Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five of 1928 was a whole new group from the earlier Hot Five that featured Lil Armstrong, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, and Johnny St. Cyr who recorded with Louis in 1925-27. Armstrong formed this new Hot Five group around pianist Earl Hines.
“Louis was wild and I was wild, and we were inseparable. He was the most happy-go-lucky guy I ever met. Then Louis and I met Zutty… formed our own group, and I don’t know what happened but we like to starve to death, making a dollar or a dollar and a half apiece a night. So we drifted apart…” — Earl Hines
“Things gotten so tough with us until fifteen cents looked like fifteen dollars. But we did not lose our spirit. We all kept that good ‘ol clean shirt on everyday, and ‘ol Earl Hines kept the big fresh cigar in his mouth everyday. Zuttie and I both admired that… You’d be surprised to know how happy we were.” – Louis Armstrong, “The Goffin Notebooks, Book 5: 1928”
Here we find the new Hot Five performing “Sugar Foot Strut”, which starts off with a call and response between Zutty Singleton’s hand cymbals and the rest of the band. The ensemble states the melody with Satch at the lead. At 1:02 Armstrong delivers a trumpet solo, followed at 1:23 by Earl Hines on piano, leading straight into the vocal section, where Armstrong is accompanied by Hines. At 2:07 we get a Fred Robinson trombone solo, followed at 2:30 by more Hines on piano and at 2:40 BY Jimmy Strong on clarinet and 2:48 by Armstrong bringing it all home with a dramatic trumpet run.
Hughes Panassié wrote of the musical relationship between Satch and Fatha Hines on this recording and the flip side, A Monday Date: “It contains, like Sugar Foot Strut, a vocal chorus by Louis accompanied by the piano in such an original and audacious way that one has to marvel at the understanding between these two musicians.”
Recorded in Chicago, Illinois on June 28, 1928.
Released as Okeh 8609.
Credits:
Louis Armstrong – trumpet, vocals
Fred Robinson – trombone
Jimmy Strong – clarinet, tenor sax
Earl Hines – piano
Mancy Cara – banjo
Zutty Singleton – drums
Sources:
Jazz and Ragtime Records (1897-1942), 6th Ed. Brian Rust.
Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words, Ed. by Thomas Brothers, p99-100
Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, Max Jones & John Chilton, p100
The Music of Louis Armstrong on Records, Hughes Panassié, p83
