What I love most about this album, is that Armstrong is dealing with an artist who is truly his equal: W.C. Handy. Yes, Armstrong is playing great on this record, but the more I listen to it, the more I'm drawn into the world that Handy created in his songs. It a world of joy, love, hatred, death, and everything in between. Where a person's life is so precarious, that he/she needs live life now! because it can be gone in a minute. For Handy, real life is not with the "officially good people", but with those who know how to enjoy life, and take advantage of that golden moment where life is truly a joy -- where friends gather to celebrate this gift of being alive; where they gather to hear the blues being played from the heart. So, here's to the world of W.C. Handy and the Kingdom of the Blues.