This song goes to my head
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Artist:Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson
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Album:Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson
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Track:You Go To My Head
There are some who would say that Louis Armstrong lost his chops after, say, the 1920s. There are also those who would say that reality TV is a good thing, or that a three-inch-thick piece of medium-rare beef tenderloin needs ketchup. Well, NAY, I say. The entire The Great Summit album from 1961, on which Armstrong plays with Duke Ellington's orchestra, should be proof enough that Armstrong had lost nothing over the years. But if you need even more proof, I give you "You Go To My Head", from the brilliant 1957 album Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson. Please, play this tune, sit back, close your eyes and just experience it. Armstrong starts out with an elegant trumpet solo where he just plays the melody. But he doesn't just play the melody. For those who know how hard Satchmo could blow that horn, listen to how delicately he lays down this solo -- the emotive vibrato, the gentleness of the softest notes, the silences. And his phrasing when he sings...I've heard many versions of this song, from Billie Holiday to Bing Crosby to Sarah Vaughan to Frank Sinatra, and no one can touch the perfection with which Louis Armstrong sings it. And then, layered behind it all like jewels, are Oscar Peterson's piano fills. One to be played over and over.
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