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Beatstreet

Louis Armstrong: Satch Plays Fats

Columbia/ Sony: Rs. 395 (CD)

Two giants of early jazz came together (in a manner of speaking) to make this classic album. When Louis “Satch”Armstrong and His All-Stars recorded it in 1955, Thomas “Fats” Waller had been dead for over a decade, but this vir tuoso pianist and consummate entertainer was also the prolific composer on whose tunes the album is entirely based.

When it was first recorded on LP, the album had only nine tracks. This 2000 CD reissue has 20. Four extra tracks are alternate takes from the 1955 sessions. Seven more, also Waller compositions, were originally recorded on 78 rpm between 1929 and 1932, at a time when Armstrong was arguably at his most creative just after inventing the art of solo improvisation, now regarded as the essence of jazz.

In the interim, Armstrong had become a huge pop star, especially as a singer and, according to many critics, to the detriment of his credentials as a jazz trumpeter, the greatest in early jazz. By the 1950s he had begun to answer his detractors by resuming the jazz side of his career with his All-Stars, the septet that recorded this album. All of them were competent musicians, although only Barney Bigard on clarinet, who had worked with Duke Ellington when Armstrong was making history in the late 1920s, was independently famous. Trummy Young on trombone gained much recognition for his work in the All-Stars, as did Billy Kyle on piano to a lesser extent.

The music (from the original album) is suffused with much joy and spontaneity, the solos coming off very well, especially by Armstrong, Bigard, and Young. Armstrong does double duty as a solo improviser, both on trumpet and on vocals (using nonsense syllables or “scat”, a device he himself had invented). On at least one track he and Young have a “scat conversation” apart from taking their instrumental solos. On a few tracks Velma Middleton joins Armstrong for some vocal duelling. Rollicking numbers such as “Honeysuckle Rose”, “I’m Crazy ’bout My Baby”’ and “Ain’t Misbehavin”’ are rendered with as much panache as Waller, who was also a singer, put into them, but for me the gem of this album is the melancholy “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue”.

The 1929-1932 tracks make an interesting comparison with the original 1955 album. One does sense that Armstrong’s solos then were somewhat meatier. But only the first, “Squeeze Me”, which was performed by a sextet that included the pianist Earl Hines who first became famous for his work with Armstrong on his seminal recordings in 1927-1929, has the balance of a small group in which everyone makes a significant contribution.

The others are rendered by biggish bands (10 or 11 strong) in which many of the members seem to be a bit lost, especially the saxophonists.

It’s evident that the big band sound, which was perfected in the mid-1930s by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman, among others, is here a work in progress and Armstrong had little to do with its evolution.

Solos by Armstrong on trumpet (and scat vocals), one trombone, one clarinet or sax, and Hines on “Squeeze Me” stud these tracks as usual, but the rest of the ensemble contribute a rather feeble sound. Yet altogether these tracks do add value to the “Satch Plays Fats” theme that underlies the original album.

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