[Dixielandjazz] West End Blues

[Robert S. Ringwald]

Mop wrote:

> Bill Haesler wrote:
>
> <<King Oliver rerecorded it for Victor on 16 Jan 1929 with the
> cadenza (played by Louis Metcalf).>>
>
> Wow! This has to be the version that Jim Cullum and the rest of the band 
> and
> I heard one day while driving to a gig. We couldn't believe our ears 
> because
> we had never heard Joe Oliver much play above the staff. Now we know that 
> it
> was indeed too good to be true. We also did not know the date of the
> recording and just assumed that because it was an Oliver collection that
> contained other earlier cuts, that this one pre-dated the Armstrong 
> version.
> We do know that Oliver's chops declined toward the end of the 20s and by 
> the
> 30s was hardly playing at all on some of the sessions, so having Metcalf
> ghost it for him in '29 makes sense.
>
> But Metcalf did a great job even though it turns out he was obviously
> imitating Armstrong (like every other trumpet player of that era except
> Jabbo and Bix).
>
> Thanks for setting us straight, fellows.


Don,

Listen to it again.  Metcalf did a terrible job on it.  He had a clam on one 
note and then sloughed through the rest of the notes -- very sloppy.

--Bob Ringwald