Louis Armstrong
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong (CD/DVD)
Label: Time Life Records
Release Date: November 7, 2006

Next time you and fam are headed to Florida for a stay at America’s favorite mouse-ridden theme park, we highly recommend Disney’s Port Orleans Resort French Quarter. It doesn’t have a fancy pool, nor giraffes. It isn’t that close to any of the parks, and the rooms aren’t really that special.

However, the wonderful sounds of Louis Armstrong waft throughout the resort lobby, pool and hallways as if Satchmo himself was playing around the corner. Seriously, we just made a hotel recommendation based on the lobby’s music - did you expect any more from us?

But if you’re not up for a trip to the gator state to drop $200 on a lame Disney resort room just to hear the raspy singing and gentle trumpet of a legend, we recommend sipping a mai tai on the lanai (say that three times fast) and listening to the new Time Life collection that is the focus of this review.

Covering two CDs and a DVD, Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong is a great introduction to Armstrong’s legendary career. This collection features 41 audio tracks - of course featuring the standbys like “What A Wonderful World,” “World on a String” and “Blueberry Hill” but also lesser heard gems like “(What Did I Do To Be So) Black And Blue?” and “I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues.”

Time Life didn’t mail us the DVD to review, but we count 16 performances on the DVD, too. Holy crap. No matter what “the kids” are listening to these days (and writing about on music blogs), the older this stuff gets, the better it truly becomes.