All Of Me »

A discography of jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong's groundbreaking musical career, with detailed information about all his works, from professionally made commercial releases to amateur and unissued recordings.

Library Journal

Willems, a Louis Armstrong fanatic from Belgium, has compiled an amazing discography for one of jazz's major figures. Updating Hans Westerberg's excellent 1981 discography, Boy from New Orleans, he chronologically lists the date, location, and musicians on both the recorded and the unreleased versions of every Armstrong song, from the first record by the trumpeter in 1923 with King Oliver's Creole Band to the last session on The Tonight Show in 1971. He catalogs extensive sources for each song, including the labels and numbers of U.S., British, Polish, Danish, French, Czech, Japanese, Spanish, Argentine, Andorran, Russian, and Italian releases. In an improvement on most discographies, Willems also lists the song releases by format-e.g., 16 rpm, 78 rpm, 45 rpm, LP, CD, video, and DVD. He completes the book with highly useful indexes of song titles and musicians, a guide to the major Armstrong bands from 1935 to 1971, and a bibliography. Willems has provided the ultimate Armstrong discography that will interest jazz fans and serve as a library reference for years to come.-Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.