[Dixielandjazz] Armstrong West End Blues & Clarke's Showers of Gold

[Steve Barbone]

<richard.flecknell at ntlworld.com> wrote (polite snips)
 
> Thanks ... for the article on Satch and the possibility of Clarkes
> "Showers of Gold" being the source/basis of West End Blues.
> Having listen to Showers of Gold I can see it may have been so. Clarke himself
> has technique that stands up today but the piece is perhaps twee, at least to
> me. Armstrong's intro however, as we all know, is beyond belief in any era.

The rest of the story is that Louis possessed about 10 records of Clarke's
including "Showers of Gold", in his record collection. When he passed on,
these records became part of the "Louis Archives" at Queens College in NYC.
No doubt Louis was a Clarke fan and that Clarke was "the" trumpet man in the
early part of the 20th century.

West End Blues cadenza brings up an interesting question. The famous record
is a musical moment (or photograph) of how he played it that day. Did Louis
always play it that exact way prior to the record, or is it an
improvisation? Trumpet players today seek to play it like it is on the
record but were there other Louis versions?

Is there a written version of the cadenza that dates prior to the recording
date?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

PS to Ron L: For definitions of Twee as used by Richard, google search
"Twee + definition". Interesting.