Hot music's anaesthetic effect must have made it particularly popular in Europe during the period between the wars. France had its stringed Hot Club, and Hugues Pannassie learned to speak English with a Louisiana accent. In his biography, "Swing That Music," Louis Armstrong refers to his 1934 Continental tour glowingly; "everybody was mighty nice to me and made me fell right away I was with friends. A lot of the musicians asked me if it wasn't true that when I hit my high C's on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. They had not thought that it really was my trumpet getting up there on the C's" After a triumphant engagement at the French Palladium, the management presented him with a horn of solid gold.

To judge from a recent album of re-issues called Louis Armstrong Paris, 1934, (Vox Spotlight No.300) the high C lovers were not disappointed. Louis must have been in wonderful physical condition. Though his tone had already thinned down, and his improvisations would sometimes degenerate into redundant lip exercises, his playing had a certain, since lost brilliance, and if like later virtuosos he prostituted his art as a concession to the franc, still it remained a rather original kind of prostitution.

One of the records, "Tiger Rag," is similar to an older American version, except that the final trumpet solo has the phrase "I wandered today to the hill, Maggic" instead of the earlier "Oh, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flag pole." Continuing in the community song vein later on are snatches from "Tea For Two" and "Pat On Your Old Grey Bonnet."

The singing is even less intelligible than usual, probably because Louis was learning French at the time--one chorus rambling along much as follows: "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh willyouwantmebaby mmmmmmmmm such suhzaaaayyy mmmmmmmmmmm mm will you wnthyzlkmroooo Oh Babolobmmmmm me baby" followed by a more international jumble which could be anything from most aux vaches to garden l'ean.