High Society - Bent Persson 1977

High Society - Bent Persson 1977
It was probably in the late seventies when I heard a tune by a trumpet player, which stunned me incredibly. This person sounded like Louis Armstrong in a way that I had never heard before by anybody else but Louis himself.
I found out that he was Swedish and his name was Bent Persson. This player had the tone, the technique and the feeling that Armstrong had created in the twenties and thirties.
The first time I heard Bent was from a recording he made in 1977 playing High Society. I would swear I heard Louis together with Earl Hines, but I knew Louis never recorded this a solo piece in the twenties.
Later I found out that this was part of an effort of Bent Persson to recreate the famous hot choruses for cornet as played by Louis Armstrong solo on 50 wax cylinders in 1927. The Melrose Music Co. copied these solos and published them. Most of these, some 53 solos and approx. 125 breaks, were never commercially recorded by Louis himself but became available in a book called “50 Hot Chorusses for Cornet.” However, the original wax cylinders got lost.
Bent recreated and recorded these over a period of many years together with Swedish jazz musicians and eventually almost all became available on the prestigeous Kenneth label and now on two CD’s as well. Bent performs this tune in 1977 with pianist Ulf Johansson.
An unbelievable project for this Swedish jazz player who I consider the very best of revival players in the world.