Lifting the lid on 'Louis In London'

On 2 July 1968, Louis Armstrong and what was to be the final line-up of the All Stars, played two concert sets for the BBC in London. The band had come to the UK to play for a fortnight at the Batley Variety Club, followed by the BBC Television Theatre event, and then four London shows – two apiece at the New Victoria Theatre and the Odeon Hammersmith. It was a big deal for the band, as Armstrong was reputedly paid $10,000 a week by the West Yorkshire club, a small fortune in the late 1960s, and he was also planning to celebrate what he believed to be his 68th birthday during the Hammersmith shows. He had been featured with the All Stars in two BBC broadcasts in 1965, but the 1968 appearance found him in respite from the various health issues that had beset him in the previous three years, and surrounded by a band that supported his singing and stellar playing to perfection.

The 1965 band still featured his long-term pianist Billy Kyle, who died in 1966, and so by 1968 the piano chair was occupied by Marty Napoleon, who had been Kyle’s predecessor in 1952-3. Long-term bassist Arvell Shaw quit the band during the 1965 tour, and by 1968 his replacement, the very experienced Buddy Catlett, had gelled beautifully with Marty and the band’s drummer Danny Barcelona, who was celebrating his tenth anniversary in the band. The 1965 band had Eddie Shu on clarinet – better-known as a tenor saxophonist from work with Buddy Rich, Charlie Barnet and Gene Krupa, although he also doubled as a stage ventriloquist – but he was a short-term replacement for Joe Darensbourg, and had then been followed briefly by Buster Bailey. When clarinetist Joe Muryani joined the line-up, in the spring of 1967, this final edition of the All Stars was complete.

(photo: Armstrong House Museum)

Armstrong’s Batley appearances were a coup for the club, as between making the booking and the band’s appearances, Armstrong had topped the UK charts with ‘What a Wonderful World’. The older members of the school jazz band I played in booked tickets for Batley as soon as they were announced, and set off in an old Volkswagen minibus to hear our idol.

I was only 14 and my parents forbade me to go with an inexperienced driver and a busload of older teens, but then, further enthused by the reports of the wonderful music they had heard, the great news came that there would be two concerts on BBC television. I missed the first broadcast, on Show of the Week, on 2 August 1968, because it was the middle of the school holidays and we were staying in a place with no television. But having heard how great it was, I was all prepared to watch the second show on 22 September.

In those days, BBC 2 was not an entirely full-time network. Just as, each summer, cricket would take over Radio 3 on medium wave, the game took over the still-new 625-line TV service during the day, but otherwise BBC 2 operated mainly in the evenings. On 22 September, there’d been a thrilling day’s cricket from Trent Bridge, and I remember watching Ted Dexter’s International Cavaliers taking on an international 11 captained by Gary Sobers.

But then after the News Review at 7, the concert with the All Stars began. It was amazing to see Armstrong, in fine form (though much thinner than in all the familiar photographs), leading this band through many of his greatest hits. The showmanship was underplayed but always there, and the band’s recent experience of playing in the same place for several nights, rather than dashing from one concert to another, made the music both thrilling and relaxed. (Following Louis, after a 45-minute programme about Malaysian rainforests, there was a quite different musical treat as classical stars including Dame Janet Baker, Alfred Brendel, Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten took part in a celebration of Schubert.)

In 1971, a selection of the music from both the BBC concerts was issued on a Brunswick LP called Louis Armstrong’s Greatest Hits Recorded Live. But that only contained nine tracks, and given that there had been two 50-minute shows (with only three pieces, ‘Sleepy Time down South’, ‘Hello Dolly’ and ‘What a Wonderful World’, duplicated) it seemed likely that lurking somewhere must be some high quality recordings of the rest of the performances.

Now Decca/Verve has added five previously unreleased tracks, one of them a different – and better – version of ‘Hello Dolly’, to create the new album Louis in London, including every track on which Louis himself is featured as trumpeter and/or vocalist, save for a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ 45-second version of ‘Mop Mop’.

Now let’s hope Decca will get round to a companion volume with the rest of the missing tracks, including a staggeringly brilliant ‘Sunrise, Sunset’, by Marty Napoleon; Joe Muryani’s feature ‘Undecided’; Tyree Glenn’s showcase on ‘Mood Indigo’; and most important of all, a beautiful heart-rending version of ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ by the band’s singer Jewel Brown, the only member of that edition of the All Stars still living. In an age when all female musicians ought to be celebrated, she’s inexplicably absent from this otherwise first-rate set.

This article originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Jazzwise magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today