Box sets -- especially jazz box sets -- seem to be no-brainers, gathering up the best a particular artist or label has to offer and packaging it to make it look important. Every now and then, however, a set comes along that is so important that its reissue could come packaged in a paper bag and it would still be worth every penny. This is just such a box set, though it has been given the deluxe treatment it deserves.

This four-CD extravaganza includes all the recordings between 1925 and 1929 with the Hot Five and Hot Sevens, along with all the relevant recordings that Armstrong was involved with during this breakthrough period. Although this material has been around the block several times, the Columbia version gives it a first-class ride, with the greatest sound retrieval yet employed. It also lays out the material sensibly by grouping the original Hot Five recordings from 1925 to 1927 (and all attendant material) on the first two discs and all of the Hot Sevens on disc three, with the final disc devoted to the second coming of the Hot Five in 1928 along with additional material from 1929.

There are also several bonus tracks aboard, including the "'Lil's Hot Shots" 1926 Hot Five Vocalion recordings, a 1927 Johnny Dodds session that became the prototype for the Hot Seven recordings that soon followed, and the only known alternate take of "I Can't Give You Anything but Love," a rarity by any measure. Although Satchmo is nowadays linked with the gravel-voiced crooning of "What a Wonderful World" and "Hello, Dolly," it's quite a revelation to hear him as a young man, brimming with energy and playing his heart out on these tracks. File under "indispensable."