Just as there are certain books that need to be on the shelves of &mdash and hopefully read by &mdash any educated person, there are foundational jazz recordings indispensable to the understanding the art form, no matter if your tastes reside in post-bop, free jazz, fusion, etc.,

One example is The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens of Louis Armstrong, one of the seminal entities establishing the templates for small-group jazz interaction still being explored today: ensemble sound; soloist and accompaniment; rhythmic sophistication; melodic variation. When figures like Miles Davis ("You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played."), Freddie Hubbard ("You don't realize at first when you listen to Armstrong's records how great this man was and how hard that Hot Five music was to play."), Duke Ellington ("He was the epitome of jazz and always will be.") and Dizzy Gillespie ("Never before in the history of black music has one individual so completely dominated an art form as the Master, Daniel Louis Armstrong.") are all in awe, it means something significant.

Now this music, amazingly recorded between November 1925 and December 1928, around the time the technology was entering its adolescence, has new life through the efforts of noted Swiss engineer Michael Brändli, known both for his pristine work with modern artists and restoration of historical sessions. He has done wonders sharpening all the details of these pioneering dates, but their timelessness is solely from the vision of Armstrong and his companions.

Alongside the cornet player and vocalist are other legends who reputations are in need of burnishing: trombonist Kid Ory, clarinetist/alto saxophonist Johnny Dodds, banjo player Johnny St. Cyr and, most notably, a pair of pianists in Lil Hardin Armstrong and her replacement Earl Hines. In another category is tuba player Pete Briggs, virtually unknown these days. And while there are bedrock drummers later on like Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton, their incorporation is rather limited to sock-cymbal and spoons-like flourishes. One especially valuable moment comes on Disc Two when guitarist Lonnie Johnson is added to The Hot Fives, two tracks alongside St. Cyr's banjo and then both on guitar for Ory's "Savoy Blues".

All these tracks were made in Chicago after the participants came north from New Orleans, appearing mostly on OKeh, with a few put out by Columbia. There are 50 in total, without almost no repetition; "S.O.L. Blues" on Columbia is the same tune as "Gully Low Blues" on OKeh, the name change of the Armstrong tune likely due to industry issues. There are numerous other Armstrong compositions as well as important contributions from Hardin, Ory, Fats Waller and Spencer Williams, among others. Some would become standard repertoire while others remained obscurities.

In the earliest recordings, you can hear Dodds' fascinating legato style in low register, Armstrong's inimitable scatting on "Heebie Jeebies" and the advanced classical approach of Hardin. This is far more than just updated Dixieland but also what sounds like gypsy music, with some other tunes given Oriental names while being only vaguely "ethnic", and "King of the Zulus" sounding like it could have been used as a soundtrack to a racist silent film, though not to take anything away from its energy. Everything is highly rhythmic even without drums and the lyrics are fun if hardly poetry.

When the group expands, the proceedings become mellower &mdash the soloing with The Hot Fives is far more exuberant &mdash though the rhythms are less static. When Johnson is added, the music is more overtly bluesy. The big personnel changes in the middle of 1928 lead to a more aggressive sound, Hines in for Hardin and Mancy Carr a much different banjo player than St. Cyr. During this period Armstrong used wordless vocalizing, backed harmonically by Hines, anticipating doo-wop two decades later, and there are the first instances of passed solos and proto-breaks.

While Armstrong's luster dulled as he got older and amid accusations of pandering, these 150-plus minutes establish him as among jazz history's first and most sublime soloists, without whom music over the next century would sound quite different and far less rich.