Complete Satchmo at Symphony Hall

[Fer Urbina]

I mentioned it in my blog a few days back, but in October Hip-O Select will release a complete edition of the 1947 Symphony Hall concert by the Louis Armstrong All-Stars. Ricky Riccardi is listed as co-producer and it will comprise recordings from the Universal vaults and the Louis Armstrong House archives, in running order.

Really looking forward to this.

F

[jazzbo]

Great news!

[brownie]

Indeed!

A favorite album from Satchmo! Will be looking for that complete edition...

Fer U! Great blog you have

[EKE BBB]

Great news indeed! Thanks for the hint.

[gmonahan]

Curious to know how much material there is that has not yet been released. This one was available as an old 2-LP set from Decca forever!

gregmo

[bichos]

dive deep into this and you will find some rarities! (and i wonder why this blog has the ending ".de"??)

keep boppin´

marcel

[Ricko]

Hi all, this is Ricky Riccardi (and is this is my first Organissimo post in years, haha). Anyway, glad to see some excitement over "Satchmo at Symphony Hall." The original 1951 2-LP Decca set had the majority of the music, but there were some edits, including four complete performances, all the themes, Louis's announcements and some solos (Dick Cary's on "Royal Garden Blues" and some extra noodling by Barney Bigard at the end of "Tea for Two"). When Orrin Keepnews finally put it on on CD in the 90s, he made the choice to strike three tunes ("I Cried for You," "That's My Desire" and "How High the Moon") AND he completely shuffled the original order of performances. I'm the Archivist for the Louis Armstrong House Museum and last year, we learned that the Swedish Armstrong collector Gosta Hagglof donated every scrap of his Armstrong collection to the Museum. It arrived last summer. The first thing I looked for was "Symphony Hall" because Gosta told me in 2007 he was working on a complete edition. And sure enough, I found a disc...and another...and another...and another. All in all, I found about 30 individual CDs with Gosta's Symphony Hall work. He somehow had access to the original acetates and made multiple CD copies of those and then he made extra copies with pitch correction, skips edited out, noise reduction, etc.

Last October I contacted Harry Weinger at Universal and he came out to our Archives to listen to it. He flipped and we've been off and running since. It'll be a 2-CD set on the Hip-O Select label, with the original liner notes by Ernie Anderson and new liner notes by yours truly. The concert will be sequenced in the original order, starting with the band tuning up. All of the announcements will be heard for the first time, in addition to the themes. And there will be complete versions of "Back O'Town Blues," "St. James Infirmary," "Velma's Blues" and "Jack Armstrong Blues." They're all fantastic. I can only assume "Back O'Town," "St. James" and "Jack Armstrong" were not on the original LP because Victor had just released versions. And even "Velma's Blues" is a knockout, as it's almost 7 minutes long with a long interlude where Velma danced and the All Stars just played the blues (Sid Catlett catches her every move). I'm a biased Armstrong nut who has always loved this concert, of course, but trust me, hearing it complete, in the original order, with the announcements, the new tunes, everything, is a really, really special experience.

S'all for now! (And thanks for the plug of my blog, Marcel. Don't know why that's a ".de" version as dippermouth.blogspot.com works just as well.)

Yours in Pops,

Ricky

[jazzbo]

Ricky, thanks for the detailed information. Looking forward to this!

[king ubu]

Sounds great, Ricky! Thanks for sharing this background insight!

[gmonahan]

Posts like Ricky's are what I always love and hope to see on the Board. Many thanks for that! Definitely on my list!

gregmo

[bichos]

thanks, ricky, for dropping by and telling us first hand details!!!

keep boppin´

marcel

[Don Brown]

It will be great to get the truly complete version of this great concert. I have the French RCA Jazz Tribune set which has quite a few additional titles but now we know that even that issue did not contain everything that was recorded that evening.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Don Brown

[Don Brown]

I've just realized I'm mixing up the Symphony Hall concert with the earlier Town Hall concert. So perhaps the French RCA of the Town Hall concert does contain all the missing titles. But no matter, the Symphony Hall concert was a great one as well so I'm really looking forward to this complete edition. The thought of more Big Sid Catlett has my mouth watering.

[RiRiIII]

Fabulous news! Thanks!

[ornette]

No sign of it on Amazon UK.

[JohnJ]

From The Second Disc.

http://theseconddisc.com/?s=louis

[EKE BBB]

This CD hits the stores on Tuesday!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Is this a limited edition?

MG

[AllenLowe]

just a btw; I love Armstrong, etc etc; I know the Symphony Hall set very well (owned the LPs for years); I do think that, like most things from the All Stars, it wears a bit thin after a while.

Just a friendly consumer warning.

[JohnJ]

Is this a limited edition?

MG

Yes, like all Hip-O-Select releases. In this case, 3,000 copies I believe.

[EKE BBB]

just a btw; I love Armstrong, etc etc; I know the Symphony Hall set very well (owned the LPs for years); I do think that, like most things from the All Stars, it wears a bit thin after a while.

But you gotta love the "fat thing" at the beginning...

Edited October 15, 2012 by EKE BBB

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Is this a limited edition?

MG

Yes, like all Hip-O-Select releases. In this case, 3,000 copies I believe.

Thank you - I had a feeling that was a limited edition company.

MG

[medjuck]

BTW Is the May 17th '47 Town Hall Concert available on cd?

[jazzbo]

It has been. It was best on a two cd RCA "Jazz Tribune" release, there was also a Fresh Sound, and probably other gray market releases. I think there is not an official version in print at the moment.

[Swinging Swede]