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

[Phil Pospychala]

As a jazz 78 record collector I can say Louis usually tried to play his solos and tunes sort of the same way after getting them down.  He was a showman and knew audiences came first.  They wanted to hear what someone else heard and what they perceived as a difinitive way of playing.  We know Bix naever paid attention to something like that.> Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:05:45 -0500> From: barbonestreet at earthlink.net> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Armstrong West End Blues & Clarke's Showers of Gold> CC: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com> To: bixguy at hotmail.com> > <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.> > > _______________________________________________> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:> > http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz> > > > Dixielandjazz mailing list> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
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