70 years ago this month, Columbia Records released a brand new Louis Armstrong recording, Ambassador Satch. Even without listening to it, you just knew it would be a classic based on the album cover alone; here’s Louis Armstrong’s personal copy:
The other part of the title, “European Concert Recordings,” though, is only partially accurate. To celebrate the anniversary of this seminal release, we’re going to reach deep into our Archives to tell the tale of how the album actually came to be, focusing the spotlight on producer George Avakian’s role in making it happen.
Avakian has been a major star on this site, as we’ve covered his role in reissuing the Hot Five on albums for the first time in the 78 era, his later 1950s reissues in the LP era, and the classic studio recordings he produced, 1954’s Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy and 1955’s Satch Plays Fats. On September 28, 1955, Avakian had an idea to produce an Armstrong single for Columbia and struck paydirt with Mack the Knife. Armstrong’s manager Joe Glaser decided to let Avakian ride his hot hand and plan his next long-playing album, a selection of live recordings from his upcoming European tour.
The idea for the album had already been in place at the time of the “Mack the Knife” session and might have even come from Philips, Columbia’s European subsidiary. It is at this early point in this series that we turn to the Archives–but first, some brief backstory. Columbia Records kept files for each of their artists containing all releated correspondence and memos. At some point in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Columbia decided to downsize their filing system and earmarked a bunch of folders for the trash. Producer Chris Albertson noticed the Louis Armstrong file on the chopping block and, told that it was going to be thrown out, decided to save it all for himself. He brought it home and over the years, offered up samples on his blog and on various jazz message boards before selling it to the Armstrong House in 2016–eternal thanks to the late Albertson, who passed away in 2019.
With that out of the way, here’s the first letter, from Jacques Canetti of Philips to George Avakian on September 14, 1955, writing, “Can you possbily tell me the program of the selections which Louis Armstrong will perform in the course of his next European tour, and especially for the series of concerts in November at the Olympia in Paris? At the same time, would you find out if Louis can record certain of these pieces during actual performances before the publich? If so, please let me know exactly which titles are available for recording?” Canetti is clear in the postcript that the recordings would be made for and owned by “American Columbia.” Here’s the letter:
Avakian received the letter and forwarded it to Joe Glaser on September 19, also using the opportunity to try to nail down a date to record “Mack the Knife”:
And here’s Glaser’s response, basically saying that he had no idea what Louis was going to perform while overseas, ending with, “I am definitely interested in working out the European deal with you when Louis plays the theatre in Paris which I will discuss with you.” (As a bonus, it’s nice to read some chit-chat from Glaser about his beloved New York Yankees.)
Armstrong had already done major tours of Europe in 1949 and 1952, but this one was different. Perhaps it was simply Armstrong’s steadily growing popularity over the first half of the decade, perhaps it was his association with Columbia’s media juggurnaut, but this 1955 European tour generated tremendous publicity and headlines every step of the way. “Louis Armstrong and his All Stars’ Scandinavian tour was one of the biggest grossers ever racked up by an American combo,” Variety reported of Armstrong’s first stop on the tour. “Extra matinees had to be put on in Oslo and Stockholm and capacity houses were accorded the jazzman at every stop on this tour in the peninsula. Sellouts in advance were the rule at most of his stops.”
In some places, the reaction to Armstrong’s appearance was positively–and literally–riotous.
“Man, it was a reel cool riot,” an Associated Press story began from October 3. “While those crazy mixed up adults were voting in municipal elections today, 2,000 kids fought for tickets to a concert by Louis Armstrong. The cats lined up along Akersgata, Oslo’s newspaper street, waiting for the newspaper Dagbladet to put the tickets on sale. While they waited, they horsed around, just for the kicks But they blocked the doorway of another newspaper office, Aftenposten. Reporters covering the election had a job getting in and out of the office. An Aftenposten janitor trying to keep the doorway clear lost his temper, returned with a hose and turned the water on. Man, there was pandemonium. But good. Milling, yelling teenagers, dripping with water, fought to keep their places in the line. Then the police appeared. Girls screamed. Windows were smashed. The fans united against the police. When calm reigned once more , the street was awash with water, tons of sodden newspapers and other trash. Six or seven young men were carried off to the cooler.”
A few weeks later, a similar situation played out in Hamburg, Germany when concertgoers “became displeased when the amplifying system went blank and they could not hear Satchmo’s music plainly,” according to the Chicago Defender. “Damages occured when the patrons, demanding their money back, broke up chairs, tossing cushions and the like in protest. After a police squad cleared the hall, thousands gathered in the street. They dispersed when police threatened to use fire hoses against them. Twenty-three were hauled off to jail.”
With the buzz building, Columbia sprung into action. Avakian once told me that it was he told CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow about the uproar over Armstrong’s tour. Murrow thought it could make for a good episode of his influential show, See It Now. He talked it over with Glaser, who broke the news to Avakian in a letter on October 29, a letter which also contain Glaser’s reaction to the brand new release of “Mack the Knife”:
Interestingly, Edward R. Murrow’s papers, which have been digitized made available as a series of PDFs on Archive.org, also contain a letter Glaser wrote to Murrow on October 29, enclosing a copy of “Mack the Knife” (“It is something different, and I want you to play it and have it”) and writing, “I want to thank you again for your cooperation and the honor that has been bestowed on Louis in recording him and photographing him in Europe for SEE IT NOW. I spoke to Louis in Berlin last night, and your staff will have the fullest cooperation.”
See It Now was officially in motion; now it was time for Avakian to turn his attention to the album that would be known as Ambassador Satch. Though the original correspondence that kicked off the project came from Jacques Canetti of Philips in Paris, Avakian also mentioned that there was interest in doing something in Holland. Holland won out and a plan was devised to record a complete All Stars concert at the famed Amsterdam Concertgebouw in the Netherlands on October 30, 1955.
A photographer–or perhaps a team of photographers–was procured for the occasion. This was a long time before Jack Bradley came on the scene but found in Jack’s collection were contact sheets with dozens of images taken onstage and off at the Concertgebouw–we’ve scanned them all and are going to share them now!
We’ll open with some guards waiting outside the venue for Armstrong’s bus to arrive:
The bus arrives and road manager Pierre “Frenchy” Tallerie is first to exit:
Velma Middleton gets an assist off of the bus:
Next up, valet Hazes “Doc” Pugh, who had the job of carrying Louis’s trumpet case:
The man himself, wearing sunglasses at night:
Trombonist Trummy Young makes his exit, smoking out of a cigarette holder (we’ll soon see he wasn’t the only one to adopt that habit):
The photographer didn’t shoot the rest of the band members exiting the bus and instead made their way inside to begin shooting the band getting settled into the home-like environs of the Concertgebouw. Here’s Velma making her way upstairs:
A weary Billy Kyle next to Edmond Hall’s clarinet:
Here’s another photo of Kyle, this time with Hall himself, the new man in the band, having joined in mid-September:
Wish we knew the photographer’s name because this shadowy shot of Trummy is gorgeous:
Velma relaxing next to Louis’s open trumpet case:
Here’s Louis, still wearing the sunglasses inside:
We’ve posted this photo before on social media and it’s kind of blown up–here it is in context, Louis showing off his cigarette, also using a holder a la Trummy:
Bassist Arvell Shaw, also smoking, sans holder:
Here’s two photos drummer Barrett Deems and Edmond Hall, also looking quite haggard; needless to say, this tour was beyond grueling:
The sunglasses come off, but Louis still looks weary:
Louis eventually applies his trusty Louis Armstrong Lip Salve, manufactured in Mannheim, Germany by Franz Schuritz:
And now it’s warmup time! For those keeping score, Louis was still using the EMO trumpet he was gifted in Germany in 1952 and one he continued to use until he switched back to his favorite Selmer in mid-1956:
Looks like he’s waking up a bit:
Philips indeed must have had two photographers present as this one gets a photo of the other one shooting Louis:
Perhaps wanting to give that photographer some breathing room, this one turned around and caught Arvell Shaw filing his nails:
Shaw noticed the camera and gave it his best show business smile:
Then it was back to Louis:
Eventually, some guests arrived–now, I should point out that I’m grouping all of these backstage photos together, but it’s possible some of these were taken during the intermission. Either way, we need your help if you can identify any of people that pop up in these images! This guy got a shot of his own, making me think he might have been a big shot at Philips, or maybe the show’s emcee as the opening remarks in Dutch ended up kicking off the album Ambassador Satch:
Another angle:
Here he is greeting Louis:
Soon, another man shows up to talk to Louis, with an unidentified woman:
The man soon notices the camera:
Eventually the first man also introduces the woman to Louis
They chat:
Louis invites her to sit down–wish we knew who it was:
Turns out she wasn’t the only woman invited to sit with Louis; the one on the right even plants a kiss on his cheek:
Here’s the woman on the left in the above photo, now without her fur:
Pops had to go back to warming up, though, it was almost showtime:
More women–the woman on the left, is that one of the Peters Sisters perhaps?
The one who might be one of the Peters Sisters was obviously friendly with Velma Middleton, who has now changed outfits, making me think this might be intermission:
All of these women are dressed to the nines so I do wonder if they were entertainers, especially with all the attention they were getting from the photographers. Here’s another one of the woman in the fur talking to an unidentified man:
But here’s at least one person I do recognize–the great British jazz vocalist Beryl Bryden, posing with Trummy Young:
If Trummy looks a little more energetic, it’s possibly because the coffee was doing its job:
What was good for Trummy was good for Velma:
Even Doc Pugh needed some caffeine and he wasn’t even performing:
Barrett Deems and Billy Kyle looked like they were trying to drink all the coffee in Amsterdam:
Edmond Hall calls for another cup, with an empty bottle of Coca-Cola in front of him for good measure:
A smiling Trummy with another cigarette:
A serious Louis finally getting a moment of peace, enjoying his own coffee and cigarette:
Properly caffeinated, Edmond Hall starts to warm up:
Road manager Tallerie checks his watch–it’s almost time to go on:
Louis applies another coat of lip salve:
Arvell Shaw hams it up for the camera as he heads to the stage:
A smiling Tallerie, satisfied that he got the band there on time and now it’s time for the show:
Showtime! Here’s the view from the back of the hall:
Velma at the microphone:
From behind:
Let’s start getting a little closer:
Okay, let’s get to the stage now, starting with some excellent shots of Barrett Deems:
Moving through the rhythm section, here’s Arvell Shaw:
Arvell’s feature (he performed two, “The Man I Love” and a rare vocal version of “St. James Infirmary,” at this show):
Billy Kyle holding it down on piano:
Notice another photographer on stage; the place was crawling with them:
Moving back to the stage, Velma Middleton doing her dance:
Louis and Velma, an unbeatable team:
Edmond Hall on his feature, “Dardenella,” which made it onto Ambassador Satch:
While Hall was featured, Armstrong and Young got to take a brief break, sitting behind the piano:
Armstrong still checking on the chops, even when not featured:
From another angle:
Check out the fans onstage, sitting intently just behind Armstrong, Hall and Young, probably while Barrett Deems solos:
Trummy, possibly during his feature, “Undecided,” which also made it onto the album:
Louis and Trummy in jubilation, perhaps after their duet on “Rockin’ Chair”:
Pops digging Trummy, maybe on “The Bucket’s Got a Hole in It”:
A dramatic photo of Louis at the microphone:
Louis and Trummy–what a team!
Louis loving this edition of the All Stars, which he said was his best one:
And saving the best for last, for me, the glory of Ambassador Satch is capturing the front line of Armstrong, Young, and Hall in full flight–here are five incredible photos of them that evening at the Concertgebouw:
But wait, that’s not all! One of the photographers present was 22-year-old Joel Elkins, an American serviceman then stationed in Amsterdam. Elkins became a friend of the Armstrong House and in 2008, donated some of the photos he took at the same concert, one of which was used in Terry Teachout’s book Pops. Elkins sadly passed away in 2024 so to honor his memory, here are five excellent photos he otook at the Concertgebouw:
When the concert was over, Avakian just had to wait for Philips to send him the tapes. While waiting, another incredible bit of press landed: a front page story in the November 6, 1955 Sunday edition of the New York Times, “United States Has Secret Sonic Weapon–Jazz,” complete with a large photo of Armstrong. “America’s secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key,” Felix Belair Jr. wrote from Geneva. “Right now its most effective ambassador is Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong.” Avakian now knew what he would call the album he was planning. Murrow was in Switzerland by this point, too, and would quote from the Times piece on his See It Now special.
The Columbia file even includes a photocopy of the article:
The next day, November 7, Avakian wrote to Glaser, “I am sure you saw the news stories on Louis, including the front page of Sunday’s Times. That kind of publicity will help us no end with the recordings which we are in the process of making now in Europe. [Columbia Records President] Jim Conkling just came back from Europe and he is really excited about the jazz sitation abroad, and also about what can be done here in the United States.”
By this time, Avakian received a list of the songs performed at the Concertgebouw, but he was also made aware of a potential problem that reared its head: Decca Records let it be known that they had a “five-year restriction” on other labels putting out versions of songs they had already released within the past five years. Not only was Decca Louis’s exclusive label from 1949 to 1954, they had also released three live All Stars sets, Satchmo at Symphony Hall, Satchmo at Pasadena, and At the Crescendo, which, when added up, included almost all of the songs Avakian liked from the Amsterdam tapes.
Here’s Avakian on November 7 writing to Glaser’s assistant Oscar Cohen about obtaining a list of songs Decca had restrictions on:
Perhaps this will be interesting to some of you out there, but after Decca sent their list, Avakian summarized it in a January 19, 1956 interoffice memo:
But then the actual tapes showed up from the Concertgebouw–and Avakian was underwhelmed. He took notes on each track, reproduced below. They are a great window into Avakian’s mindset as a producer, as he’s already taking notes on what he thought could be done to improve certain selections from a postproduction standpoint; a sampling:”put in big roar,” “cut out bass solo (sloppy time),” “trombone clams after pick-up – any chance of covering with applause or drums?”, “repair Louis’s first vocal fill in by copying in one of his others,” “could have been far better,” “no good,” “omit reference to movie in spoken intro!!!!”
(One tantalyzing bit comes in Avakian’s “Basin Street Blues” notes: “Tempo drags in last bars of piano solo before tempo shift by band – have Paul Gordon apply schnittprozens.” “Snittprozens” translates literally into “cutting process” but given its a tempo issue, did Avakian and Paul Gordon figure out a way to maniuplate tape to change tempo without changing pitch? That’s an easy fix in the digital era, but was it possible in the analog days? On an unrelated note, on “Ole Miss Blues” from Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy, all surving takes began at a medium gallop and steadily sped up as they progressed, but on the LP, the verse and opening chorus are at an uptempo not found anywhere on the session tapes; I wonder if Gordon applied the “schnittprozens” to goose the tempo on that one….)
Here’s Avakian’s notes on the Concertgebouw tapes:
You can read more of Avakian’s complaints above, but he circled the ones that he thought were “OK”: “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” “Indiana,” “Tin Roof Blues,” “Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” “Perdido,” “Back O’Town Blues,” “Undecided,” “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “C’est Si Bon,” “Basin Street Blues,” “Muskrat Ramble,” and “St. Louis Blues.” Unfortunately, Decca had live versions of every single one of these songs on the market, except “Basin Street Blues,” which they had released as a two-sided single in 1954 (they also recorded it at the Crescendo in 1955, but it was unissued at the time).
Scrolling back to the list of Decca tunes, one can get snapshot of the politics of the recording industry. Satchmo at Symphony Hall was recorded on November 30, 1947, but Decca was holding all of those tracks to its initial release date of January 15, 1951; on October 30, 1955, five years had not passed so that would be a problem. (Avakian’s workaround will be discussed next time.)
But there were areas of daylight: Decca said their “singles” weren’t restricted and Joe Glaser said that the restriction only applied to the years Decca had an exclusive contract with Louis, which was through 1954, meaning the 1955 Crescendo Club recordings were fair game. Plus, it appears that Columbia had a restriction clause of its own which Decca violated by issuing versions of “St. Louis Blues” and “T’ain’t What You Do” on At the Crescendo, even though Louis had recorded both for Columbia the previous year.
Here’s Avakian’s notes on the Concertgebouw tapes, originally marking many as out, before scribbling that the Crescendo ones that could potentially be okay:
So there was a little wiggle room, but Avakian was largely unsatisfied, not wanting to simply put out new versions of songs already available through Decca (and the two volumes of At the Cresendo had just come out in September 1955 so the market was already satch-urated with live Satchmo). In the end, he would ultimately use six tracks recorded at the Concertgebouw, “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South” and “Indiana” on 1957’s Satchmo the Great and “Tin Roof Blues,” “Dardenella,” “Undecided,” and “Muskrat Ramble” on Ambassador Satch.
Now, in case you’re wondering–the complete concert does survive, but in inferior sound, either made by someone else who was there or someone who made a cloudy copy of the Philips tape. We have it in our Archives in our Jos Willems Collection, acquired in 2025, and it’s excellent, though Louis does start to run out of gas towards the end, sounding shaky at the end of “All of Me” and hitting an air note on “St. Louis Blues” a few seconds later.
In 2013, I joined forces with Scott Wenzel to co-produce The Complete Columbia and RCA Victor Live Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars for Mosaic Records. I had been pitching Scott on such a set for a number of years and one of my selling point was including the complete Concertgebouw concert, because Willems had sent it to me back in 2008 and I figured the pristine audio must be somewhere in the Sony vaults. Wenzel greenlit the project and put in an order for Sony to send over all the surviving tapes. It was an unforgettable day when I met Scott for the first time and we were able to go through all the boxes: Louis at Newport, at Lewisohn Stadium, the Chicago Concert, metal discs with sides from Town Hall, an unreleased 1947 Carnegie Hall show…..but there were no complete concert tapes from Amsterdam. Nothing from Philips, nothing from Columbia, nothing even in George’s private basement stash, which we were able to access.
What survived was a single reel with all of the material George thought was worth issuing, already with some postproduction touches: the six tracks listed above, an unissued “Back O’Town Blues,” edited versions of “The Bucket’s Got a Hole In It,” “Perdido,” and “Blueberry Hill”–and that was it. I’m glad the Willems collection has the inferior-sounding version, but it sure seems that the original master tapes might have been tossed.
In the end, Scott and I decided that edited versions of “Bucket,” “Perdido,” and “Blueberry” weren’t worth including because complete versions of those songs would appear elsewhere on the 9-CD set. But we did include “Back O’Town Blues,” a closing “Sleepy Time” and we found an orphan bass solo Avakian snipped out of “Indiana” and put it back in. Also, the original concert announcement in Dutch, which opens Ambassador Satch, was placed where it originally took place, before the opening “Sleepy Time.”
So without further ado, the tracks from the 2014 Mosaic set, which I’m happy to report is still streaming everywhere (the physical version went out of print in 2017). Play ’em loud and feel free to go back up and stare at those beautiful photos as you listen:
So those are the tracks that have officially seen the light of day, but you didn’t think we’d let you get this far without hearing a couple of the unissued tracks, did you? Here’s “Pretty Little Missy,” which was a brand new composition by Armstrong and Billy Kyle, recorded for Decca in October. Armstrong plugs Decca in the intro and Trummy Young’s solo gets off to a rough start, two things Avakian mentioned in his notes, but somehow Avakian missed the f-bombs Armstrong slyly tucks into his vocal on the bridge!
Jos Willems Collection
Here’s a fine version of “Basin Street Blues,” the one Avakian said had a draggy tempo during the piano solo, but I don’t hear it:
Jos Willems Collection
And because it ended up on Ambassador Satch in a very different form, here’s Velma Middleton’s feature on “All of Me,” which Avakian liked very much but ultimately thought it could be improved by swapping Armstrong for Middleton:
Jos Willems Collection
Those tracks might sound pretty good to us in 2026, but at the time, Avakian couldn’t help but feel that the Concertgebouw tapes did not represent Louis and the All Stars at their best. On the back of the final page of Concertgebouw notes, he listed some random dates of where Armstrong would be in December 1955, already dreaming of recording him again; if you can’t make it out, he writes [December] 8 Torino, 17, Rome, 19 and 20 Milano, 24 Liege.
Soon enough, Avakian would head to Paris, where Murrow was still filming Armstrong in the middle of a 19-day stand at the Olympia. Here’s a telegram from November 23 about Avakian’s impending arrival:
But in Paris, things went from bad to worse, as relayed by Avakian in a letter to Columbia President Jim Conkling written on December 2 and helpfully digitized and made available on the New York Public Library’s website (Avakian donated his personal papers and tapes there before his passing in 2017). Here’s a transcription of the relevant sections:
“Crisis in Paris…Louis, I found, was playing badly, had given most of his solos to Hall and Young and was literally cut off from the rest of the world by [Hugues] Panassie and [Mezz] Mezzrow – two of the unsavoriest leeches in contemporary western civilization. Philips gave up trying to record him after Amsterdam because Louis was lazy about repertoire – he can play wholly unrecorded shows, but it’s easier to repeat the usual 20 tunes which have all been recorded twice each at least – and with P. and Mezz around, he had become inaccessible and exhausted. They have been spending Louis’ dough (with an entoruage of 10-12 hangers on) at two meals a day with him followed by a full night’s carousing as one can only carouse in Paris – the works. Result, Louis can barely drag himself onstage.
“So far we have no ‘Ambassador Satch’ album. However, I’ll get one by December 21 in Milan. Will not go into detail, but I have a plan which will work if Tallerie (Louis’s U.S. road man) and Trummy Young do just half what I have arranged for them to do before I meet them in Milan, plus the screwing Langley will give the CBS TV tapes and the little bit useable from Amsterdam.”
That’s quite a cliffhanger and all will be revealed in the next installment, which will cover exactly what went down in Milan. Thanks so much for reading part one of this in-depth look at Ambassador Satch!