Rare Armstrong recording to be released

WASHINGTON -- A live recording of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong playing his trumpet for one of the last times is being released to the public for the first time, The Associated Press reports.

On Jan. 29, 1971, Armstrong was a featured performer at the National Press Club in Washington, celebrating the inauguration of fellow Louisiana native Vernon Louviere as the club's president.

On Friday, Armstrong's performance is being played back in the same place for musicians, historians and some who were there for the original performance.

The new album is called "Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours: Satchmo at the National Press Club." Looking back, the performance was Armstrong's goodbye in many ways. It was the last recording made of him performing live that was meant to be played back some day. His only later performances on trumpet were quick TV snippets with Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson.

His health had been suffering for years after a heart attack and trouble with his kidneys. Armstrong stayed home resting for much of 1969 and 1970, said Ricky Riccardi, the archivist for the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona and author of "What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years." He felt strong enough, though, to make a comeback with a few short performances in Las Vegas and then in Washington. That's when he surprised the crowd by pulling out his trumpet for tunes including "Hello, Dolly." Armstrong died less than six months later on July 6, 1971.

Armstrong told fellow musicians that the best way to die would be to die onstage.

By 1971, he was thin and ashen -- still telling great stories, but a little of his spark was gone, Riccardi said. A limited release of 300 LPs on vinyl were copied from the press club for those in attendance. William McCarren, the press club's director, found one of the old records in the club's archive still wrapped in plastic. When he and others at the club bought a record player and heard how good it sounded, they started thinking about how to release it to a wider audience.

"There was just something kind of wrong about the idea that 300 people . . . heard this record and heard the concert and then nobody heard it for 40 years," he said.