[Dixielandjazz] Oliver's recording of Wa Wa Wa

[cmhallin at algonet.se]

On the subject of who arranged for King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators (not 
the Creole Jazz Band), I mentioned in my previous e-mail that I used to 
play a period stock of Wa Wa Wa that sounded so close to the Oliver 
recording that I'm convinced it is the one that was used by the Dixie 
Syncopators. I also mentioned that I no longer have access to it, 
having long left the band in question and handing over the book to my 
successor. However, I said I thought the arrangement might have been 
written by someone like Elmer Schoebel or Joe Jordan.

However, a simple Google search turned up a very interesting page of 
bibliographical references on the Library of Congress web site: http:
//www.loc.gov/rr/perform/melrose.html.

This page lists all arrangements from the Melrose Syncopation Series 
currently in the possession of the LoC, including "Wa Wa Wa. By Mort 
Schaeffer. Arranged by Mel Stitzel. Chicago, Melrose, 1926. Copyright 
no.: E640596. Call nbo.: M1350.S". It would very much surprise me if 
this were not the stock I used to play; seeing Stitzel's name, I recall 
that that was what it said on the sheet music, and just as Schoebel and 
Jordan, Stitzel was active as composer and stock arranger at the time, 
like them specialising in a hotter style than standard dance band fare.

The rest of the list in question is very interesting too, and I think 
it would be quite rewarding to compare some of those stocks to period 
recordings; as I have said in earlier threads on DJML, I have long 
suspected that musicians at the time took a much more instrumental 
approach to using commercially available material such as stocks than 
later generations, viewing the past either through a romanticized haze 
or wearing ideological blinders or both, have wanted to think.