For the first time, all of Ella & Louis' classic duets are in one place. This 4CD set gathers their timeless three Verve albums newly remastered versions of Ella and Louis, Ella and Louis Again and Porgy and Bess combining them with their eight Decca singles, live recordings from Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl plus several alternates & false starts from the Decca & Verve eras, illuminating their craft & good humor.

Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were (and are) two of the main stems of jazz. Any way you look at it, just about everything that's ever happened in this music leads directly – or indirectly – back to them. Both men were born on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries, and each became established as a leader during the middle '20s. Although their paths had crossed from time to time over the years, nobody in the entertainment industry had ever managed to get Armstrong and Ellington into a recording studio to make an album together. On April 3, 1961, producer Bob Thiele achieved what should be regarded as one of his greatest accomplishments; he organized and supervised a seven-and-a-half-hour session at RCA Victor's Studio One on East 24th Street in Manhattan, using a sextet combining Duke Ellington with Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars. This group included ex-Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard, ex-Jimmie Lunceford swing-to-bop trombonist Trummy Young, bassist Mort Herbert, and drummer Danny Barcelona. A second session took place during the afternoon of the following day.

Verve Records presents Louis In London, the last great performance from the one and only Louis Armstrong. This legendary session was recorded live at the BBC on July 2, 1968, just weeks after Armstrong hit the #1 spot on the uk charts with “What A Wonderful World”, and features a 13-track collection spanning a groundbreaking career; from W.C. Handy’s “ole miss” to worldwide hits like “Mack The Knife”.

This 4CD set includes I’ve Got the World on a String, Louis Under the Stars, Louis Armstrong meets Oscar Peterson with bonus tracks for each. Additionally, digital album, A Day With Satchmo, will be available on physical format for the first time. These three Louis Armstrong albums & much more, all recorded during an extraordinary few days in August & October 1957, resulting in some of Pops’ best material, a legendary artist on a legendary label.

Here's an example of the Classics Chronological Series serving as a valuable tool for savoring and comprehending a temporal segment of one artist's personal and professional development. Over a span of 27 months, Louis Armstrong waxed 21 sides that appeared on three different record labels, beginning with a set of V-Discs cut at New York's Metropolitan Opera House on January 18, 1944. How interesting and exciting it is to hear Louis Armstrong, Barney Bigard, and Jack Teagarden in the company of Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, Al Casey, Oscar Pettiford, and Sidney Catlett. The opening track, a five-minute version of Hawkins' "Mop! Mop!," constitutes thrilling proof that two generations of jazz musicians had plenty of stylistic common ground regardless of any imaginary divisions invented and imposed by jazz critics…

“SATCHMOCRACY knocked me out from start to finish and listening to it was one of my most satisfying experiences in a very turbulent year. Instead of pretending it’s the 1920s, Jerome Etcheberry and company perform this music in the 2020s, keeping it fresh-sounding and moving forward. In such a contemporary, swinging setting, Louis Armstrong’s original trumpet lines jump out and hit the listener between the ears in exciting new ways, especially when scored for multiple instruments and when placed over consistently shifting rhythms. It’s further proof that every note Armstrong played will simultaneously remain hip and timeless, especially when presented the way it’s done on SATCHMOCRACY!”