This record was made in New York City on May 29th 1925 featuring Louis Armstrong, Elmer Chambers, and Joe Smith trumpets, Charlie Green trombone, Buster Bailey and Don Redman clarinet & alto sax, Coleman Hawkins tenor sax & clarinet, Fletcher Henderson piano & arranger, Charlie Dixon banjo & speech, Ralph Escudero bass, and Kaiser Marshall drums.
*"Sugar Foot Stomp" is credited to Louis Armstrong and Don Redman.
In an arrangement by Don Redman under the title "Sugar Foot Stomp" Armstrong gets a chance to revamp the "Dipper Mouth Blues" during his short stint with the Henderson Orchestra. The band later recorded the tune again without Armstrong on March 19th 1931.
The Henderson band was displayed in a new, higher fidelity with Columbia's electrical microphone recording techniques, starting 10 days earlier than this record with "Money Blues". "Sugarfoot Stomp" has a beautiful, airy sound quality. It features not only Armstrong in his first nationally influential solo, but also Charlie "Big" Green in a fine, swinging blues chorus and tuba player Ralph Escudero in two 6 bar segments of 4-beat bass, maybe the first time this type of bass beat was heard (at least audibly) on a jazz record. This record was highly danceable and stayed popular for years afterward. Fletcher recorded the tune in a much faster tempo on four different sessions for four different labels between March and August of 1931, with several alternate takes coming to light later on. Walter C. Allen, in his great book "Hendersonia", has a lot of fun comparing and contrasting all these versions of "Sugarfoot Stomp. -Dan Weinstein
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