| PRODUCT DETAILS | | The Hot Fives & Sevens |  | |
The Hot Fives & Sevens
Between 1925 and 1929, Louis Armstrong created one of the first great bodies of work in jazz. While he worked regularly as a soloist with big bands, he began his career as a leader with the first all-star studio group in jazz, the Hot Five. The other four musicians were Armstrong's wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, on piano; Johnny Dodds on clarinet; Kid Ory on trombone; and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo. The music's first great soloist, Armstrong was reshaping jazz by sheer improvisational magic, gradually diminishing the role of the traditional New Orleans ensemble with the clarion brilliance of his trumpet. Possessing an uncanny blend of exuberance and creativity, he combined virtuosic declarations with a talent for the subtlest shifts in phrasing and melodic variation, creating rich emotional statements that could hint at loss in the midst of joy or the promise of better things in the most sorrowful blues. The band expands here, to the Hot Seven and larger ensembles, and it gains soloists who applied Armstrong's lessons to their own instruments--musicians such as pianist Earl Hines and trombonist Jack Teagarden--but all come under the imprint of Armstrong's flowering genius, as both trumpeter and singer. It's almost impossible to overrate this material. It may be the most influential music in jazz history, establishing standards for originality and sustained invention that have rarely been matched. The JSP set is a superb reissue of Armstrong's essential work. The remastering is by John R.T. Davies, widely acknowledged as the dean of engineers in the field of early jazz, and the resultant sound is simply the best this work has ever enjoyed. There are alternate takes of the later material on Columbia Legacy (including Louis in New York and St. Louis Blues), so collectors will want both. But this recording is superior listening, at a price that also makes it an ideal introduction to one of the few titans of jazz. --Stuart Broomer
Manufacturer: Jsp Records
Price Range: $19.66 - $28.98
 The Hot Fives & Sevens
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| User Reviews |  | Rockin' the Hooverville
rating: 5
The stateside legality of this box set may be a bit dubious- this music is public domain in England, where copyright laws are a bit less stingy- but I don't think that you need to worry about federal agents kicking down your door. Like most import compilations of American pre-war music, these four discs live in a legal grey area here in the states, and it's a fairly light grey, at that. And there's hardly anything immoral about it: The people who created this music don't have much use for royalty payments, what with their being dead and all. In any case, purchasing this box set instead of the inferior and overpriced Sony package sends a good message to the big companies while providing monetary support to one of the greatest reissue labels in the history of mankind. Anyway, the fact that it's 2008 and you still pay for your music already makes you something akin to a saint.
But then again, maybe you should buy whichever set you're comfortable with. I'm not here to extol the virtues of JSP or denounce Sony. The purpose of this review is to praise Louis Armstrong's recordings with the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, and that's exactly what I intend to do. This is some of the most joyous music in the history of mankind, a freewheeling evocation of a lost world bursting at the seams with thrill and rebellion and sweat and booze and love and melody, with horns swirling and speaking and singing over and around each other while pianos twinkle drunkenly beneath. Without ever sounding dated, these recordings effortlessly evoke a magical world of fun-filled speakeasies, irreverent flapper girls. And boundless investment opportunities in Florida land. You need to get this.
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Is this the best available hot five and hot seven box?
rating: 5
Frankly, I don't know. I still have two hot five and hot seven audio tapes bought in the late 1980s (edition CBS masterpieces) and they also sound pretty good (and I didn't drink no gin... sorry for the lame "Monday Date" joke).
Basically, all I can say is, these cds sound great on my quite average cd player, confirming everything I have known about Armstrong before (and about Jimmy Dodds, Zutty Singleton, Baby Dodds, Kid Ory , Lonnie Johnson and others,
while I must admit I'm only starting to get (and enjoy) Earl Hines.
Aditional, non hot five and non hot seven tracks certainly augment my understanding of Satchmo and his golden era, with adittional thrill of Jack Teagarden, Eddie Lang or Hoagy Carmichael on some tracks.
Admittedly, discs 3 and 4 contain some (commercial) duds, but the amount of brilliant music in this box is amazing...
Just listen to the first, best or at least seminal versions of songs such as "Struttin' with some barbicue", "West End Blues", "Potato Head Blues", "S.O.L. Blues", "Fireworks", "Ain't Misbehavin", "Knockin' the Jug"; "St. James Infirmary"....
BTW, it is important to know that many songs that have the word "blues" in their title don't really belong to that category... Just as the term jazz in the 20s didn't mean the same thing it means today.
p.s.
In very informative liner notes we read about banjoist Mancy Carr, while the song listing gives his name as Cara; if I remember my CBS Jazz masterpieces liner notes correctly, "Cara" was an early misprint that snowballed into the future decades.
p.p.s.
The only real fault of this cd box- names of authors of the songs are sometimes listed in the liner notes, there's no complete list... Ofcourse, some songs are by Ory, some by Lil Hardin/Armstorng, some by King Oliver, some by Fats Waller, but it would be nice to have the data next to the song title. But, the performers (and date) listing is complete.
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LOVED the first 2 disks...
rating: 4
...though the 3rd was so-so and the 4th was barely listenable...the tunes degenerated from classic New Orleans jazz/blues/swing on the first two disks to big band pomposity and Lawrence-Welkish corniness by the 4th disk. Your mileage may vary of course if you actually enjoy the big-band style of Armstrong's later work.
The audio quality is fine, it's obviously not ideal but really for this type of music there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, you hear the occasional scratches, crackles and pops in between tracks but the good tunes still sound plenty good as far as I'm concerned.
Would much rather have an ok recording of brilliant music than a brilliant recording of crappy music!
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Don't touch the hiss!
rating: 2
If it was just the music I'm rating, it would of course get a million stars. However, the music is on a remastered CD. "Remastered" generally means getting your oldie jazz sounding as if it's being strangled in a can.
Granted the sound here is "clear" and the bass is a bit boosted. The acoustics, reverb, are however to an extent thrown out with the hiss.
Again, I've heard a lot worse than this. But generally, French jazz re-issues are better (though they can be a mixed bag). Why? Because they leave more hiss!! The catch? The French CD's are either expensive or they contain fewer songs for your money than these cheapo boxed sets.
Addition a few months later: have now had the chance to compare this remastering to that of other CDs (not the Hot 5s, other bands), and I confess this set is better done than many others. So if you're going for CD, I'd still recommend this one. (My own background is growing up listening to my dad's vinyl jazz LP's)
Listen to the sound clips of different CDs, let your ears be the judge.
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Music is cornerstone...but the sonics? Mixed feelings.
rating: 3
I'm not going to labor on the fact that this music is fantastic, cornerstone of jazz, indispensible, blah, blah, blah. We all already know that. I want to talk about the sonic quality of these recordings.
I read so much about this John RT Davies guy, who mastered this box set. I heard so many positive things about his skills, particularly in this boxed set, and how the sound is allegedly far superior to the Columbia version. I had to get BOTH to compare. I bought this JSP box set, and the newly revised 2006 edition of the Hot sessions released by Columbia/Legacy/Sony/BMG (the official edition).
The late John RT Davies, who mastered this JSP set is considered so good, that people on Amazon claimed that he mastered this collection from old 78s better than the engineers at Columbia, using the original masters (owned EXCLUSIVELY by Columbia.) Heck, RCA & Columbia thought he was good, as i've seen his name adorning very LEGAL pressings of all sorts of old jazz under the RCA & Columbia labels, right here in the U.S.A. So, he certainly had some clout, and some talent.
Unlike almost every reviewer on here, i do not consider the JSP box set to sound better than the official Columbia release (2006 version). However, i still think it sounds pretty good. There is something important to consider. While Davies is considered a true master at...well, remastering, his work at JSP comes up flawed, because he did not have access to the original masters, which are safely secured in Sony/Columbia/Legacy's vaults. He had to use old 78's (the kind you bought in the store) to make these new masters. So, while he may have picked 78's that were better preserved, and had seen less action, he was still using the next generation of recordings.
When you master from the originals over and over and over again, you tend to add all kinds of artificial pops, clicks, hisses, and such into the original disc (Bing Crosby had to re-record White Christmas in 1947, because the original 1942 recording was pressed so many times, it sounded horrible). Therefore, if you use a pretty clean 78, you can avoid much of that, and come out with a cleaner master to make into a CD. When you add some digital noise removal systems (essentially computer programs), you make them even cleaner, and if done right, still not sacrifice the integrity of the music.
Sounds pretty cut and dry right? The 78's should sound better then, right? Why wouldn't Columbia re-master their collection from old 78's as well? A very important reason, actually. When you copy old 78's, instead of the original pressings, you move at least one generation away from the original performance. Everytime you make a copy of a copy, the sound gets muddier, with less distinction and more distortion. Certainly, with skill and technology, it can be minimalized, but the fact remains.
Soooooooo.......my analysis? The JSP set sounds a tad smoother, with less pops. The bass is a little deeper too, however a bit muddier (slightly distorted). The Columbia set from 2006 DOES have a bit more scratchiness, and the bass is not quite as deep. However, the sound is CLEANER, and...my favorite descriptive word in this whole review...more TRANSPARENT. That's right. Every instrument in the Columbia set is more distinct from all the other instruments. The sound feels light, airy, and alive. The JSP set, while more smooth doesn't have that clarity of the original recordings. They sound more like...well, records.
So, which is better? There's no really correct answer. It's a matter of taste. For ME, the Columbia set wins, hands down. I'm 31 years old. For most of my musical life, i grew up listening to CDs. However, many people have fond memories of what their old collection of vintage records sound like. What you hear on records that you don't hear on CD's is distortion. It's slight, but it's certainly there. Technically, CDs are cleaner, and more accurate representations of the actual music than records ever were. But people have aural memories, and THAT'S the sound they want to hear. It's a very natural, and totally unconscious reaction. We like what we know. Everytime i buy better speakers, amps, etc., i always miss the sound of my old, inferior equipment...for a little while. Then as i use it, my ears adjust to the new sound, and i ADORE it. Anytime i've tried going back to the OLD set-up after that, i had a much stronger negative reaction than i did when going UP in quality. My ears became adjusted to what's better.
So, here's my recommendation:
If you don't have those fond memories of old vinyl or shellac discs, and grew up on CDs, then the Columbia set is 150% better. The sound is cleaner, tighter, more distinct instrumentally, and contains less distortion. You get music that's closer to reality. The drawback of course, is you will hear a bit more crackle, and a tad less bass.
If you DO have those fond memories of the big black discs, and you remember the warm, rounded sound that made you feel like cuddling up in a blanket with a cup of cocoa & a wish on a star, then you really need to get this set. If you also happen to listen to rap in your Escalade, and you like to hear the bass completely distorting, but you think you wanna try some early Satchmo, then you NEED this set. Don't even think about buying the Columbia version. Just remember, while it is smoother, it is also further away from the original performance, so the sound is muddier and less distinct.
I've compared nearly every track on both sets. They both sound pretty good in their own ways. By all means, this IS a set worth owning...for some people. You just have to decide what kind of person you are.
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The Hot Fives & Sevens
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