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Hadn't listened to the Louis Armstrong Decca set in a while either...halfway through the first disc...also over-declicked...

I'd be curious to see examples of the matrix numbers not following a chronological sequence. I admit I haven't done much serious study, but I don't think there's much substance to that claim. He might have been confused because Paramount often sourced material from other manufacturers like Autograph.

I asked Louis Armstrong expert Ricky Riccardi about this, and he agreed with my take that late December is correct due to the matrix numbers. He added that Willems had October, which is wrong and Minn just followed him. David Sager, he thinks, might have been the first to argue for December, writing, "The Paramount recordings are believed to be the final recorded testaments of the great 1923 band since there are conflicting views about when these were made. However, the matrix numbers indiciate December 1923." Laurie Wright agreed in his Oliver bio-discography. My own view is that Lord et al. should be corrected being that there seems to be virtually no argument for before December. My guess is that the argument for earlier is some musiciological nonsense. Matrix numbers don't lie, though. Usually the people making arguments like this aren't hardcore record collectors.

The new King Oliver Centennial set seems to reuse the Off the Record discography for dating purposes--they also cite the December date. I hadn't spent much time with those van Rijn Paramount books, but they also don't list dates and don't seem to be of much help in the scant pages with session dating information. I think if Armstrong expert Ricky Riccardi had unearthed anything to the contrary it would have been reflected in the new set. Going to ask him for his take, which may or may not be in the new book on Armstrong's early years coming out soon.

I have it at home along with some other discographies, e.g. the Vreede / van Rijn Paramount discography sets. Not there now to look...need to scan those liner notes for my digital records when I get a chance. The Off The Record set uses the 12/23/23 date. On 78discography.com, like you say, they cite several 1500-series matrices as November 1923, including a few exact dates, so I'm not exactly sure what the basis for 1622-1624 being September would be. I could be wrong, but December seems correct. It sounds equally arbitrary to toss out the decently-well-documented Paramount chronology for a hunch. https://78discography.com/PMT20000.htm

Being that set is was made by obscure French people in 1991, I'd strongly recommend avoiding and finding either the new Archeophone Centennial set,the Off the Record set from the early 2000s, or the John RT Davies Retrieval set. This one I'd wager is closer to the 'bottom of the barrel'.

Not familiar with that set, but that information can be found in the Rust Jazz Discography, which is publicly available here and probably several other places. It could use a few updates but is mostly accurate with respect to dates...the personnel is another story. https://archive.org/details/brian-rust-jazz-records-free-edition-6 The Paramount King Oliver Creole Jazz Band session took place on c. December 24, 1923.

Sorry for shitting on this forum--it was more in reference to my registration going into a black hole for two months than anything else. To be honest, most of the helpful posts from this forum I've found doing online research for one moldy fig jazz thing or another were from the 2000-2005 era. This place still seems pretty vibrant, though. Glad to be here. I archive and restore jazz (and maybe a few ragtime) records from the 1900-1935 era, mostly 1922-1931. Most of the fans of this stuff seem to be dead, but there are still dozens of us!

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I invite listeners to compare the restorations on the various King Oliver reissues to these--they're very different than those on the Off The Record and Centennial sets. I really like how these turned out--they have real body and depth. As I mentioned, there's a lot of bass on these records that is very difficult to bring out. I have one of the world's top 78 restoration studios but unfortuately very little free time! I guess that's how one is available to afford such extravagences.

The 2006 release is very much a product of its time, and the sound quality was pretty mediocre even for that time--largely becuase a lot of the transfers were made in suboptimal conditions and also because restoration of acoustical recordings is a craft that few fully understand. Doug Benson did a pretty good job, but I don't think there were many people back then who really did the intensive study needed to maximize the acoustical sound. There are all kinds of peaks and valleys that are much easier to address nowadays with spectral restoration software. Rich Martin, the restoration engineer for Archeophone, on the other hand, has been working exclusively (I think) with acousticals for decades and is on the cutting edge. This entire set is head-and-shoulders above any prior release--extremely listenable, even to modern ears. Hardly any resonances to be found, and he maximizes the signal-to-noise ratio with virtually the minimum possible spurious shellac noises. It's hard to overstate how much work it is to restore an acoustical recording. Even the clean ones are filled with clicks and noises that click removers can't transparently address and require dozens of hours of manual cleanup. Even as someone who loves doing it, it's excrutiating work. As someone who has spent a lot of time studying acoustical recordings myself as something between a hobby and a serious pursuit (I'd do a lot more of it if I didn't have a day job and a toddler), I only have a few minor differences with Rich's mastering, and some of this may be subjective, and I mean these criticisms in the most constructive way possible: I think on a few sides, there's more bass to be brought out, especially those with bass saxophone. It's a delicate balance, because the bass is buried in shellac noise and it's hard not to bring a bit of rumbly noise along with it. Having a few raw transfers of clean King Oliver records, I also prefer a bit more bass and rhythm and a bit less shreiky lead horn. Bringing out the high frequencies too much can bring out some of the horn resonances. Still, though, I'd grade the 2006 release as ~6/10 and this as no worse than 8.5/10. The entire package you get here makes this a must-have. Ricky's notes are essential, and the supplemental CDs are illuminating.

Finally grabbed the Bunny Berigan Brunswick/Parlophone/Vocalion set the other day. The sound quality is overall decent for the time, but many of the tracks in the first half, especially the first CD, could benefit from being redone someday due to being over-declicked, causing distortion in the hottest brass passages.