The '40s were the dawning of a new and fast-progressing movement in jazz. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Coleman Hawkins had all cut important records in the technically challenging language of bebop at the time these Armstrong recordings were made, 1947. These small-group sessions, split between the studio and stage, frame Louis' timeless musicality wonderfully. Though improvised music was getting headier and faster, Armstrong's slipping out of fashion did not affect his ability to swing hot and hard--not to mention attract admirers.