Louis Armstrong and King Oliver - Louis Armstrong and King Oliver

When cornetist King Oliver invited Louis Armstrong to leave New Orleans and join the Creole Jazz Band in Chicago in 1922, he completed one of the greatest bands in jazz history. This CD includes the 1923 Gennett and Paramount recordings, the world's introduction to the spirited rhythm and inspired contrapuntal improvisation of New Orleans music, highlighted by the dual cornet breaks of Oliver and Armstrong. The CD also includes Armstrong's 1924 recordings with the Red Onion Jazz Babies, some matching him with Sidney Bechet, the wonderful soprano saxophone pioneer, and the classic blues singer Alberta Hunter. --Stuart Broomer Amazon.com essential recording

Horrid sound.

This is one of the most overly-filtered CDs I have ever heard. The Gennett sides often get dissed for being poorly recorded. It is reissues like this that give them a bad name. They are actually very lively recordings, but you'd never know it from listening to this dismal effort. Milestone has filtered every bit of scratch out -- and a tremendous amount of music was lost along with it. Dull, bland, lifeless, boxy -- any of these words could describe this reissue. I suspect they started with Nick Perls' work on the 1974 Herwin reissue and began filtering from there.

Don't waste your money on this awful CD. January 27, 2006

Still Is Listening Pleasure

I will probably get the Challenge set as the prior reviewer mentioned because I want more of this band and also like John Davies's work..you should know that JSP's Breaking Out Of New Orleans box has 4 of the 7 Red Onion Babies tracks on my Jazz Heritage(licensed from Milestone) release we are reviewing here and all I can say is that I enjoy the music to the max.I am assuming the Jazz Heritage and Milestone sound is the same(?).
Breaking Out Of New Orleans is a must buy for those enjoying this genre as well.
July 9, 2005

Superceded, in part

This CD contains the Gennett, not the Okeh sides, less than half of the seminal early 78's recorded by Joe Oliver & Louis Armstrong. The two-CD set on Challenge includes all of these important early recordings of African American jazz music, re-mastered by the late great John R.T. Davies. To my ears, the Challenge set offers enormously better sound quality. And, oddly enough, it's cheaper on Amazon than the Milestone product, at least at this writing. But caveat emptor! I have seen a bootleg of the Challenge set floating around the used jazz bins in Chicago.
However, enthusiasts of the young Louis Armstrong may want to consider this CD for its inclusion of the Red Onion Jazz Babies sides, prototypes, you might say, of the Hot Five's and Hot Seven's. I don't know where else these might be available on CD. And these transfers, for some reason, are a bit more listenable on the Milestone issue than are the King Oliver numbers.
July 8, 2005

Lousy Sound -- Get "Complete Set"

You can hear from the Windows Media samples that the tracks have been filtered to death. A much more vibrant transcription of the same recordings is the wonderful "King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set". September 5, 2004

Lively Leads & No Hiss

'Louis Armstrong And King Oliver' should be considered a preview of the Hot Fives & Sevens that was to come. Armstrong's first recordings with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band are more ensemble oriented. He's the second cornet to King Oliver's cornet. (The cornet was a predecessor to the modern trumpet.) The double cornet breaks make for some lively dancehall jazz. . . This one also has seven tracks from the Red Onion Jazz Babies. They hail from Armstrong's first stint in New York City. "Cake Walking Babies From Home" is some of the earliest magic that Armstrong put to wax. This version is worth the price of admission. . . The sound quality for these 1923/1924 recordings is terrific. The early 90's compact disc are a lot better than the 1980's cassette of this material. This release does justice to the early recorded work of Louis Armstrong. October 25, 2001

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