements and clippings devoted to the Hot Five, as saved by Louis Armstrong in a pair of precious scrapbooks from the 1920s. Armstrong was obviously proud of his success as a recording artist and, as the story goes, these records changed jazz history and turned Armstrong into a star.
That’s true–to an extent. Not every musician heard these records when they were originally issued and because OKeh was marketing the Hot Five as “Race Records” aimed squarely at the African American community, they did not get much mainstream press attention. Even when a record like “Heebie Jeebies” sold 40,000 copies (according to Armstrong), it wasn’t convered in any of the major music trades. The Black press ran ads for just about every Hot Five side, but the copy OKeh provided didn’t exactly herald these releases as the most influential jazz recordings of the 20th Century.
“More wild jazz than you ever thought could be packed into one record is unpacked by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five when they let loose with ‘Heebie Jeebies,'” read one ad. “This blazing fox trot is Okeh Record No. 8300. On the other side, Louis and his ragtime boys give you ‘Muskrat Ramble,’ a fox trot that makes you just up and dance.”
“There’s a world of amusement in store for you, when you hear Louis Armstrong sing this comical tune,” read the copy to “Big Fat Ma and Skinny Pa.” “Louis’ Hot Five sure do blow a mean fox trot accompaniment. You won’t know whether to let your feet do their stuff—or just sit down and shake yourself with laughter.”
“A bigger hit than ever” is how “Dropping Shucks” was described. “And that’s saying a lot. Louis Armstrong and his hot five are always springing something new. ‘Dropping Shucks’ just hums with excitement. As different from other music as kin is from cant.”
“Dance,” “ragtime,” “fox trot,” “laughter,” “different”–those are the main ways OKeh described this music upon release. They weren’t marketed as history-changing pieces of innovation because the creators didn’t view them that way. “It’s really amazing because we had no idea in the beginning that jazz was going to be that important, that someday people would want to know how we started and what we did and what records we made,” Lil Hardin Armstrong said in 1969. “And it’s it’s amusing to read in books that people tell you why we did this. I’m glad they know because we didn’t.”
Today’s piece (which will be a long one) will be focused on contemporary reactions to the Hot Five recordings from every angle conceiveable. First off, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that musicians who heard the records had their lives changed almost immediately. Perhaps the best summary of this feeling can be found in a Jazz Review piece from April 1959 written by Ralph Berton, brother of drummer Vic Berton:
“As for the Armstrong Hot Fives, my own unpremeditated reactions to them, in the days when there were no jazz critics (including me), may be revealing. My brother Vic and I
naturally bought them all as they were released. That was thirty-odd years ago, and I can’t vouch for the responses of other musicians at the time, but ours were unequivocal. We listened only to Louie (and, later, Earl). When the needle got to Johnny Dodds, Kid Ory, Johnny St. Cyr, or Lil, we simply lifted it and put it back or ahead to Louie again. In this fashion we wore out several copies of such discs as Potato Head–I mean we wore out the Armstrong portions; the rest of the grooves remained more or less in mint condition.
“For what it’s worth, this was the spontaneous reaction of two musician-fans, in the Age of Innocence, and at a time when Louie was no legend, but a young musician who was killing everyone. In those days I hung around with musicians a great deal. Bix was around; Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Fud Livingston, Adrian Rollini, and Miff Mole
were frequent visitors to our home. At one time, when Vic and I were living in a flea-bag on West 47th Street, Jack Teagarden lived across the hall from us. I recall the general impression of Tea’s apartment-almost bare of furniture; an unmade bed, a trombone, a stack of Armstrong records, naked on the floor beside his bed, and a wind-up portable Victrola, right next to a bottle of gin. That stack of naked records, all red-label Okehs and all Armstrong, was a familiar sight in most of the other musicians’ “homes” too,
if we may call them that. Everyone talked about Louie. I don’t recall anyone talking about Ory or Dodds or Lil Hardin. You accepted the fact that when you bought Louie’s records you got Ory and Dodds, just as when you marry a girl you also get her
relatives-but nobody ever discussed them. Such, at least, is my recollection.”
Berton’s invocation of Jack Teagarden brings to mind a fabulous story recounted in trumpeter Wingy Manone’s autobiography, Trumpet on a Wing:
“We used to play records a lot, including those great platters by Louis. They sure used to knock Jack out. He was gone on one record particularly, a tune called ‘Oriental Strut.’
When I played that for Jack he thought it was the end. He decided nobody else could ever top that, and said we ought to put it away someplace to preserve it for posterity. We had heard that if you buried things out there on the mesa they would be petrified like all the old trees and stuff that had turned to stone. So one day Jack and I took Louis’ record of ‘Oriental Strut’ and drove out on the mesa with it. We dug a big hole and laid that record away, and as far as I know it is still there today.”
So those are some of the reactions from musicians who had their lives changed by the records made by the Hot Five–but not every musician was listening. Multi-instrumentalist Garvin Bushell was knocked out when he first heard Louis Armstrong with Fletcher Henderson in 1924, saying he was “out of this world. We’d never heard anything like that before. ”
But then Armstrong left Henderson in 1925 and Bushell and the New York musicians stopped following him. In a 1980 interview on WKCR, host Phil Schaap asked Bushell, “Were you aware of the dealings that were bringing him back to Chicago at the end of his Henderson stay that he was going to be a recording artist for OKeh and then he’s going to be featured in the in Chicago as the ‘World’s Greatest Trumpeter’?
“No,” Bushell responded. “I’ll tell you, being young then, and most of us, we were awed in a way. After we got used to Louie’s sound, we just said, ‘Another fine trumpet player.’ We had no idea that the world would accept all of his work as it did until we heard the thing and he made in ’28 with his small band and those records he made during the same time he made ‘West End Blues.'”
Schaap seemed a bit stunned by this and asked Bushell to confirm that he “knew that [Armstrong] was something exceptional and were further impressed when he came to New York and played with you in the Fletcher Henderson Band, but you didn’t realize the full statue of his greatness until till the late 20s, the Hot Five things with Earl Hines.” “Exactly,” Bushell responded. “Then we knew there was nothing else like him. You know, he had set himself aside from every other trumpet player in the world.” Days later, Schaap found himself interviewing guitarist Lawrence Lucie in the same studio and repeated the “epiphany” he had from interviewing Bushell, that it was “odd” that Armstrong could have had such an impact when he was in New York in 1924-1925, but the New York musicians didn’t continue to follow his progress on records until the 1928 sides made with Earl Hines. (In the link above, Schaap speaks on this at 27:37.)
Perhaps this gets back to lack of print coverage the music received. The ads we quoted from early in this post were staples of the Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, and New York Amsterdam News, but were ignored in the white press. It wasn’t much different in the music trades. Talking Machine World would list the new Hot Five releases, but didn’t offer any other coverage, though they did offer E. A. Fearn’s Consolidated Talking Machine Company space for several full-page ads, which are notable for almost always featured Armstrong’s image. Here’s one from July 15, 1926:
August 15, 1926:
And one more from November 15, 1926, pitting OKeh’s “race” stars alongside its white pop artists:
Eventually, Phonograph Monthly Review picked up on Armstrong’s recordings, listing “Don’t Forget to Mess Around” and “I’m Gonna Gitcha” in their round-up of “Dance Records” in October 1926, but oddly, didn’t include any opinion as they did for many of the other records on the list. Louis doesn’t appear again until the May 1927 issue, which includes a quick mention of “Irish Black Bottom” and “You Made Me Love You,” once more without opinion. (The next sentence? “‘Singing the Blues’ and ‘Clarinet Marmalade’ played by Frankie Trumbauer’s orchestra is rather disappointing.”)
But in September 1927, Phonograph Monthly Review’s mysteriously named “Rufus” began discussing Armstrong more reguularly, though often in insensitive terms. On the Hot Seven’s “Willie the Weeper,” Rufus wrote that it was “remarkable for a banjo solo that would be hard to surpass,” before adding, “Armstrong is also heard in Okeh 8474, ‘Wild Man Blues’ and ‘Gully Low Blues,’ but it must be confessed that here the love of stunts of white heat has left musical consideration far in the rear. There is some most unusual trumpet and clarinet playing here, to say nothing of Armstrong’s own primitive shouting–something absolutely primeval and barbaric–but both the musicianship that charactierzes the best of the Ellington and Red Nichols, and their masterly ingenuity are missing.”
One month later, Rufus was still not fully impressed, writing, “Louis Armstrong, too, is disappointing in ‘Melancholy Blues’ and ‘Keyhole Blues,’ but here also there is some atonement made in his hoarse chorus–again almost unbelievably primitive.” In January 1928, he wrote that “Louis Armstrong is as barbaric as ever with the ‘Weary Blues’ and ‘That’s When I’ll Come Back to You.’”
“Primitive,” “barbaric,” “primeval,” “unusual”–this is how a prominent white critic heard the music of the Hot Five and Hot Seven at the time the records were issued. But by March 1928, Rufus was being slowly won over thanks to the coupling of “Hotter Than That” and “Savoy Blues.” “Next comes Okeh 8535, the finest disk to date from that musical primitive Louis Armstrong, and his Hot Seven,” he wrote. “‘Savoy Blues’ possess a wealth of orchestral moaning, modulated (for once from Armstrong) to a pitch that is quite bearable. ‘Hotter Than That’ on the reverse is both thin and unpleasant during its instrumental passages, but Armstrong’s insane wah-wah nonsense chorus outshines anything of the sort I have ever heard before.” In May 1928, Rufus added, “Louis Armstrong shows a tendency to develop a symphonic style in ‘Once in a While,’ but the hot trumpeting there and the curious ending of ‘Struttin’ With Some Barbecue’ testify to the fact that sophistication has not destroyed all of his primeval qualities.”
Even with the backhanded compliments, when the well dried up on new Armstrong recordings, Rufus wrote in the July 1928 issue, “I miss Miff Mole, Ed Lang (solo), and Louis Armstrong this month!” This coincided with the making of new Hot Five recordings with the likes of Earl “Fatha” Hines and Zutty Singleton. When those sides started to appear in 1929, Rufus was legitimately impressed. “Louis Armstrong offers another of his singular disks, coupling ‘Tight Like That’ and ‘Heah Me Talkin’ To Ya?’ and featuring some remarkable pianny solos,” he wrote in February 1929 before praising Louis in “characteristic form” on “Save It Pretty Mama” and “St. James Infirmary” in April, leaving the “barbaric” and “primitive” descriptors behind.
By this point, Armstrong’s recordings were being overseen by Tommy Rockwell, who had the idea to get Armstrong off the OKeh “Race” series and get him onto their general “Dance” series. At first Rockwell released sides under both headings, which got the attention of Variety on January 16, 1929, the first time an Armstrong recording was reviewed in that publication. “This colored jazzist with his Hot Five has been released on the general list with OKeh No. 41157, titled ‘Skip the Gutter’ and ‘Knee Drops’ and also on a race release, No. 8651, with ‘Two Deuces’ and ‘Squeeze Me,’ aiming for white and colored appeal,” the trade wrote. “Either way, Armstrong’s jazz is plenty hot and dirty and wicked. The hot jazz addicts will like both. In all events, great hoofapation.”
By April 1929, Armstrong sides were getting noticed in periodicals like The New Yorker, with the April 13, 1929 issue singling out “No One Else But You” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” which were credited to the “Savoy Ballroom Five.” “Wherever the Savoy Ball Room may be, the customers obviously like hot music,” the New Yorker wrote. “Pure smoke.” Here’s the full column, which is instructive in seeing the company Armstrong’s new “dance” records kept in this period; would make a good playlist!
Meanwhile, Rufus kept praising the sides made with Earl Hines, noting that the “successful” “No One Else But You” featured Armstrong’s “usual magnificent trumpeting and singing.” “Louis Armstrong adds to his ever-growing popularity with characteristic performances of ‘Beau Koo Jack’ and ‘Mahogany Hall Stomp’ on 8690,” he wrote in June 1929. “Louis Armstrong, in the best of his invariably outstanding records to date, ‘Basin Street Blues’ (built on a melting progression worthy–and indeed reminiscent–of Liszt) and a less original ‘No’; the piano and celsta playing and Louis own vo-de-oing call forth special praise,” he gushed in July 1929, adding, “This appears under the number of 8690 in the race list and 41241 in the general list.”
Rockwell’s gambit paid off and by the summer of 1929, Armstrong was a star on Broadway and on his way to being the first Black pop star. He was also becoming a hit in England when Parlophone began issuing his recordings on their new “Rhythm-Style” series. First up was “West End Blues,” which received a rave in the November 1929 issue of The Melody Maker that was sent to Louis and Lil and put in their scrapbook:
Louis and Lil also saved the mention of “West End Blues” on Melody Maker’s “Honours List”:
“West End Blues” does seem to be the record that received the most notices. On August 12, 1928, the Kansas City Call offered up a one-word review: “Mean.” And on September 3, 1928, the Los Angeles Evening Post-Record featured it in its “New Phonograph Records Reviewed” column by Gilbert Brown. “Some of the best novelty dance records to be had will be found among Okeh releases,” Brown wrote. “This week’s prize is ‘Fireworks’ and ‘West End Blues,’ played by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. They are hot–red.” Once again, no mentions of the earth-shaking cadenza or the level of high art inherent in such a performance; just “mean” and “hot.” And if you’ve never seen it, here’s the awful OKeh ad that ran in multiple newspapers for this groundbreaking performance:
Louis Armstrong was now a star and nearly all of his records would be reviewed between 1930 and 1933–but with barely a mention of the Hot Five. Armstrong, in particular, could seemingly do no wrong over in England, where the music press seemed to run out of adjectives to describe his genius–that is, until he came to England and performed for them in the flesh in 1932. The dazzling, confident showman had a shocking effect on the British writers, many of whom could no longer listen to him objectively. “Coming to Armstrong’s records, however, I am now confronted with another little aesthetic and critical problem, for I cannot reconcile the electric, incessant energetics of the entirely delightful personal Armstrong, both on the stage and off, with the lazy and charming person I had conceived in my mind’s eye as the Armstrong of the records,” one lamented.
A shift in tone began to take place in the reviews of Armstrong’s recordings. In 1933, Parlophone issued a pairing of “Star Dust” from 1931 and “Tight Like This” from 1928. Reviewing it in the September 1933 Melody Maker, British dance band leader, composer, and arranger Spike Hughes set forth an argument that would haunt Armstrong for the rest of his days. “If ever Louis Armstrong had a Golden Era it was during the period when he had this particular group of players with him, when he had this particular frame of mind upon himself, too,” Hughes wrote of “Tight Like This,” calling it “one of the finest recordings of that time.” “Louis himself confines his activities to a couple of words and a great deal of trumpet-playing–lots of low notes building to a not-too-high finish,” he continues, adding, “This is a record for those whom I would be proud to call my friends. But it is a little sad, too, to think what has happened to these artists since that day. ‘Come-backs’ are so rare in any walk of life.” Hughes went on to knock the “uninspired” “Star Dust,” concluding, “‘Tight Like This’ is the work of a man with something to say; ‘Star Dust’ the work of a man who is good at talking but has nothing to say and who has said it all more happily before, anyway.”
By the time Hughes wrote his review, Armstrong had returned to perform throughout England in the summer of 1933, receiving devastaing reviews for “meaningless” performances and for going “commercial.” (And yes, this is exactly when Armstrong was captured in full flight in Denmark in a 1933 film that you should really watch now.) American jazz expert John Hammond was overseas at the time and wrote a column about “The Sad Case of Louis Armstrong” in French periodical Jazz – Tango – Dancing.
If the above print is too difficult to read, Hammond began as follows:
“To the many thousands of hot music enthusiasts the world over, there is only one real hero: Louis. Without a doubt, he is the most charming, as well as the most spectacular figure in popular music, a virtuoso of unparalleled technique, and the most satisfying singer I know.
But in the past year or two something seems to have happened to him. From a thoroughly sincere musician, we have seen him turn into a showman with almost a trace of exhibitionism. No longer the perfect ensemble player of the Hines-Zutie-Redman days of matchless records. Now he is always the star with accompaniment, and of late the accompaniment has become more and more neglected. He hits high notes (250 high C’s in succession) merely for the feat of doing so.
What has caused this complete change? Has Louis become ‘commercial’? Has he become less sincere or is he losing grip on himself? Everybody is asking these questions, which certainly seem justified in view of the awful records he has made during the last two years….Louis’s best days were when he made those Okeh records with the Hot Five: Earl Hines, Zutie, Green, Redman and the rest. This was ensemble improvisation, which has never since been equaled. In my opinion, it was the high water mark of real hot music. But it was too good to last.”
[Louis wasn’t pleased, telling the editors of The Record Changer in 1950, “I told John Hammond in London, I say, ‘With all you have, Daddy, you don’t tell me how to blow that trumpet. Cause you don’t know my horn. Now you can say what you want about it, as long as you’re talking about music, but you don’t tell me how to blow that horn.’ There’s a whole lot of people write articles about musicians just to be sarcastic, to get back at certain musicians.”]
Notice that both Hughes and Hammond referred to the “Golden Age” as the recordings made by the “second” Hot Five with Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton. But what of the original Hot Five, with Ory-Dodds-St. Cyr-and-Hardin, the group we’re really celebrating this month? Believe it or not, those records were becoming harder and harder to find as the 1930s progressed and when they were discovered, many listeners were not impressed.
One such listener was young jazz enthusiast Leonard Feather, who had his life changed when he heard “West End Blues” as a teenager in London. He befriended Louis during his first trip to England in 1932 and began writing about him in 1934, not afraid of criticizing his friend, setting in motion a relationship that would run hot and cold the rest of Louis’s life.
In June 1934, Feather realized that Parlophone’s system of releasing Armstrong recordings in seemingly willy-nilly fashion was confusing his fans, who thought the recently reissued sides from 1928 were brand new. Feather decided to try to sort things out by publishing, “Armstrong Through the Ages – A Discographical Survey,” which ran in Melody Maker on June 9, 1934; a portion of it was even picked up in the Black press by the Chicago Defender the following month.
“The first combination featured Lily (First Wife) Armstrong at the piano, Ory on trombone, and Johnny Dobbs on clarinet,” Feather wrote. “Buddy Sincere plucked a banjo.” Feather’s references to “Lily” and Johnny “Dobbs” instead of “Dodds” are silly mistakes but his butchering of Johnny St. Cyr as “Buddy Sincere” actually had something of a long-range effect, as St. Cyr was referred to that way in Down Beat multiple times a few years later. Feather’s errors continued in the following sentence: “‘Candy Lips,’ ‘Nobody But My Baby,’ and ‘Cushion Foot Stomp’ reached English Parlophone under the name of the Original Washboard Beaters, and other titles were accredited to ‘Butterbeans and Susie,’ the lady being vocalist May Alix.” Yikes. The three songs that Feather lists were credited to “Louis Armstrong’s Washboard Beaters” but didn’t feature Louis at all (not to mention that vocalist Mae Alix was not the Susie of Butterbeans and Susie!).”
After that error-laden paragraph, Feather brushed over the original Hot Five quite quickly: “Louis alone made these early works stand out: for he has never been known to play a corny note–not even when he was playing with King Oliver twelve years ago,” he wrote. “Whereas Ory and Johnny Dodds…” Feather left that thought hanging and added, “Well, let’s pass over Group 1 (there were dozens of titles, all very much the same and hardly worth listing in full) and come to the halcyon days of Earl Hines.” And that more or less sums up the reputation of the original Hot Five sides ten years after they were made.
But there was a shift happening in the mid-1930s thanks to a new breed that appeared on the scene: the hot record collector. Hugues Panassie pioneered the first “Hot Club of France,” offering a communal experience for like-minded jazz fans to listen to records and discuss them.
The November 1935 Jazz Tango reported about a Louis Armstrong presentation given by Jean Favre at the Hot Club of Zurich, playing Armstrong sides from throughout his career–but omitting the original Hot Five because those sides were almost impossible to find overseas.
That finally changed, also in 1935, when Parlophone’s never-ending reissue series finally started digging into Armstrong’s 1925-1927 sides, each of which was reviewed by Edgar Jackson in The Gramophone (with more errors in recounting the personnel, including “Buddy Sincere,” “Zulie Singleton” instead of Zutty, and “Manzie Cara” instead of “Mancy Carr.”). “Savoy Blues” was up first in November 1935, Jackson writing, “In this little musical-box sort of tune one finds all the charm of unpretentious but genuine Negro music, featured as it should be featured—unforced and naturally. Louis plays with that neat style and easy rhythm which gained him his reputation with the understanding before the gallery discovered him, and anyone with the least taste will see how much more there was in it.” One month later, Jackson admitted “A Monday Date” was “old time vintage” but praised it as “ripe and fruity jazz.”
But Jackson grew quieter when mentioning Parlophone reissues of “Wild Man Blues” and “Melancholy Blues” by the Hot Seven and “Once in a While” and “Squeeze Me” by the Hot Five, just mentioning that they were out in 1936 without offering any opinions. He soon added star-ratings to his reviews, giving a mediocre two-star review to “Fireworks” and “Two Deuces”–made with Earl Hines–noting, “Here again we have two sides which are likely to be of interest mainly to collectors or incorrigible Armstrong fans.” Another two-stars for “Skip the Gutter” and a better three-stars for “Knee Drops” in November 1937 caused Jackson to admit, “In my opinion it was not until 1929, when he made his first records with Luis Russell’s band, Carroll Dickerson’s Orchestra and his own Savoy Ballroom Five, that Louis reached his best on records.”
By December 1937, Jackson was bored, awarding two stars to both “Got No Blues” from 1927 and “Sugar Foot Strut” from 1928, writing, “Issued in America as by Armstrong and His Hot Five, these are two more of Louis’ now ten-years-old recordings. Except, perhaps, for Louis’ own contributions, everything sounds very primitive these days; still, if you are an Armstrong collector here are two more to add to your museum which Parlophone seem determined to complete for you.” So much for England being quick to realize the long-term importance of the early Hot Five sides.
Back in the United States, the Hot Club movement taking off there, running concurrent with the booming popularity of “Swing” that started in 1935. With the trend came the first generation of jazz historians, led by Marshall Stearns, who wrote a series of “History of Swing” articles for the new jazz-oriented magazine, Down Beat. Here’s a page from Stearns’s October 1936 installment, which features one of the 1926 Hot Five publicity photos, offered to Stearns courtesy of Zutty Singleton:
The photo was a nice touch, but when Stearns got to his chapter on “The Colored Bands 1920-1930,” he spent most of his time on King Oliver and only made one passing reference to the Hot Five.
Stearns wasn’t alone. Armstrong himself was prodded to capitalize on the “Swing” crazy by penning an autobiography, Swing That Music, published in late 1936 with help from ghostwriter Horace Gerlach. In the entire text, Armstrong makes only one reference to his groundbreaking records of the 1920s, writing: “Also I got together a little group of swing players which were called ‘Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five’ and began to make records. I don’t know how I stood it. I never had any time to be at home, except just for a few hours’ sleep. I met myself coming and going…. Some of those early records we made were: Gut Bucket Blues, Butter-and-Egg Man and Heebie-Jeebies. Heebie-Jeebies sold forty thousand in a few weeks and the others did about the same.”
Naturally, the rise of “Swing” brought out some nay-sayers. The September 1937 issue of Down Beat featured an article by a man who would become a frequent Armstrong detractor over the years, Paul Eduard Miller, “Was Importance of 1st Jazz Soloists Exaggerated by Records?” Underneath the headline was a publicity photo of Armstrong with the words, “Is His Influence Over-Emphasized?”
“The importance of Armstrong, remarkable a jazz soloist as he is, has been over-emphasized,” Miller wrote, answering the question. “A long-range view of the history of jazz indicates that while much credit has failed to go where it should, too much esteem has gone in other directions. Three years with [Fate] Marable primed Armstrong for admirable performances under Oliver, Henderson, Tate, and Dickerson, and it was not until 1925 that a band of his own (recording group only) began to make the records which have since become household appliances. Not till some four years later did Armstrong actually head a band as leader.”
Miller might have insinuated that Armstrong’s early recordings became “household appliances,” but how could one go about listening to the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings in 1936? It wasn’t easy. The November 1 “Mainly About Manhattan” column in the New York Daily News was about this very topic. “Some of us wishful thinkers may believe swing music is on the way out, but there is still a hot market for the early swing phonograph records,” John Chapman wrote. “Discs that were worth a dollar a dozen on the junk market a year or so ago (my informant being Harry Sosnik, the band leader) now bring amazing prices on a Hot Record exchange in the 50’s. Average price for old swing records is $1.50 to $5, with Red Nichols’ Arkansas Travelers and Louisiana Rhythm Kings the most in demand. Louis Armstrong’s first recordings are listed at $25 each, with ‘Cornet Chop Suey’ and ‘Gut Bucket Blues’ the rarest.”
According to the Inflation Calculator, $25 in November 1936 is akin to $580 today–and that was in the Great Depression! (And the OKeh “Cornet Chop Suey” remains a rarity; it might be the only OKeh Hot Five we don’t have at the Louis Armstrong House Museum and I checked in with Matthew Rivera at the Hot Club of New York and his monumental collection doesn’t have it either–anyone out there willing to part with one?)
To the rescue came Milt Gabler, proprietor of Commodore Records in Manhattan. In 1936, Gabler formed a record label, United Hot Clubs of America, specifically designed to reissue out-of-print recordings of the previous decade. This generation of collector/historian was interested in discography and did their best to try to identify the musicians on these historic sides. Here is one of the UHCA Armstrong 78s from our Jack Bradley Collection, with more errors on the label including Buddy Sincere (!) again, “Babe” Dodds on drums (Baby Dodds is only on one side), Kid Ory on “Potato Head Blues” (it’s John Thomas), and a listing for Ed Garland on bass (he’s not on “Potato Head Blues,” it’s Pete Briggs on tuba).
In 1937, Steve Smith followed Gabler’s lead by forming the Hot Record Society. Smith published a price guide of early jazz records, which raised the skeptical eyebrows of one Enzo Archetti in the March 1937 issue of American Music Lover magazine:
Smith soon got into the reissue business, too, and began putting out new releases of old recordings on his new Hot Record Society label. A batch of these reissues got the attention of Martin McCall in the Daily Worker, who wrote about H.R.S. in the February 12, 1938 issue of that publication:
“As for the examples of the earlier periods, these are collectors’ items. A movement to sponsor reissues of rare and out-of-print discs at accessible prices has finally been initiated. The Hot Record Society, 303 Fifth Ave., which made its appearance last May, has been faithfully maintaining its purpose of reissuing limited editions under its own label of at least six double-sided records per year….Its second reissue was of some of the greatest Negro musicians in jazz history. One side is the rare ‘Cornet Chop Suey,’ by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five; the other is ‘One-and-Two Blues’ by Bessie Smith and Her Blue Boys. The selections are first-rate in themselves, and particularly happy is their coupling of the trumpet style of Armstrong with that of the late Joe Smith, who provides the obligato for the greatest of blues singers.”
Here’s that label (Buddy Sincere!), once again courtesy of the late Jack Bradley:
Marshall Stearns, too, approved of this reissue in his September 1937 Tempo magazine column:
H.R.S. followed with two early Hot Five outings in 1938, “Oriental Strut” and “You’re Next,” both recorded on February 26, 1926. “The Armstrong selections date from 1925, before the commercial popularity of large bands and ‘hot’ arrangers,” McCall wrote in the August 24, 1938 Daily Worker. “Louis Armstrong, the greatest hot trumpeter in jazz history, plays cornet here and leads his small, but model combination in two pleces of exemplary invention and expressiveness.”
The easier access to Armstrong’s early sides might have led to some writers to better grasp Armstrong’s influence on the development of the music. In September 1937, Down Beat published Paul Eduard Smith’s piece on how Armstrong’s importance had been “over-emphasized,” but by May 1938, in the same magazine, Charles Edward Smith could write, “As a virtuoso of his instrument Louis Armstrong did much to contribute to this [hot] vocabulary, producing phrases and structural tendencies that were in the course of years to become the cliches of the neo-Armstrong or too-far-out-of-this-world school. These were valid discoveries, adding immeasurably to the richness of hot technique, and they were employed to great advantage by Armstrong himself, particularly in his Hot Five & Seven Period.”
Smith and Fredric Ramsey were the driving forces behind the publication of Jazzmen in 1939, which featured an influential chapter on Armstrong written by William Russell. Russell devoted multiple pages to the Hot Five (and almost got Johnny St. Cyr’s name right, calling him Buddy St. Cyr), putting them in the proper context of not only Armstrong’s life, but the development of jazz. It appears Russell might have only had access to a few choice sides such as “King of the Zulus” and “Gut Bucket Blues,” writing about them in great detail, before summing up that “Louis’ most important contribution to these records was the fire and fury which he put into his work; his enthusiasm had a catching quality which compelled the others to do their best, from the opening bars till the end, where he drew them into breathtaking ‘all-in’ choruses.”
Armstrong was no dummy and spent a chunk of 1939 recording up-to-date remakes of 1920s classics like “West End Blues,” “Savoy Blues,” “Hear Me Talking To You,” “Save It Pretty Mama,” and “Our Monday Date,” backed by Luis Russell’s Orchestra. To those familiar with the 1920s originals, the 1939 versions were viewed as a step down. “Has Louis Armstrong Passed His Peak As a Jazz Leader?” a Down Beat headline read in July 1939.
“Some Louis Armstrong has reached and passed his peak as one of jazz’ outstanding personalities,” Barrelhouse Dan wrote in the accompanying article. “Others, armed with his records of last year, swear his technique and his band still are the most important figures in the field. Such argument is, I am afraid, pretty futile, although I believe at the same time, it’s inevitable. Take Louis’ latest (Decca) record, ‘West End Blues’ paired with a pop, ‘If It’s Good.’ It’s virtually impossible to not compare the first with the Hot Five’s 1928 version on Okeh when Zutty and Earl Hines were with Louis. Frankly, I feel the 1939 rendition is inferior to the earlier one because Louis plays more soulfully, and has more distinguished accompaniment, on the Hot Five side. Still, the 1939 performance displays Louis’ golden tone; good if not quite so spectacular ideas, and fair accompaniment. Therefore we list this Month’s ‘West End Blues’ as a ‘good’ record.”
The impact of Armstrong’s early recordings was slowly becoming common knowledge by this point, but there was still this stigma that the Hot Five side were for collectors only. Tempo magazine published a profile of Kid Ory in April 1938 with a Hot Five discography and a photo of the group with the wistful caption, “Remember the ‘Hot Five’?”
And if you wanted to collect the original OKehs, you had better saved your money. Down Beat’s Yearbook of Swing published an updated price guide for Armstrong’s recordings as a leader in 1939:
A backlash began forming against record collectors, with R. Whitney Becker spelling out in a June 1940 Down Beat article with the headline, “Disc Collectors Are Jerks!” “Record collectors are jerks,” Becker began. “Which may come more as a surprise to collectors than to musicians, who for the last four or five years have done a lot of griping but no writing about the pests who follow them around asking kindergarten questions and making damn fools of themselves in general. Collectors are jerks because they are not sincere in their ‘love’ of the best jazz. They are jerks because they are bores. And they are jerks because they’re all commercial minded, looking for discs which are hard to get father than because the platter has a terrific musical performance somewhere in its grooves.”
Such invective required a response, which eventually came in the form of a rebuttal titled “Record Collectors Are Not Jerks!” published in the June 1941 issue of Music and Rhythm. “You’ve probably heard jazz called America’s only native art form,” it began. “Breaking it down, you’ve probably found that what is meant by ‘jazz’ is hot music-not Gershwin, but Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five; not Paul Whiteman, but Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington; not ‘I Hear a Rhapsody,’ but ‘Muskrat Ramble’ and ‘The Mooche.’ And that’s why we have record collectors.”
Armstrong was invoked frequently through this article. “The recorded performance is the preservation of jazz,” it continued. “Louis today doesn’t play the way he did fifteen years ago; the old Louis would have been lost if it weren’t for records.” Later on, the author argued, “The important stuff will stay. Our grandchildren will be able to follow Armstrong’s development from cornet with the Hot Five through the Hot Seven period and into the series with Hines. If they want to go beyond, into the screams and interpolations from opera, they’ll have to choose more carefully. But they will be able to hear the Armstrong records.”
Elsewhere in the same piece, the author did allow that while “an original collector’s item is nice to have,” he had a warning about being greedy: “And what good does it do the rest of us, if a few collectors hold these priceless gems of jazz? None, of course, unless we know a chap who has a stack of them and will let us hear them. But that’s not quite the situation; reissues have come in. The best jazz records ought to be and are being put in print–just as Shakespeare’s plays and John Milton’s poems should be and are being kept available.”
This particular writer knew of what he spoke of: he was 22-year-old George Avakian and he had almost single-handedly rescued the Hot Five recordings from obscurity by overseeing the first jazz reissue series of albums ever put out by a major label. For that story, please return next week for Part 5!
Wonderful stuff — thanks for sharing with us!
As though I needed a reason, this post pushed me to take off the shelf (again!) the invaluable 4 CD compilation of the Hot 5s and 7s produced by Phil Schaap (Columbia 886973 01272). “West End Blues” on its’ own has set up the rest of the year.