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HISTORY — THE MUSIC

Singer Rudy Vallee produced a series of summertime performances on The Fleischmann's Yeast Show in 1937 and he invited Louis Armstrong to be the headliner. These radio broadcasts mark the first time ever an African-American entertainer was given a prime time broadcast as a headlining artist.

"The marvelous music presented here is truly a first — these tapes were lost in Louis' personal effects for years. But what was found on them is an undeniable treasure. We find Louis Armstrong, in the spring of 1937, at the helm of his favorite big band, playing as you've never heard him play before. He proved himself to be an agile innovator, quick on his feet and so very pleasing in his delivery. But more than the music, these discs capture Louis doing what he did so often — and so well: opening doors for African-Americans with his easy-going, disarming nature."

"In the fall of 1941 ... Louis wrote: 'As for as the most important events in Jazz during my 25 years — well, the first one was when Pops (his manager Joe Glaser) booked me for my first commercial playing over the NBC for Flieshman's (sic) Yeast.' What 'first commercial' meant was, in fact, the first prime-time commercially sponsored network radio show starring a black artist and at the helm of an all-star black cast."
—The Institute for Jazz Studies' Dan Morgenstern, from his notes for this release.

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