Recording
West End Blues
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
- Released
- 1928
- Label
- OKeh
- On one list
- Jazz
- Updated
- 2026-08-30
Analysis
6 sections, the first drop at 1:19, 40% of the way in.
- Tempo
- 86.1 BPM
- holds throughout
- Dynamic range
- 10.5 dB
- wide open — the quiet parts are genuinely quiet
- Length
- 3:17
- measured from the YouTube master
The record, end to end
Click the track to jump · ← → move between sections
- 0:00Apeak0
- 0:14Bliftbar 5
- 1:25Cbreakdownbar 31
- 1:55Dbreakdownbar 42
- 2:33Epeakbar 55
- 2:57Doutrobar 64
Drop at 1:19 (bar 29). A drop is a moment, not a stretch — marked on the track above rather than shaded across it.
0:00 · A · peak
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:14
- Energy
- 100
- Brightness
- 100
- Density
- 100
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
a short rise that does not resolve — a fill or a transition, not a build · instrumental
- Lasts
- 1:11
- Energy
- 52
- Brightness
- 21
- Density
- 42
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:31
- Energy
- 27
- Brightness
- 30
- Density
- 36
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning · instrumental · one of 2 stretches of the same music (D)
- Lasts
- 0:38
- Energy
- 6
- Brightness
- 0
- Density
- 7
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:23
- Energy
- 97
- Brightness
- 36
- Density
- 59
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
the closing fall · instrumental · one of 2 stretches of the same music (D)
- Lasts
- 0:20
- Energy
- 0
- Brightness
- 18
- Density
- 0
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.
- drums
- the drum kit, separated from the mix
- bass
- the bass part, separated from the mix
- vocals
- the voice, separated from the mix
- other
- everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.
- peak
- sits at the top of this record's range
- lift
- a short rise that does not resolve — a fill or a transition, not a build
- breakdown
- energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning
- outro
- the closing fall
Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.
Ranked No. 1 in Jazz
The opening cadenza is twelve unaccompanied seconds that reorganised the music around the individual soloist. Everything about jazz as a personal statement starts in that phrase.