June 08, 2012 Jazz, Bop, Mainstream Jazz, Traditional Pop, Vocal
Jazz, Jazz Instrument, Trumpet Jazz, Piano Jazz  Album Review
Forever Is a Long Long Time amounts to a scrambled reissue of
the Verve album Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson, which was
recorded in October 1957 and revisited some 40 years later on a
Verve Master Edition compact disc. While it's important and
gratifying to see this material resurface, the seemingly random
reshuffling of the 16 tracks does suggest the brainless dynamic
of an iPod setting rather than an intentional and maybe even
carefully considered presentation of songs in the original album
or its superb '90s reissue. Happily, nothing can detract from
the intimate warmth that resulted from the magical combination
of Louis Armstrong (singing without blowing any trumpet), Oscar
Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Louie Bellson. The slower
numbers are especially intriguing, especially the nearly nine-
minute version of Cole Porter's "Let's Do It," which is worth
experiencing jus