Louis Armstrong may be the most important figure in American Music. We celebrate the 110^th anniversary of the birth of this New Orleans native this month and his contribution to the lexicon of music every day. The complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings are available in a four disc box set on Columbia Legacy. These tracks are a must for any serious fan of blues and jazz. Let’s not be so serious though and dig the tune Potato Head Blues.

Allen Toussaint is a seminal figure in the development of New Orleans music as a popular art form. The songwriter, producer, arranger and pianist, along with Danny Barker and Dave Bartholomew, helped bring the music of the Crescent City to the world. I pulled the frantic instrumental Whirlaway from the album called New Orleans Party Classics. This Rhino Records compilation is like having Mardi Gras on your turntable, cassette player, compact disc player or Windows media player. Yes, I have heard this fun album on all of these delivery systems through the years.

The song Little Birdie features trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis along with his brothers, Branford on tenor saxophone and Delfeayo on trombone. They are joined by the patriarch of this musical clan, Ellis Marsalis, on piano. This song also puts the spotlight on widely underappreciated New Orleans singing legend Germaine Bazzle. I pulled this selection from Wynton and Ellis’ 1994 Columbia Records release, Joe Cool’s Blues.

The instrumental classic the Cissy Strut is from the album The Very Best of the Meters. The Meters are Art Neville on organ, Leo Nocentelli on guitar, George Porter, Jr. on the Fender bass and Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeleste on drums. This is a big, greasy chunk of 1970’s New Orleans Funk.

The song, I Found Joy finds the youngest Neville brother, Cyril demonstrating what New Orleans can do to a Jimmy Reed tune. Check out big brother Art laying down a rollicking B3 riff. This tune also features Waylon Thibodeaux on washboard. This song is the opening track on Cyril’s 2009 MC Records release Brand New Blues. It is the best album by any member of this famous musical family in years.

Professor Longhair’s take on Something on your Mind comes from his 1980 album Crawfish Fiesta. The widely idiosyncratic pianist and vocalist works magic on virtually every piece of material he touches. The album was recorded only months before Fess’ death in 1980. This Alligator Records release features Dr. John on guitar and has the distinction of winning the very first W.C.Handy award for Album of the Year.

Malcolm John Rebennack Jr.'s (aka Dr. John, the Nightripper) 1968 debut album Gris Gris, features a host of trippy tunes and a cast of New Orleans based musicians including Louisiana tenor sax great, Plas Johnson. Johnson is probably best known as the man who lent his tenor to the iconic theme for Henri Mancini's Pink Panther. The otherworldly tune Walk on Gilded Splinters gets the nightripper treatment here.

Fats Domino’s 1949 hit They Call Me the Fatman on Los Angeles’ Imperial Records is widely regarded as the first million selling rock & roll record ever. It features perhaps the most recorded drummer in the history of popular music, New Orleans' own Earl Palmer and Crescent City tenor saxophone great Lee Allen who decades later played with the Blasters.

New Orleans’s guitarist Eddie Jones “Guitar Slim” was a wild entertainer and an influential guitarist. His tune The Things I used to Do was produced by and features the piano playing of a very young Ray Charles. This 1954 million seller was released on New Orleans based Specialty Records. The track has been re-issued numerous times and can be found on several compilations I pulled the song from an album entitled The Legends of Specialty Series: Guitar Slim Sufferin’ Mind

By far and away the best Neville Brothers record is called Live Nevillization. This 1984 album was released on the now defunct New Orleans based Black Top label and was co-produced by Hammond Scott and Art Neville. It captures the band live in their hometown in 1982 at the legendary Tipitina’s nightclub Kennan referenced in his article in this month’s ezine. Their take on the Earl King tune often associated with Professor Longhair, Big Chief shows you in no uncertain terms why this was one of the baddest live bands in the land. No studio recording or subsequent live album ever really captured what this band is capable of delivering to a live audience.

One of my favorite tunes to ever come out of New Orleans is Earl King’s Come On - Part 1. King originally recorded the song for Ace Records in 1960. He left Ace and recorded the song again that same year for Imperial Records.  I pulled this song from the Imperial sessions that were produced by Dave Bartholomew. This iconic number is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Let the Good Times Roll or as Come On (Let the Good Times Roll) but either way this tune will get you flipping like a flag on a pole. So remember when in New Orleans…come on baby let the good times roll.