“The Greatest Photo Taker”: Remembering Jack Bradley Part 48–James Bond Session and Letters from Louis, 1969-1970

In our previous post, we detailed some of Louis Armstrong’s rare public appearances that took place after his second stint in intensive care in 1969. He hadn’t made any recordings since July 1968, but that all changed on October 23 when Armstrong found himself back in the studio to record “We Have All the Time in the World,” John Barry and Hal David’s new composition for the upcoming James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Armstrong worked on learning the tune ahead of time; in his personal collection, we have a sheet of paper with the handwritten lyrics:

Once in the studio, Armstrong turned in a heartfelt vocal on the piece, which remains one of his best-known later recordings. If you don’t know it, here’s that original version:

And if you’ve never seen in the context of the original film, here is the scene from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service that used this song:

“We Have All the Time in the World” is lovely, but a bigger surprise occurred on the other song recorded that day when Armstrong took a trumpet solo on “Pretty Little Missy,” Armstrong’s 1955 composition co-written with then-All Stars pianist Billy Kyle. After “Hello, Dolly!,” Joe Glaser started insisting that Armstrong compositions start appearing on the flip sides of his latest singles whenever possible; if there was another hit like “Dolly,” Glaser and Armstrong would extra royalties for having a composition on the other side. When Glaser died in 1969, he left all of his shares in his publishing company to Armstrong, so it made sense for Armstrong to keep that model going. Torrie Zito wrote a new, loping arrangement of “Missy” and Armstrong surprised all by taking quite a strong trumpet solo–the last one he would ever take in a recording studio. It’s never been reissued in the CD or streaming era, but it is on YouTube thanks to someone filming the original record:

Bradley was ecstatic in his December 1969 Coda column, offering some helpful discographical info (complete personnel of the session has never been released) and writing, “After over a year’s lay-off, Louis made his first professional engagement on October 23. The occasion was a record date to do the theme song of a new James Bond movie. Accompanying Louis was a large string section including five basses (among them Milt Hinton, Jack Lesberg and Ron Carter). Derek Smith was on piano and John Barry was the arranger and musical director. The title tune was All The Time In The World, a love ballad which will appear on the movie soundtrack. Pops also made a second side, a slow version of his and Billy Kyle’s Pretty Little Missy (arranged by Torrie Zito) on which he not only sang but blew his horn gloriously! It was thrilling to see his chops in such great shape. These two titles will be issued on an United States single.”

For whatever reason, Bradley was not able to take any photos of the actual session (at the same time, it’s possible that he did, but like just about everything else from 1969, the negatives are gone), but he was allowed to take some nice photos of Armstrong with John Barry and Hal David:

Bradley took one photo of just Armstrong and David:

He liked it so much, he cropped it and made a new print of it with just Armstrong!

A few days after the session, Louis took the time to write a letter to Gösta Hägglöf, Sweden’s biggest Armstrong fan and a close friend of Bradley’s. Hägglöf was not a musician but he now managing multiple hot jazz bands in Sweden, including Kustbandet, still going strong in 2024! Hägglöf planned on producing an album of Swedish musicians playing new performances of Armstrong compositions, but wanted Armstrong’s input on which songs to include.

Hägglöf caught Armstrong in a chatty mood and received an 8-page letter in response! Armstrong kind of punts in the beginning, telling Hägglöf to simply contact his new manager Oscar Cohen about his compositions, mentioning the International Music publishing corporation Joe Glaser left him considerable shares in.

But then Armstrong starts talking about the James Bond date and gets a little sassy, writing, “Saw Jack Bradley at my first Recording Date, Oct, 23rd, and he was so happy to hear those Big Broad Notes coming out of my (trumpet) After a year out absent. He said man ‘you are blowing your (ass off) after all this time off. I said Show Bizzness Daddy Show Bizzness. Ha  Ha. Those notes were coming out of the Horn of Mine Just as’loud big and strong, they were all flabbergasted. I practised Two Hours per day before my Dinner the Whole Year that I was Recouparating. So the (Chops Lips) stayed up ‘All the time Just like they never had stopped.”

Armstrong then praises Lucille, states that he still has “a lot of living to do” and mentions that he has some friends over and was playing the two October 23 sides over and over for them. After signing off, Armstrong finally remembered the point of the letter–maybe Jack Bradley was one of those friends who was over and nudged him–and included a coda, listing 15 of his compositions–here’s the entire letter!

Armstrong would be back in the studio on November 5, but this time for something less prestigious than a James Bond film (but perhaps more lucrative), recording the jingle for a Midas Muffler commercial. Bradley wrote about it in his “Hot Notes” column for the New York and even mentioned that Ethel Merman was there! I always assumed he didn’t take any photos but while putting this series together, I stumbled across three color negatives of Louis in a recording studio and I’ve never been able to date them. It truly looks like the Louis of 1969 and there are no other musicians present in the photos, so I’m going out on a ledge and assume these shots were taken at the November 5 Midas session. (And if I’m wrong, Armstrong did do a few other commercial recording sessions in the 1969-1970 period, so it’s most likely from one of those.) Here are the photos, which capture a very pensive Armstrong, back in the salt mines again as he put it:

By December 1969, Armstrong’s slow comeback began in earnest as he appeared at the premiere of the film Hello, Dolly!, released the same time as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. With his music featured in two major new films, Armstrong set his sights on the small screen, appearing on The Dick Cavett Show in January, The David Frost Show in February, The Mike Douglas Show and The Merv Griffin Show in March, and The Tonight Show multiple times in this period. His attempt to play the trumpet on the Cavett show did not go well, so he stuck to vocals and telling stories on the other appearances, though he continued practicing every night at home.

Through it all, Armstrong spent the bulk of his time resting and making tapes in Corona (again, chronicled here). Bradley had moved to a new apartment at 457 W. 49th Street but he was also spending more time in Massachusetts, where he began to manage the bookings of Armstrong’s close friend, cornetist Bobby Hackett. Several months went by with apparently no contact between Armstrong and Bradley until early 1970. Writer and critic Martin Williams was finishing his soon-to-be-seminal book The Jazz Tradition and dreamed of getting an endorsement blurb from Armstrong. Williams knew that if anyone could make it happen, it would be Bradley and had his publicist at Oxford University Press reach out to him on December 16, 1969:

As you can see on the bottom of the letter, Bradley sent the proof to Louis along with the letter and added a handwritten note, “Pops–Dig you on page 43. Love always, Jackson.” It took some time, but Louis finally responded on February 11–complete with a one-page endorsement!–opening his letter by wondering about Bradley’s whereabouts, noting that he was glad to hear from him and looked forward to seeing him the next time he was in New York:

Needless to say, Martin Williams was thrilled and used part of it (“It held ol’ Satch spellbound”) as a blurb in the published book. He was especially appreciative to Bradley, as evidenced in this letter from March 12, 1970:

For his part, Bradley would indeed return to New York sometime in the early spring and make a beeline to Corona for some hangtime with Louis. He brought his camera along–as he would when Louis returned to the studio in May to record his first full-length album in two years. We’ll have all of those photos–and more–next time.