Best Known As: The charismatic jazz trumpeter who recorded "Hello Dolly"
Louis Armstrong was the most famous jazz trumpeter of the 20th century. Like Jelly Roll Morton, Armstrong began playing in New Orleans clubs and saloons in his early teens. By the 1920s Armstrong was touring the country and leading his own band, the Hot Five (later the Hot Seven). He continued to tour and record throughout his life and was particularly famous for his innovative, loose-limbed improvisations; some call him the first great jazz improvisor. His gravelly voice and sunny persona were a hit with the non-jazz public, and later in his career he became a sort of cheerful ambassador of jazz, even appearing as himself (more or less) in movies like High Society (1956, with his good friend Bing Crosby and starlet Grace Kelly) and Hello, Dolly! (1969, with Barbra Streisand). The theme song from the latter film became his most widely-known recording.
Armstrong's nickname Satchmo was an abbreviation of "satchelmouth," a joke on the size of his mouth... He was also nicknamed Gatemouth, Dippermouth, Dip, and simply Pops... Armstrong was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "early influence" in 1990... In 2001 the city of New Orleans renamed its airport as Louis Armstrong International Airport... Armstrong is credited with influencing trumpeters as diverse as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis.
(b New Orleans, 4 Aug 1901; dNew York, 6 July 1971). American jazz trumpeter, singer and bandleader. His career began in clubs and Mississippi river-boat orchestras in New Orleans, but in 1922 he joined Joe Oliver's Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. In 1924 went to New York, where he joined Fletcher Henderson. Returning to Chicago (1925), he began the recordings with his Hot Five and Hot Seven which confirmed his international reputation as the greatest jazz musician of his time. For almost 20 years he led a big band (usually that of Luis Russell), returning to a sextet in 1948 with the founding of his All Stars, which he led for the rest of his life. His best work dates from the period of the Hot Five, when he turned jazz from an ensemble to a soloist's idiom. His most notable recordings from 1925-7 include Potato Head Blues, Hotter than That and West End Blues.
Louis Daniel Armstrong (1900-1971) was an early jazz trumpet virtuoso, and he remained an important influence for several decades.
Louis Armstrong was born into a poor African American family in New Orleans on July 4, 1900. As a youngster, he sang on the streets with friends. In 1913 he was arrested for a prank and committed to the Waif's Home, where he learned the cornet and played in the band. On his release he began performing with local groups. Joe "King" Oliver, leader of the first great African American band to make records, befriended him, and Armstrong joined Oliver in Chicago in 1922, remaining until 1924, when he went to New York to play with Fletcher Henderson's band.
When he returned to Chicago in the fall of 1925, Armstrong began to cut one of the greatest series in the history of recorded jazz. These Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings find him breaking free from the conventions of New Orleans ensemble playing, his trumpet work notable for its inventiveness, rhythmic daring, improvisatory freedom, and technical assurance. In 1928 he started recording with drummer Zutty Singleton and pianist Earl Hines, the latter a musician able to match Armstrong in virtuosity. Many of the resulting records are masterpieces, the performances highlighted by complex ensembles, unpredictable harmonic twists, and rhythmic adventurousness. During these years Armstrong was working with big bands in Chicago clubs and theaters. His vocals, featured on most post-1925 records, are an extension of his trumpet playing in their phrasing and rhythmic liveliness, and are delivered in a unique guttural style.
By 1929 Armstrong was in New York leading a nightclub band. Appearing in the theatrical revue Hot Chocolates, he sang "Fats" Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'," Armstrong's first popular song hit. From this period his repertoire switched mainly to popular song material, which presented a new challenge because of the relative harmonic sophistication. Some notable performances resulted. His virtuosity reached a peak around 1933; then his style underwent a process of simplification, replacing virtuoso display by a mature craftsmanship that used every note to maximum advantage. He re-recorded some of his earlier successes to considerable effect.
Armstrong continued to front big bands, often of inferior quality, until 1947, by which time the big-band era was over. He returned to leading a small group which, though it initially included first-class musicians, became over the years a mere background for his vaudevillian talents. During the 1930s Armstrong had achieved international fame, first touring Europe as a soloist and singer in 1932. After World War II and his 1948 trip to France, he became an inveterate world traveler, journeying through Europe, Africa, Japan, Australia, and South America. He appeared in numerous films, the best a documentary titled Satchmo the Great (1957).
In his later years the public thought of Armstrong as a vaudeville entertainer - a fact reflected in the bulk of his record output. But there were still occasions when he produced music of astonishing eloquence and brilliance. He died in New York City on July 6, 1971.
Further Reading
Armstrong's autobiographical Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954) is informative and entertaining on his early years. Swing That Music (1936), though ostensibly by Armstrong, was almost certainly ghosted and is of limited interest. Max Jones and John Chilton, Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971 (1971), is a superb study and is particularly informative about his life during the 1930s. An outstanding critical study of Armstrong's records of the 1924-1931 period is in Richard Hadlock, Jazz Masters of the Twenties (1965). See also Louis Terkel, Giants of Jazz (1957).
Full name, Daniel Louis Armstrong; nickname, "Satchmo"; born July 4, 1900, in New Orleans, Louisiana; died July 6, 1971, on Long Island, New York; son of Willie (a turpentine worker) and Mary Ann (a domestic servant) Armstrong; married Daisy Parker (divorced, 1917); married Lil Hardin (a jazz pianist), February 5, 1924 (divorced, 1932); married Lucille Wilson (a singer), 1942.
Career
Worked odd jobs as a boy, including delivering milk and coal and selling newspapers and bananas; played the cornet with various bands in the New Orleans area, c. 1917-22; played with King Oliver's Original Creole Jazz Band, c. 1922-24; played trumpet with Fletcher Henderson in New York City, 1924; played trumpet independently and fronted his own bands, including the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, 1925-71; recording artist beginning in the early 1920s. Appeared in Broadway shows, including "Hot Chocolates" and "Swingin' the Dream"; appeared in motion pictures, including Pennies from Heaven, Columbia, 1936, Every Day's a Holiday, Paramount, 1937, Going Places, Warner, 1938, Dr. Rhythm, Paramount, 1938, Cabin in the Sky, MGM, 1943, Jam Session, Columbia, 1944, New Orleans, United Artists, 1947, The Strip, MGM, 1951, Glory Alley, MGM, 1952, The Glenn Miller Story, United Artists, 1954, High Society, MGM, 1957, The Five Pennies, Paramount, 1959, A Man Called Adam, Embassy, 1966, and Hello, Dolly, 1969.
Life's Work
Louis Armstrong is frequently regarded by critics as the greatest jazz performer ever. With both his trumpet and his rich, gravelly voice, he made famous such jazz and pop classics as "West End Blues," "When It's Sleepy Time Down South," "Hello, Dolly," and "What a Wonderful World." Armstrong's influence on the jazz artists who followed him was immense and far-reaching; for instance, according to George T. Simon in his book The Best of the Music Makers, fellow trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie affirmed that "if it weren't for Armstrong there would be no Dizzy Gillespie." Reviewer Whitney Balliett declared in the New Yorker that Armstrong "created the sort of super, almost celestial art that few men master; transcending both its means and its materials, it attained a disembodied beauty." Apparently, fans all over the world agreed with this assessment, for during his lifetime Armstrong made extremely successful tours to several countries, including some in Africa and behind the Iron Curtain.
Armstrong was born July 4, 1900, in a poor black neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana. His parents separated when he was five years old. His poverty has been described as a key factor in the discovery of his affinity for music, however, for he sang in the streets for pennies as a child. When Armstrong was 13 years old, he fired a pistol into the air to celebrate New Year's Eve and was punished by authorities by being sent to the Negro Waif's Home. This incident proved somewhat providential: the home had a bandmaster who took an interest in the youth and taught him to play the bugle. By the time of his release from the facility, Armstrong had graduated to the cornet and knew how to read music. Working odd jobs, he scrounged up the money to continue lessons with one of his musical idols, Joe "King" Oliver.
From 1917 to 1922, Armstrong played cornet for local New Orleans Dixieland jazz bands. He also tried his hand at writing songs, but was only partially rewarded--he saw his composition "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" published, but the company reportedly cheated him out of both payment and byline. Then Oliver, who led a successful band in Chicago, sent for Armstrong. As second cornetist for Oliver, the young jazzman made his first recordings. In 1924, Armstrong enjoyed a brief stint with bandleader and arranger Fletcher Henderson in New York City. By the time jazz pianist Lil Hardin, who would become the second of his three wives, persuaded Armstrong to work independently around 1925, he had switched from the cornet to the trumpet. During the next few years he made recordings fronting his own musicians; depending on the number assembled, they were known as the Hot Five or the Hot Seven. Around the same time, Armstrong is credited with the invention of the jazz technique of scat singing--legend has it that Armstrong dropped his sheet music during a recording session and had to substitute vocal improvisations until someone picked up the sheets for him. Also during this period, his experimentations led him to break free of the more rigid Dixieland style of jazz to pave the way for a more modern jazz genre.
But in 1930, Armstrong began taking yet a different direction with his career, performing with larger bands and recording more pop-sounding songs. Jazz purists fault him for this move, but others point out that he helped inspire the later swing sound. Nevertheless, Armstrong was still identified with jazz by the public, and on his extensive European tours was considered an "ambassador" of the genre. When he gave a concert in Ghana, he was considered a hero by its natives; he also performed a few times before the British royal family. It was in England that he won the nickname "Satchmo," a distortion of "satchelmouth," which described the extent to which his cheeks puffed out when he played the trumpet.
Armstrong also helped spread jazz's popularity throughout the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s by appearing in musical roles in several films, from Pennies from Heaven in 1936 to Hello, Dolly in 1969. He was probably included in the latter because his recording of the title song in 1964 sold over two million copies and momentarily displaced the then-phenomenal Beatles from the pop charts. Armstrong also made successful recordings of popular songs such as "Mack the Knife" and "Blueberry Hill" and, as late as 1968, scored a chart hit with the single "What a Wonderful World."
Armstrong filmed his guest appearance in Hello, Dolly in between visits to the hospital. For a brief period during 1970, he was forbidden to play his trumpet by his concerned doctor. Undaunted, he made a couple of purely vocal albums. Later in the year, Armstrong's physician lifted the ban on his instrument; he did a Las Vegas show with singer Pearl Bailey and played a benefit in London. After a few appearances in 1971, though, Armstrong suffered a heart attack in March and was hospitalized once again. He recovered sufficiently to be allowed to return to his home in May, but he died in his sleep on July 6, 1971.
Armstrong's fame and popularity, however, have continued long after his death. In 1975, a program dedicated to the jazz great's music by the New York Jazz Repertory Orchestra toured the Soviet Union as part of official cultural exchange between that country and the United States. A bust of Armstrong has been placed on the site of the Nice Jazz Festival in France. And one of his hit records even became a hit again during the late 1980s--"What a Wonderful World" was included on the soundtrack of the Robin Williams film Good Morning, Vietnam, received a great deal of airplay, and introduced Armstrong's music to a new generation of fans.
Awards
"West End Blues" was one of the first five records elected to the Recording Academy's Hall of Fame; won several periodical jazz polls, including those conducted by Esquire and Down Beat; honored by the American Guild of Variety Artists.
Works
Selective Discography
Hello, Dolly, MCA.
At the Crescendo, MCA.
Best of Louis Armstrong, Audiofidelity.
Definitive Album, Audiofidelity.
Louis Armstrong with the Dukes of Dixieland, Audiofidelity.
Disney Songs the Satchmo Way, Buena.
I Will Wait for You, Brunswick.
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, Archive of Folk & Jazz.
Mame, Pickwick.
Satchmo: A Musical Autobiography (four-album set), Decca, 1957.
The Best of Louis Armstrong, MCA, 1965.
What a Wonderful World, ABC, 1968, reissued, 1988.
Louis Armstrong with His Friends, Amsterdam.
July 4, 1900/July 6, 1971, RCA.
The Genius of Louis Armstrong, Columbia.
Louis Armstrong in the Thirties, RCA.
Louis Armstrong in the Forties, RCA.
Louis Armstrong, Bella Musica, 1990.
Further Reading
Books
Collier, James Lincoln, Louis Armstrong: An American Genius, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Jones, Max, and John Chilton, Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, Little, Brown, & Co., 1971.
Simon, George T., The Best of the Music Makers, Doubleday, 1979.
(born Aug. 4, 1901, New Orleans, La., U.S. — died July 6, 1971, New York, N.Y.) U.S. jazz trumpeter and singer. As a youth in New Orleans, he participated in marching, riverboat, and cabaret bands. A childhood nickname, Satchelmouth, was shortened to Satchmo and used throughout his life. In 1922 he moved to Chicago to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (seeDixieland). In 1924 he joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in New York City; the following year he switched from cornet to trumpet and began recording under his own name with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles. In these recordings the prevailing emphasis on collective improvisation gives way to his developing strength as soloist and vocalist. By the time of his "West End Blues" (1928), Armstrong had established the preeminence of the virtuoso soloist in jazz. His vibrant melodic phrasing, inventive harmonic improvisation, and swinging rhythmic conception established the vernacular of jazz music. His powerful tone, great range, and dazzling velocity set a new technical standard. He also was one of the first scat singers, improvising nonsense syllables in the manner of a horn. He became something more than a jazz musician: solo attraction, bandleader, film actor, and international star.
(1900-1971), trumpeter and singer. A product of New Orleans's rich musical culture, Armstrong took up the cornet in his early teens and was soon playing in parades with the Colored Waifs' Home band and in local nightspots. His tutor on the instrument was Joseph "King" Oliver, who later asked Armstrong to join his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago in 1922. Armstrong made his first recordings with this ensemble the following year, but since he played second cornet to Oliver's lead, he rarely can be heard soloing.
In 1924 Armstrong married pianist Lillian Hardin and went to New York to join Fletcher Henderson's orchestra. With this ensemble he established himself as a brilliant soloist whose virtuosity and rhythmic dynamism set new standards for instrumental jazz performance. His reputation increased through a series of recordings made in Chicago between 1925 and 1928 with groups of New Orleans musicians variously titled Louis Armstrong's Hot Five or Hot Seven. On such records as Struttin' with Some Barbecue, Potato Head Blues (both 1927), and West End Blues (1928), the young Armstrong displayed the hallmarks of a fully formed trumpet style and a mature musical conception; his purity of tone, dazzling speed, daring breaks, rhythmic drive, and startling imagination were unprecedented and, to some extent, remain unequaled.
Armstrong also emerged as a singer on the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings, a role that he would assume more and more in the years ahead. When fronting his own orchestra in the 1930s and early 1940s, or when appearing with his All Stars, a small, New Orleans-styled combo, from 1947 until 1971, Armstrong alternated between singing in his characteristically husky voice and taking trumpet solos with the same penetrating sound and rhythmic assurance that marked his recordings of the twenties.
Gradually Armstrong--known to many by his nickname "Satchmo"--developed his stage persona as a genial performer of popular songs ("Mack the Knife," "Hello, Dolly") and New Orleans standards. This image eclipsed his earlier radical innovations in jazz. But Armstrong himself may not have seen a great dividing line in his career nor perceived a conflict between the roles of artist and entertainer. Coming from a city whose musicians traditionally valued direct emotional expression more than innovation for its own sake, and from a generation of jazz musicians who functioned, by and large, as popular entertainers, Armstrong carved out a career typical for his place and time. The extraordinary aspects came from the profound impact he made on other musicians, the joy he brought to listeners the world over, and the sincerity, dignity, and love of life he conveyed in all his performances.
Bibliography:
Louis Armstrong, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954; reprint, 1986); Max Jones and John Chilton, Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971 (1971).
Armstrong, Louis "Satchmo" (Daniel Louis Armstrong), 1901-1971, American jazz trumpet virtuoso, singer, and bandleader, b. New Orleans. He learned to play the cornet in the band of the Waif's Home in New Orleans, and after playing with Kid Ory's orchestra he made several trips (1918-21) with a Mississippi riverboat band. He joined (1922) King Oliver's group in Chicago, where he met and married the pianist Lilian Hardin. His early playing was noted for improvisation, and his reputation as trumpeter and as vocalist was quickly established. Armstrong was a major influence on the melodic development of jazz in the 1920s; because of him solo performance attained a position of great importance in jazz. He organized several large bands, and beginning in 1932 made numerous foreign tours. Armstrong appeared in Broadway shows, at countless jazz festivals, and in several American and foreign films. His archives are housed at Queens College, which also maintains the Louis Armstrong House.
Bibliography
See his memoir, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (1954, repr. 1986); his selected writings ed. by T. Brothers (1999); biographies by G. Giddens (1988) and L. Bergreen (1997); study by J. L. Collier (2 vol., 1983-86); J. Berrett, Louis Armstrong Companion (1999).
A twentieth-century African-American jazztrumpet player and singer. His nickname, “Satchmo,” was short for “Satchel Mouth.” Armstrong, whose career spanned five decades, was celebrated for his trumpet solos and the gravelly voice in which he sang songs such as “Hello, Dolly” and “It's a Wonderful World.”
Representative Albums: "The Definitive Collection," "The Best of Louis Armstrong: The Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings," "Hot Fives & Sevens, Vol. 3"
Representative Songs: "Basin Street Blues," "St. Louis Blues," "Struttin' With Some Barbecue"
Biography
Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music's history. As a trumpet virtuoso, his playing, beginning with the 1920s studio recordings made with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, charted a future for jazz in highly imaginative, emotionally charged improvisation. For this, he is revered by jazz fans. But Armstrong also became an enduring figure in popular music, due to his distinctively phrased bass singing and engaging personality, which were on display in a series of vocal recordings and film roles.
Armstrong had a difficult childhood. William Armstrong, his father, was a factory worker who abandoned the family soon after the boy's birth. Armstrong was brought up by his mother, Mary (Albert) Armstrong, and his maternal grandmother. He showed an early interest in music, and a junk dealer for whom he worked as a grade-school student helped him buy a cornet, which he taught himself to play. He dropped out of school at 11 to join an informal group, but on December 31, 1912, he fired a gun during a New Year's Eve celebration, for which he was sent to reform school. He studied music there and played cornet and bugle in the school band, eventually becoming its leader. He was released on June 16, 1914, and did manual labor while trying to establish himself as a musician. He was taken under the wing of cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, and when Oliver moved to Chicago in June 1918, he replaced him in the Kid Ory Band. He moved to the Fate Marable band in the spring of 1919, staying with Marable until the fall of 1921.
Armstrong moved to Chicago to join Oliver's band in August 1922 and made his first recordings as a member of the group in the spring of 1923. He married Lillian Harden, the pianist in the Oliver band, on February 5, 1924. (She was the second of his four wives.) On her encouragement, he left Oliver and joined Fletcher Henderson's band in New York, staying for a year and then going back to Chicago in November 1925 to join the Dreamland Syncopators, his wife's group. During this period, he switched from cornet to trumpet.
Armstrong had gained sufficient individual notice to make his recording debut as a leader on November 12, 1925. Contracted to OKeh Records, he began to make a series of recordings with studio-only groups called the Hot Fives or the Hot Sevens. For live dates, he appeared with the orchestras led by Erskine Tate and Carroll Dickerson. The Hot Fives' recording of "Muskrat Ramble" gave Armstrong a Top Ten hit in July 1926, the band for the track featuring Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lillian Harden Armstrong on piano, and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo.
By February 1927, Armstrong was well-enough known to front his own group, Louis Armstrong & His Stompers, at the Sunset Café in Chicago. (Armstrong did not function as a bandleader in the usual sense, but instead typically lent his name to established groups.) In April, he reached the charts with his first vocal recording, "Big Butter and Egg Man," a duet with May Alix. He took a position as star soloist in Carroll Dickerson's band at the Savoy Ballroom in Chicago in March 1928, later taking over as the band's frontman. "Hotter than That" was in the Top Ten in May 1928, followed in September by "West End Blues," which later became one of the first recordings named to the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Armstrong returned to New York with his band for an engagement at Connie's Inn in Harlem in May 1929. He also began appearing in the orchestra of Hot Chocolates, a Broadway revue, given a featured spot singing "Ain't Misbehavin'." In September, his recording of the song entered the charts, becoming a Top Ten hit.
Armstrong fronted the Luis Russell Orchestra for a tour of the South in February 1930, then in May went to Los Angeles, where he led a band at Sebastian's Cotton Club for the next ten months. He made his film debut in Ex-Flame, released at the end of 1931. By the start of 1932, he had switched from the "race"-oriented OKeh label to its pop-oriented big sister Columbia Records, for which he recorded two Top Five hits, "Chinatown, My Chinatown" and "You Can Depend on Me" before scoring a number one hit with "All of Me" in March 1932; another Top Five hit, "Love, You Funny Thing," hit the charts the same month. He returned to Chicago in the spring of 1932 to front a band led by Zilner Randolph; the group toured around the country. In July, Armstrong sailed to England for a tour. He spent the next several years in Europe, his American career maintained by a series of archival recordings, including the Top Ten hits "Sweethearts on Parade" (August 1932; recorded December 1930) and "Body and Soul" (October 1932; recorded October 1930). His Top Ten version of "Hobo, You Can't Ride This Train," in the charts in early 1933, was on Victor Records; when he returned to the U.S. in 1935, he signed to recently formed Decca Records and quickly scored a double-sided Top Ten hit, "I'm in the Mood for Love"/"You Are My Lucky Star."
Armstrong's new manager, Joe Glaser, organized a big band for him that had its premiere in Indianapolis on July 1, 1935; for the next several years, he toured regularly. He also took a series of small parts in motion pictures, beginning with Pennies From Heaven in December 1936, and he continued to record for Decca, resulting in the Top Ten hits "Public Melody Number One" (August 1937), "When the Saints Go Marching in" (April 1939), and "You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)" (April 1946), the last a duet with Ella Fitzgerald. He returned to Broadway in the short-lived musical Swingin' the Dream in November 1939.
With the decline of swing music in the post-World War II years, Armstrong broke up his big band and put together a small group dubbed the All Stars, which made its debut in Los Angeles on August 13, 1947. He embarked on his first European tour since 1935 in February 1948, and thereafter toured regularly around the world. In June 1951 he reached the Top Ten of the LP charts with Satchmo at Symphony Hall ("Satchmo" being his nickname), and he scored his first Top Ten single in five years with "(When We Are Dancing) I Get Ideas" later in the year. The single's B-side, and also a chart entry, was "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," sung by Armstrong in the film The Strip. In 1993, it gained renewed popularity when it was used in the film Sleepless in Seattle.
Armstrong completed his contract with Decca in 1954, after which his manager made the unusual decision not to sign him to another exclusive contract but instead to have him freelance for different labels. Satch Plays Fats, a tribute to Fats Waller, became a Top Ten LP for Columbia in October 1955, and Verve Records contracted Armstrong for a series of recordings with Ella Fitzgerald, beginning with the chart LP Ella and Louis in 1956.
Armstrong continued to tour extensively, despite a heart attack in June 1959. In 1964, he scored a surprise hit with his recording of the title song from the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!, which reached number one in May, followed by a gold-selling album of the same name. It won him a Grammy for best vocal performance. This pop success was repeated internationally four years later with "What a Wonderful World," which hit number one in the U.K. in April 1968. It did not gain as much notice in the U.S. until 1987 when it was used in the film Good Morning, Vietnam, after which it became a Top 40 hit. Armstrong was featured in the 1969 film of Hello, Dolly!, performing the title song as a duet with Barbra Streisand. He performed less frequently in the late '60s and early '70s, and died of a heart ailment at 69.
Louis Armstrong was embraced by two distinctly different audiences: jazz fans who revered him for his early innovations as an instrumentalist, but were occasionally embarrassed by his lack of interest in later developments in jazz and, especially, by his willingness to serve as a light entertainer; and pop fans, who delighted in his joyous performances, particularly as a vocalist, but were largely unaware of his significance as a jazz musician. Given his popularity, his long career, and the extensive label-jumping he did in his later years, as well as the differing jazz and pop sides of his work, his recordings are extensive and diverse, with parts of his catalog owned by many different companies. But many of his recorded performances are masterpieces, and none are less than entertaining. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
