The ninth title in the History label's 15-CD box set Louis Armstrong and the sixth in the Past Perfect label's ten-CD box set Portrait (both imprints are part of the German firm the International Music Company),
I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music presents 20 tracks recorded by
Armstrong and his big band for Decca Records between November 1935 and July 1937. This is an edited group of recordings from the period, excluding many selections, notably tracks performed with
the Mills Brothers and a Hawaiian group, but it contains most of
Armstrong's studio work of the time in roughly chronological order. To a large extent, he acts as a typical swing bandleader, covering the recent hits of others, such as "The Music Goes Round and Round" and "I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" (the latter cut with a white band including
Bunny Berigan and Dave Barbour). But his inimitable style is heard in his distinctively sly, slurred vocals and his trumpet playing, which often features high-note climaxes. His own chart hits found here are "Red Sails in the Sunset," "Thanks a Million," "I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music," "Lyin' to Myself," and "Public Melody Number One." Although Universal Music claims this material in the U.S. (it is public domain in Europe), both box sets are readily available domestically via mail order at reasonable prices, and given Universal's failure to issue chronological reissues of the recordings, this version is particularly valuable. It is outdone for completeness by the quasi-legal Classics label's
Armstrong volumes 1934-1936 (509), 1936-1937 (512), and 1937-1938 (515), which together contain all the tracks here and more, but it is also far less expensive. Sound processing has been performed on the recordings, but there is still some surface noise that betrays the source as transfers from old 78s. ~ William Ruhlmann