'Armstrong was almost unquestionably the greatest musical talent this country has produced, a brilliant instrumentalist and band leader, improviser and recording artist, and one of the half-dozen most inspired and influential vocalists of the century. His use of his voice for emotional effects, damn the miceties, helped set the stage for a rock and soul generation that seemed to offer nothing but such displays. That is, eighteen years after his death, a record Armstrong tossed off as a minor artifact when he was fifty-eight years old could shoot 'cross the horizon as one of the warmest, wittiest specimens of musical humanity and seem not only as contemporary but quite a bit more compelling than anything that surrounded it.'
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