Send "Louis Armstrong " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Nobody can really explain why Louis Armstrong’s ‘Hello Dolly’ hit #1 in 1964. A so-so Broadway show tune, performed by the kind of small polyphonic jazz ensemble Armstrong had pioneered 40 years earlier, “Dolly” felt out of step, and not just with a Top 40 increasingly dominated by rock ‘n’ roll. In the year of A Love Supreme, Out To Lunch, and Wayne Shorter’s Blue Note debuts, Armstrong wasn’t exactly Happening in the jazz world, either. But there they sit: the biggest hits of that momentous musical year were “Dolly” and the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (and, depending on your accounting method, “She Loves You”). They’re twin colossi, seemingly separated by years and miles, one a victory lap in a world-altering career, the other a promise to change the world all over again. Chart scholars seeking answers might be wise to throw up their hands. The pop consensus that purports to speak for all of us doesn’t answer to any of us. Forget it, Jake; it’s Top 40.Buried within that conundrum lies another: nobody can really explain why Armstrong didn’t hit #1 more often. After all, “Dolly” didn’t depart dramatically from the music Armstrong had laid down in the ‘20s with his revolutionary Hot Five and Hot Seven bands. Armstrong’s small group, the All Stars—the band behind most of the music on the new compilation Hello, Louis!—had existed in shifting configurations since 1947, playing straight-up Louis Armstrong music to the masses. (They hit with “Mack the Knife” in 1956, three years before Bobby Darin’s smash.) Armstrong was a universally respected figure in American culture even though, since the ‘30s, he’d faced accusations of selling out. Jazz critic Gary Giddins has repeatedly shown that for Armstrong, art and entertainment were inseparable. He had an unsurpassed ability to infuse his trumpeting and singing with the full force of his personality, and his personality was unsurpassingly lovable. “Dolly”, fresh from a new Broadway show, may have been a fluke of good timing, but there was much more where it came from. Case in point: the new two-disc Hello, Louis! The Hit Years (1963-1969), which for the first time compiles the ‘64 album Hello, Dolly!; its 1966 follow up Mame; the 1968 What a Wonderful World; and some stray singles, including the James Bond theme song “We Have All the Time In the World”. Hello, Dolly! was an archetypal quick money-grab, recorded in a single day to cash in while its eponymous single climbed the charts. Armstrong, who’d recorded the song as a demo to promote Jerry Herman’s musical, doubted the song’s quality and initially had trouble remembering it when concert audiences requested it. You don’t hear that skepticism in the music, of course, or in any of the songs that populate the album, be they show tunes, standards, or forgettable trash. Armstrong and the All Stars could shock almost any song into giddy, grinning, obnoxious life. Armstrong performs every tune with a terse focus that never sounds terse. Listening to him sing and play a melody—say, “You Are Woman, I Am Man”, from Broadway’s Funny Girl—it’s tempting to think he sounds conventional, that he’s simply not doing anything. Before long, you realize you can never predict what he’ll sing or play next. He recklessly slides the word “much” down and around to end a phrase, neglecting the closing “ch” sound; his trumpet solo moves between marcato declarations and softer slurred asides, so deftly the song seems to have been written that way. (It wasn’t.) With a few stray notes, Armstrong can suggest a different rhythm, an entirely different song, that might have been. That all of this sounds both spontaneous and premeditated suggests Armstrong possessed a brutal ability to edit himself on the fly. That he could do so while projecting uninhibited emotional generosity—a quality more readily associated with John Coltrane’s note-heavy A Love Supreme—was a remarkable trick of his trade....full text |
| Elbo |
| Nobody can explain why "Hello Dolly" hit #1 in 1964. But then, nobody can explain why Louis Armstrong didn't hit #1 all the time. Nobody can really explain why Louis Armstrong's 'Hello Dolly' hit #1 in 1964. A so-so Broadway show tune, performed by the kind of small polyphonic jazz ensemble Armstrong had pioneered 40 years earlier, "Dolly" felt out of step, and not just with a Top 40 increasingly dominated by rock 'n' roll. In the year of A Love Supreme, Out To Lunch, and Wayne Shorter's Blue Note debuts, Armstrong wasn't exactly Happening in the jazz...full text |
| Allaboutjazz |
| On December 3, 1963, at age 62, when most folks are thinking about retirement, Louis Armstrong recorded the sprightly “Hello, Dolly!," the title song for a Broadway show. Thus began a six year-long series of recordings that brought arguably most important 20th Century musician back into the limelight and, in fact, gave him his greatest recording successes ever. The single of “Hello, Dolly!" supplanted The Beatles as #1 on the Pop charts (his first #1!) and was #1 for nine weeks on the Adult Contemporary charts. The Dolly album soared to #1 for 6 weeks on Billboard's Top 200 and was certified gold. Over the next two years Louis recorded tracks for the Mame album, resulting in a pair of Top 10 Adult Contemporary hits—"So Long Dearie" and the title track. Then we have the remarkable “What A Wonderful World." Recorded in 1967, the heartfelt single was a big hit in Europe, but only reached #12 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart. However, after prominent placement in the 1988 movie Good Morning Vietnam, the single climbed into the Top 40 and the album was certified gold. Finally, in 1969, Louis recorded “We Have All The Time In The World," the theme song for the next James Bond epic flick, On Her Majesty's Secret Service....full text |
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