Below, a Louis Armstrong Armstrong All Stars Concert from May 8, 1948 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The venue is the St.Paul Auditorium:

The Louis Armstrong All-Stars

Town Hall Concert May 17, 1947

It’s generally recognized that a May 17, 1947 Town Hall concert in New York City constitutes the origin story of the Louis Armstrong All Stars touring band. Many fantastic musicians where featured, and Jack Teagarden turned in a classic performance of his version of St. James Infirmary, featuring his trombone-slide-with-waterglass technique:

The official debut of the Louis Armstrong All Stars took place on August 13, 1947 at Billy Berg’s in Hollywood, so the group is a little less than a year old here. Even by that time, however, the All Stars went through a few personel changes, with Earl Hines replacing Dick Cary, and Arvell Shaw replacing the orginal bassist Jack Lesberg. (Morty Corb played bass with the group for a brief time, before Shaw joined in the Fall of 1947.) The rest of the band included Barney Bigard, clarinet, Sid Catlett, on drums*, and of course, Jack Teagarden on trombone. Vocals were covered by Louis, Jack, and Velma Middleton.

*After Catlett became ill in April, 1949, his ‘permanent’ replacement was Cozy Cole.

The curator of the Marchant 3M Tape Archiving Project gives this explanation about the origin of this recording, which is one of many he’s shared:

The creator of this archive worked for 3M (who manufactured the Scotch audio tape this was recorded on) in the Twin Cities and likely got special permission to record the concert, as high-quality tape recordings were a novel and still developing technology in the late 1940s. These recordings have sat in various Marchant family homes for nearly 80 years before now being shared with you on YouTube.

The All Stars had been touring widely all year: in February 1948, they received an enthusiastic reception in Nice, France, and just the preceding Monday, May 3, the band played Carnegie Hall.

Here on this recording as elsewhere, Louis’s showmanship sets the tone for the presentation. By the time his All Stars made it to St. Paul, their repertoire was pretty well established, consisting mosty of tunes designed to feature members of the band. Teagarden’s features on the concert consist of 100 Years From Today and Basin Street Blues, but of course his presence is heard throughout. When Louis and Jack perform a vocal duet, as on Rockin’ Chair, the results always seem “just right.” (They’d return to Rockin’ Chair ten years later in Bert Stern’s movie, Jazz on a Summers Day.)

By September of 1951, Teagarden was weary of the All-Stars (nearly literal) all-over-the-world touring schedule, and he decided to leave the group. The trombonist Russ Phillips replaced Jack at the time. His son, Russ Phillips (Jr.) was also destined to become a jazz trombonist! Trummy Young would take over the All-Stars trombone spot about a year after Teagarden left; he’d prove to be every bit the fantastic musical foil for Louis Armstrong that Teagarden was.