Notes for Purists:

"Big event for me in my life was buying a wind-up victrola [1917]. Mosty of my records were the Original Dixieland Jazz Band -- Larry Shields and his bunch. They were the first to record the music I played. I had Caruso records too, and Henry Burr, Galli-Curci, Tetrazini -- they were all my favourites. Then there was the Irish tenor, McCormack -- beautiful phrasing.....[Spontaneously bursts out singing the melody, "Ah, Ah, Rido ben di core/Che tai baie costan poco" from the Rigoletto Quartet] That's the first thing I used to make all the time."

-- Louis Armstrong (from: Joshua Berrett, Louis Armstrong and Opera, The Musical Quarterly, 1992).