Jazz Great, Louis Armstrong, Back on Billboard Charts With Posthumous Yuletide Collection Release

Louis Armstrong is back on the charts with the release of his first-ever Christmas album, "Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule." Photo of Louis & Lucille Armstrong. Courtesy of The Louis Armstrong House Museum.

This year fans of Louis Armstrong are getting one last gift from the jazz great who passed away more than 50 years ago — a hit Christmas album.

“Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule,” a first-of-its-kind collection of yuletide songs from the "What a Wonderful World" singer has become his highest-charting work since "Hello Dolly," which spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboards Hot 100 chart in 1964 and earned him a Grammy Award for best male vocal performance.

The compilation (released Oct. 28) opened at No. 122 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It debuted in the Top 10 across multiple Billboard charts including Top Holiday Albums (No. 9), Jazz Albums (No. 4), Traditional Jazz Albums (No. 4), Top Album Sales (No. 7), Top Current Album Sales (No. 6) and Vinyl Albums (No. 7).

It is an outstanding feat for an artist that passed away in 1971, but not unexpected since the trumpeter and vocalist had been a holiday staple long before the release of an official Christmas album.

“Louis Armstrong’s first album of holiday-associated songs is an auspicious aural example of why he was a man for all seasons, singing and playing his Promethean trumpet in the cause of happiness,” said Wynton Marsalis, president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation (LAEF), of the album's success. 

“Whether you’re seven or 70, these evergreen selections featuring the great composer/arranger Benny Carter, and the incomparable vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Velma Middleton are illuminated by Pops’ down-home vocals. His reading of ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ with my New Orleans homeboy, Sullivan Fortner on piano, is a swinging Crescent City Christmas card. If anybody can bring joy to the world, Louis Armstrong can!”

In addition to holiday staples “White Christmas,” “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Winter Wonderland” and the aforementioned “What a Wonderful World,” the 11-track collection includes the previously unreleased recording “A Visit from St. Nicholas (‘Twas the Night Before Christmas).”

Recorded shortly before his death it is Armstrong’s first newly released track in over two decades.