[Dixielandjazz] West End Blues

[Bill Haesler]

Dear Bob and Don,
Yesterday, in discussing Louis Metcalf's toccata [thanks Anton] on King 
Oliver's "West End Blues", recorded for Victor on 16 Jan 1929
Don Mopsick wrote: "Metcalf did a great job even though it turns out he 
was obviously imitating Armstrong."
To which Bob Ringwald replied: "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."

Now, now fellas.
You may both be right.
There were two takes of "West End Blues" made by the King Oliver Orch 
on the day (16 Jan 1929).
Both are currently available on JSP and Frog CDs.
Take-1 is fine and fortunately existed as a very rare test pressing 
which was eventually released for collectors on Meritt LP - 24 in 1987.
Take-2 has the Metcalf minor 'fluff' yet was not rejected by Victor (or 
Oliver?) at the time and was issued on Victor V-38034 backed by Duke 
Ellington's "The Mooche" (30 Oct 1928).
However, in re-reading various references to the two takes, the 
opposite has been inferred several times.
For the record (pun intended) it should be noted that for this New York 
recording date, for which Joe Oliver was the musical director and did 
not play, he recruited the Luis Russell Orchestra which had had is 
beginnings back in 1926 as King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators.
Kind regards,
Bill.