As long as we're jumping into seldom featured material on Newstalgia, I thought I would keep it going with a dose of, what is sometimes referred to as "Traditional Jazz", but at the time of this broadcast was known simply as Dixieland.

Pretty much faded from view as genres go, Dixieland (or Traditional Jazz) had a real spike in popularity in the mid-1950's and was considered something of a raucous cousin where serious Jazz was concerned. Certainly when compared to the Cool School, Dixieland got it's fair share of cringe worthy reactions. But, in all fairness, this was the basis for which a lot of Jazz sprang from - as evidenced by Louis Armstrong who is probably it's most well known figure.

Al Hirt was a fixture for Mardi Gras and was as much a part of the scenery in New Orleans as the proverbial Crawfish boil. Hirt achieved huge commercial success through a number of hit singles and popular albums and was, conceivably as instrumental in making Traditional Jazz a popular mainstream idiom as The Kingston Trio and The Christy Minstrels were in making Folk music a popular genre for mainstream consumption.

So tonight it's an episode of the weekly CBS Radio program Jazz Band Ball featuring Al Hirt and his band live in New Orleans from August 18, 1956.

A good time was had by all.

The great Louis Armstrong tonight, recorded live at Basin Street in New York on May 28, 1956 as part of the weekly NBC Radio Series All Start Parade Of Bands.

Not too much to add other than this probably hasn't been reissued anywhere and may or may not have made the circles of radio collectors of live Jazz.

In any event, it's here and you get to enjoy it.

Without question one of the most important figures in Jazz in the last 100+ years. Louis Armstrong has been synonymous with traditional Jazz out of New Orleans since the dawn of commercial recording. And his popularity has endured long after his death in . In the 1950's Jazz (well, all music for that matter) was undergoing a transformation, having evolved out of the Big Band era into small units. Trios, quartets, quintets and everything in between began an era of exploration, branching out from traditional styles into the experimental and the extended solo. Traditional Jazz had a rough go of it for a while, and practitioners like Armstrong were in danger of being swept aside with the tide of Avant-Garde. But Armstrong was true to his roots and withstood the shifts in popularity and, like many before him, took to the road and made a case wherever he went. His perseverance won out as this broadcast from the All-Star Parade of Bands series for NBC Radio.

This performance features Louis Armstrong leading a small group at Basin Street in New York on May 21, 1955. It's a half-hour of top-notch Armstrong and further evidence why his artistry has endured for so many years.

If you liked this, or are planning on downloading it, could you toss a few pennies in this direction too?