Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens began turning 100 last year. An epochal centennial in American music! These 70-plus tracks, laid down between 1925 and 1928, are the source of so much of what was to come and remain a delight to the ear to this day. Woody Allen said that Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues” was one of the reasons life is worth living. “Melancholy Blues” is included on the Voyager Golden Record launched into space in 1977. Armstrong spanned the 20th century with his trumpet playing, his singing, and his warm and welcoming personality. No other jazz musician had more radio hits than Armstrong, hits heard during the Jazz Age, the Depression, and World War II, and in the 1960s, his “Hello, Dolly” took over from the Beatles as America’s No. 1 hit....

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