After Louis Armstrong’s birthday

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. I missed the date this year, for two reasons: I didn’t mark it in my datebook, and in my head it’s always somehow August 8, because I know it’s not the Fourth. Armstrong always said he was born on July 4, 1900. Such a date befitted him.

Better late than never: here’s one of my favorite later Armstrong performances: “Azalea,” recorded on April 4, 1961. It’s a Duke Ellington composition, which Ellington wrote years before with Armstrong in mind. As Dan Morgenstern describes the scene in his liner notes for The Great Summit (Roulette Jazz, 2000):

Duke mustered up the courage to pull out a lead sheet for “Azalea.” He pulled up a chair, sat down facing Louis, and held up the words and music. Louis donned his horn-rimmed glasses, smiled that matchless smile, and began to hum and sing. An expert sight-reader, he soon had the melody down. The lyric, even with Duke having moved to the piano, was a bit more challenging, but it, too, fell into place. As all this was taking shape, Ellington was positively beaming, and when a take had been made, he was ecstatic. If indeed he’d had Louis in mind when he created this hothouse conceit, he had chosen properly, for no one else could've made it credible but the incredible Mr. Strong.

With Mort Herbert, bass, and Danny Barcelona, drums. Go, listen. It’s beautiful.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)