Louis Armstrong/Oscar Peterson: Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (Verve Acoustic Sounds series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound mastered this Acoustic Sounds edition from the original analog tapes, and Quality Record Pressings pressed it on 180g vinyl for a gatefold jacket. It's Armstrong the ballad singer at his warmest, backed by Peterson's glowing piano.

This edition

• Verve Acoustic Sounds series
• Remastered from the original analog tapes
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Pressed at Quality Record Pressings
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

Montreal's greatest pianist and New Orleans' most famous trumpeter walked into a Chicago studio on October 14, 1957, and spent the day mostly on ballads. Verve put the results out in 1959, and it remains one of the loveliest pairings in the label's catalogue, a record built on two musicians listening hard to each other.

Peterson brings Herb Ellis on guitar and Ray Brown on bass, with Louie Bellson on drums, and they play it soft and supple around Armstrong's gravelly voice. "That Old Feeling" and "Let's Fall in Love" swing gently, "How Long Has This Been Going On" and "What's New" slow right down, "Blues in the Night" gives Pops room to stretch, and "Moon Song" and "You Go to My Head" are pure late-night tenderness. Peterson never crowds the singer; he fills the spaces with little runs and chords and then gets out of the way.

It's also an early stereo recording, with left, right and centre channels, which suits a session this intimate. Armstrong needed one day to make a dozen standards sound as though they'd been written for him. Most of us need about that long to decide which record to put on.

Also at Kops: more Louis Armstrong on vinyl · browse Vocal Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Verve (cat# B0031689-01), a reissue of the 1959 album.