Keep a light on

This has been Louis Armstrong week. Don't know why. Just decided to listen to Disk 1 of the Columbia Legacy "The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings" on Tuesday and ended up listening to all four disks. (There's a good one-disk highlights CD if you don't want to spring for the boxed set, although I highly recommend going all the way.) Then it was on to "The Great Summit-The Master Takes" with Mr. Armstrong and the Duke and "The Best of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong," which are like cheesecake, so rich it almost overloads the senses. (No calories or upset stomach from the CDs, however.) Finished with "Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy" this morning, an essential for any semi serious jazz collection.

Listening to the Hots in particular, I was struck by how greatly the licks and improvisational technique on display then (1925-29) would underpin so much of the jazz played after, right down to today, in the same way I hear the roots of rock in Robert Johnson or, later, Chuck Berry.

I also was moved to recall something Wynton Marsalis says in Ken Burns "Jazz," and whatever you think of those two I think this is absolutely true: Beyond his mastery of music and of his instrument, Louis Armstrong had an otherworldly light in his playing.