The tenth title in the History label's 15-CD box set Louis Armstrong and the seventh in the Past Perfect label's 10-CD box set Portrait (both imprints are part of the German firm the International Music Company),
Alexander's Ragtime Band covers a period of nearly ten months in
Armstrong's recording career, from July 1937 to May 1938. At the height of the swing era, the trumpeter/vocalist, who had set the parameters of jazz with his revolutionary 1920s recordings, had long since transformed himself into a musical personality fronting a big band, specializing in high-note cadenzas on his horn and ingratiatingly comic interpretations as a singer. This period found him recording novelty material, pop standards, and the occasional remake of an earlier triumph ("Struttin' With Some Barbecue"). He scored hits with "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Once in a While," and "I Double Dare You," but more characteristic was the novelty "The Trumpet Player's Lament," written for but not used in his film Doctor Rhythm, in which he facetiously claimed classical aspirations, declaring he wished he could "play like José Iturbi instead of blowing notes into a derby." This is not a complete collection of his recordings of the period; a session with
the Mills Brothers is missing. The material is claimed for the U.S. by Universal Music, having been released originally on Decca (it is in the public domain in Europe), but both box sets are readily available domestically at modest prices. Universal did not have a competing product in print at the time this album was released, though the quasi-legal Classics label's
1937-1938 (515) duplicates its contents almost exactly. This album is considerably less expensive, however. (The History release prints the wrong annotations in its booklet, using those for a later album in the series,
Harlem Stomp.)