Welcome to Sound Projections

I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.

Thus this magazine will strive to critically question and go beyond the conventional imposed notions and categories of what constitutes the generic and stylistic definitions of ‘Jazz’, ‘classical music’, ‘Blues.’ 'Rhythm and Blues’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Pop’, ‘Funk’, ‘Hip Hop’, etc. in order to search for what individual artists and ensembles do cretively to challenge and transform our ingrained ideas and attitudes of what music is and could be.

So please join me in this ongoing visceral, investigative, and cerebral quest to explore, enjoy, and pay homage to the endlessly creative and uniquely magisterial dimensions of MUSIC in all of its guises and expressive identities.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, composer, songwriter, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher

SOUND PROJECTIONS

 

AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

 

EDITOR:  KOFI NATAMBU

 

FALL, 2018

 

VOLUME SIX       NUMBER TWO


 ARETHA FRANKLIN


Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:

SMOKEY ROBINSON

(October 6-12)


THE TEMPTATIONS

(October 13-19)


JOHN CARTER

(October 20-26)


MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS

(October 27-November 2)


RANDY WESTON

(November 3-9)


HOLLAND DOZIER AND HOLLAND

(November 10-16)

 

JELLY ROLL MORTON

(November 17-23)


BOBBY BRADFORD

(November 24-30)

 

THE SUPREMES

(December 1-7)

 

THE FOUR TOPS

(December 8-14)

 

THE SPINNERS

(December 15-21)

 

THE STYLISTICS

(December 22-28)

 

 

 

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jelly-roll-morton-mn0000317290/biography


Jelly Roll Morton 

(1890-1941)

Artist Biography by  

 

One of the very first giants of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth, claiming to have invented jazz in 1902. Morton's accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth.
Morton was jazz's first great composer, writing such songs as "King Porter Stomp," "Grandpa's Spells," "Wolverine Blues," "The Pearls," "Mr. Jelly Roll," "Shreveport Stomp," "Milenburg Joys," "Black Bottom Stomp," "The Chant," "Original Jelly Roll Blues," "Doctor Jazz," "Wild Man Blues," "Winin' Boy Blues," "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say," "Don't You Leave Me Here," and "Sweet Substitute." He was a talented arranger (1926's "Black Bottom Stomp" is remarkable), getting the most out of the three-minute limitations of the 78 record by emphasizing changing instrumentation, concise solos and dynamics. He was a greatly underrated pianist who had his own individual style. Although he only took one vocal on records in the 1920s ("Doctor Jazz"), Morton in his late-'30s recordings proved to be an effective vocalist. And he was a true character.
Jelly Roll Morton's pre-1923 activities are shrouded in legend. He started playing piano when he was ten, worked in the bordellos of Storyville while a teenager (for which some of his relatives disowned him) and by 1904 was traveling throughout the South. He spent time in other professions (as a gambler, pool player, vaudeville comedian and even a pimp) but always returned to music. The chances are good that in 1915 Morton had few competitors among pianists and he was an important transition figure between ragtime and early jazz. He played in Los Angeles from 1917-1922 and then moved to Chicago where, for the next six years, he was at his peak. Morton's 1923-24 recordings of piano solos introduced his style, repertoire and brilliance. Although his earliest band sides were quite primitive, his 1926-27 recordings for Victor with his Red Hot Peppers are among the most exciting of his career. With such sidemen as cornetist George Mitchell, Kid Ory or Gerald Reeves on trombone, clarinetists Omer Simeon, Barney Bigard, Darnell Howard or Johnny Dodds, occasionally Stomp Evans on C-melody, Johnny St. Cyr or Bud Scott on banjo, bassist John Lindsay and either Andrew Hilaire or Baby Dodds on drums, Morton had the perfect ensembles for his ideas. He also recorded some exciting trios with Johnny and Baby Dodds.  
With the center of jazz shifting to New York by 1928, Morton relocated. His bragging ways unfortunately hurt his career and he was not able to always get the sidemen he wanted. His Victor recordings continued through 1930 and, although some of the performances are sloppy or erratic, there were also a few more classics. Among the musicians Morton was able to use on his New York records were trumpeters Ward Pinkett, Red Allen and Bubber Miley, trombonists Geechie Fields, Charles Irvis and J.C. Higginbotham, clarinetists Omer Simeon, Albert Nicholas and Barney Bigard, banjoist Lee Blair, guitarist Bernard Addison, Bill Benford on tuba, bassist Pops Foster and drummers Tommy Benford, Paul Barbarin and Zutty Singleton.  
But with the rise of the Depression, Jelly Roll Morton drifted into obscurity. He had made few friends in New York, his music was considered old-fashioned and he did not have the temperament to work as a sideman. During 1931-37 his only appearance on records was on a little-known Wingy Manone date. He ended up playing in a Washington D.C. dive for patrons who had little idea of his contributions. Ironically Morton's "King Porter Stomp" became one of the most popular songs of the swing era, but few knew that he wrote it. However in 1938 Alan Lomax recorded him in an extensive and fascinating series of musical interviews for the Library of Congress. Morton's storytelling was colorful and his piano playing in generally fine form as he reminisced about old New Orleans and demonstrated the other piano styles of the era. A decade later the results would finally be released on albums.
Morton arrived in New York in 1939 determined to make a comeback. He did lead a few band sessions with such sidemen as Sidney Bechet, Red Allen and Albert Nicholas and recorded some wonderful solo sides but none of those were big sellers. In late 1940, an ailing Morton decided to head out to Los Angeles but, when he died at the age of 50, he seemed like an old man. Ironically his music soon became popular again as the New Orleans jazz revivalist movement caught fire and, if he had lived just a few more years, the chances are good that he would have been restored to his former prominence (as was Kid Ory).
Jelly Roll Morton's early piano solos and classic Victor recordings (along with nearly every record he made) have been reissued on CD.

 

https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/jellyrollmorton 

 

Jelly Roll Morton





The city of New Orleans has the distinction of being the ‘birthplace of jazz’ so its appropriate that in New Orleans in or around 1885 to 1890 would be born the self-proclaimed “inventor of jazz.”

Ferdinand Joseph Lemott (Lamothe) and his story is one of mystery, legend, genius, with an incredulous outcome, and original musical score.

Being considered a Creole in the Crescent City had its advantages in the fact that he was exposed to the fine arts and music as a child. He would undertake formal piano lessons with one Tony Jackson who was considered a wunderkind piano professor with exceptional musical ability, mirrored by the young student, who demonstrated an elevated level of talent, and the confidence to perform it.

We pick up on his trail as he moved to Biloxi, Mississippi to stay with his godmother, and so begins life on the road. He became a professional pianist at this time, playing in the brothels in Biloxi, then back to New Orleans where he played in the red light district of Storyville, learning and absorbing the styles of the famous ‘professors’, who were known for their vast repertoires and dazzling technique. This would prove to be an invaluable experience as he would also absorb classical, vaudevillian, theatrical, opera, marches, blues, stomps, ragtime, French and Spanish music. The Spanish would be a factor as he mentioned in coining the phrase “Latin tinge”. New Orleans was a conduit for the music that was coming out of Cuba since before the turn of the century, and the habaneras were all the rage in the early 1900’s.

Sometime along the way, he changed his name to Morton, and then added Jelly Roll as a stage name. The pianist known as Jelly Roll Morton went on a cross country tour that literally covered most of the U.S. He was quite the bon vivant, and pianist extraordinaire becoming very adept at ‘cutting heads’ where he would boldly challenge the local piano players, and wind up as the house pianist until he moved on, which from what we can gather, was continually. He can be verified as turning up in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Missouri, Houston, California, Texas, and in New York. We are privy here to a live witness account by the stride piano player James P. Johnson, who saw him play in New York in 1911, first describing his flamboyant dress and entry with two beautiful women, then his elaborate ritual at the piano before sitting down, striking a first sustained chord then “he’s gone”!

By the time he hit New York, he had already written quite a few tunes as “New Orleans Blues”, “Jelly Roll Blues”, “King Porter Stomp”, and “Georgia Swing”, all around 1905 to ’07. He then surfaced again in Los Angeles in 1917, and was running a hotel with his then wife Anita Gonzales. He played in Denver, traveled some more, until he showed up in Chicago in 1923.

In Chicago he wrote “Wolverine Blues” which was published by Melrose Publishing. He would go on to write many more songs for them and start a relationship that would turn out to be ill fated for him. He recorded solo and duets with King Oliver, and with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings for the Gennett label, in the “hot style’, of the period.

He did his legendary piano rolls recordings between ’23 and ’24. I would like to quote here from Ardie Wodehouse, an authority on Jelly Roll’s piano rolls. “These roll renditions combine the sound world of a jazz ensemble, the rhythmic complexities of African drumming, the contrapuntal intricacy of a Bach fugue, and the structural momentum of a classical sonata”.

In 1926 he recorded what would be his crowning achievement when he did sixteen sides for Victor as “Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers”. The band was a collection of top tier New Orleans musicians, and the arrangements were skilled, and complex, leaving plenty of room for individual soloing. He would prove to be a brilliant composer for hot ensembles, being able to capture and portray the musical feel of New Orleans. These sessions with the Red Hot Peppers still hold up today as innovative and significant in revealing his development of melody and harmony, control of tempo and dynamics and his pioneering in syncopation.

He moved to New York in 1928 and from then until ’30 he recorded fifty eight more sides for Victor. There would be a lot of different names of his bands under which his recordings were done. Most of these of course start with Jelly Roll Morton then we have Orchestra, Jazz Trio, Trio, Six/Seven, Incomparables, Kings of Jazz, Steamboat Four, Jazz Band, and Jazz Kids. There was also The Levee Serenaders, and the St. Louis Levee Band.

By 1930, there was to be a dramatic turnaround for Jelly Roll, Victor did not renew his contract, and his luck started to run out. He worked in small clubs and became something of a novelty act. The fad and focus at the time was the big bands and he was viewed as archaic. The music which helped to shape an American musical identity was slipping through the cracks into obscurity. He was receiving no royalty for his songs even though big names like Benny Goodman were covering his songs and getting rich. He scuffled around New York, and in 1935 decided to move to Washington D.C., where he became a bartender.

After a few more lean years, he was approached by musicologist Alan Lomax to record his songs and story for the Library of Congress. (Thank Goodness!!) This took place between May 23 and June 7, 1938. He narrated his own story accompanying himself on piano.

He moved back to New York that same year, and tried to fight for his song rights and royalties but to no avail. Melrose never sent him much anyway, and had included his own name as composer so Jelly Roll was essentially ripped off. He tried going to ASCAP but that was futile also and received just a fraction of what he should have.

He did some last sessions in Dec. 1939 with the New Orleans Jazzmen featuring Sidney Bechet, but was not in good health due to recent heart problems.

He moved back out to Los Angeles in in 1940, but was too ill to work or move around much. He died there in July 10, 1941.

This is just a short profile on a seminal figure in the history of jazz. I recommend people to go seek out his music and really listen to what he was doing. Jelly Roll Morton was light years ahead of everyone else in ability, knowledge, technique and confidence. He would reflect in his later lean years about his contribution, and believed he was deprived of a lot of the credit he felt he deserved. It’s a shame he did not get his due when he was alive, but he would be glad to know how his reputation and status as legend has grown and there’s a lot of us who consider him Mr. Jelly Lord, “inventor of jazz”. 

Source: James Nadal

 

https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/jelly-roll-morton 

 

Jelly Roll Morton





1998
 
Category:  Early Influences

 

A true giant of jazz.

He did not, as he claimed, invent jazz, but there’s no denying that he was a major influence on the genre. Jelly Roll Morton was a master composer, arranger and pianist who blended genres in an early form of jazz.

Biography


Jelly Roll Morton is a seminal figure in the birth and development of jazz in the early decades of this century.

 A multi-talented pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader, he has been called “one of the handful of Atlases upon whose shoulders rests the entire structure of our music” by jazz historian Orrin Keepnews. Morton wove disparate musical strands—blues, stomps and ragtime, plus French and Spanish influences—into the fabric of early jazz.

 A native of New Orleans, he played on the streets and in the honky-tonks of that wide-open city, helping to give birth to the jazz idiom as it took shape in the infamous red-light district known as Storyville. Morton recorded solo and with small groups, and the festive stamp of his hometown was evident in every note he played. He was the driving force behind Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, which recorded and toured in the late Twenties. Their performances combined ensemble work in the New Orleans style with space for soloing, which was the rage on Chicago’s jazz scene. Morton’s pioneering work with the Red Hot Peppers was contemporaneous with the innovations made by Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five and Hot Seven. It is doubtful that the Jazz Age or the Swing Era could have happened without either of them.

 In the words of music historian David McGee, “What Elvis Presley’s Sun recordings are to rock and roll, the Red Hot Peppers’ canon is to jazz.” During a four-year span of small-band sessions for RCA Victor, especially the milestone recordings from September 1926 through June 1927, Morton cut a series of ebullient stomps and forceful blues. His band included such jazz legends as cornet player Kid Ory, clarinetist Johnny Dodds and drummer Baby Dodds. Morton fell on hard times during the Depression and labored in obscurity as his kind of music fell from favor. He was found tending bar in 1938 by musical archivist Alan Lomax, who thereupon documented him playing piano and telling stories. Although Morton died three years later, he was rediscovered again in the Nineties via a Broadway tribute to his life and times, entitled Jelly’s Last Jam.

 Morton heads a lineage of groundbreaking jazz pianist–bandleaders that includes Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Thelonius Monk. In his high-spirited blues, stomps and ragtime pieces from the Twenties one can also detect what would become the foundational sound of rock and roll. On a personal level, Morton was “just about the most flamboyant, colorful and exasperating personality imaginable,” according to the liner notes of a 1953 reissue, which would seem to make him a rock and roll forebear as well.

 Inductee: Jelly Roll Morton (piano, vocals; born October 20, 1890, died July 7, 1941)

 

https://www.neworleans.com/things-to-do/music/history-and-traditions/jelly-roll-morton/


Jelly Roll Morton

 

Iconic musician proud to claim his role in the history of jazz and New Orleans is proud to claim him

When trumpeter Lee Collins was hired by Jelly Roll Morton, the first thing Morton told the astonished Collins was, “You know you will be working for the world's best jazz piano player … not one of the greatest — I am The Greatest," according to jazz historian Martin Williams.
When Morton introduced himself, he often said, "I invented jazz."

 Cocky? Definitely. Arrogant? Certainly. But as it turns out, he was probably right. 

 According to jazz historians, when Jelly Roll Morton said, “I invented jazz,” there was a lot to his claim. Buddy Bolden may have been the first musician to add improvisation to what would eventually become known as jazz, but Jelly Roll Morton is regarded as the first true jazz composer. He was the first to write down his jazz arrangements – and a number of his compositions became jazz staples.

Jelly was born Ferdinand Joseph Le Menthe in 1885 to a middle class Creole family on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans. At the age of 8, Ferdinand received formal guitar lessons. A relatively short time later, he was employed as a piano player by Countess Willie Piazza, a Storyville madam, who was said to speak seven languages, wear a monocle and punctuate her speech with a foot-long cigarette holder. She also knew great music when she heard it.

By the time Jelly was in his early twenties, he was an in-demand musician, playing the entire Gulf Coast. From 1917 to 1922, he was conquering the West Coast. And in 1922, he left California for Chicago. During that period, he created some of the most innovative and creative music that ever emerged – tunes like “King Porter Stomp,” “New Orleans Blues,” “Kansas City Stomp,” “Shreveport Stomp” and the “Original Jelly Roll Blues.” In his typical humble way, Jelly once said, “Everyone today is playing my stuff and I don't even get credit. Kansas City style, Chicago style, New Orleans style hell, they're all Jelly Roll style.”

In 1938, Jelly capped a brilliant musical career with a grand recording session for the Library of Congress. Fifty-two records with more than one hundred individual compositions resulted. Jelly would be the first to tell you, “They were the greatest.” He died in 1941.


https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jelly-Roll-Morton

Jelly Roll Morton

American musician
by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica


Alternative Title: Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe


Jelly Roll Morton, byname of Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe, (born Oct. 20, 1890, New Orleans, La., U.S.—died July 10, 1941, Los Angeles, Calif.), American jazz composer and pianist who pioneered the use of prearranged, semiorchestrated effects in jazz-band performances.

Morton learned the piano as a child and from 1902 was a professional pianist in the bordellos of the Storyville district of New Orleans. He was one of the pioneer ragtime piano players, but he would later invite scorn by claiming to have “invented jazz in 1902.” He was, nevertheless, an important innovator in the transition from early jazz to orchestral jazz that took place in New Orleans about the turn of the century. About 1917 he moved west to California, where he played in nightclubs until 1922. He made his recording debut in 1923, and from 1926 to 1930 he made, with a group called Morton’s Red Hot Peppers, a series of recordings that gained him a national reputation. Morton’s music was more formal than the early Dixieland jazz, though his arrangements only sketched parts and allowed for improvisation. By the early 1930s, Morton’s fame had been overshadowed by that of Louis Armstrong and other emerging innovators.

As a jazz composer, Morton is best remembered for such pieces as “Black Bottom Stomp,” “King Porter Stomp,” “Shoe Shiner’s Drag,” and “Dead Man Blues.”








Jelly Roll Morton was the first great composer and piano player of Jazz. He was a talented arranger who wrote special scores that took advantage of the three-minute limitations of the 78 rpm records. But more than all these things, he was a real character whose spirit shines brightly through history, like his diamond studded smile. As a teenager Jelly Roll Morton worked in the whorehouses of Storyville as a piano player. From 1904 to 1917 Jelly Roll rambled around the South. He worked as a gambler, pool shark, pimp, vaudeville comedian and as a pianist. He was an important transitional figure between ragtime and jazz piano styles. He played on the West Coast from 1917 to 1922 and then moved to Chicago and where he hit his stride. Morton's 1923 and 1924 recordings of piano solos for the Gennett label were very popular and influential. He formed the band the Red Hot Peppers and made a series of classic records for Victor. The recordings he made in Chicago featured some of the best New Orleans sidemen like Kid Ory, Barney Bigard, Johnny Dodds, Johnny St. Cyr and Baby Dodds. Morton relocated to New York in 1928 and continued to record for Victor until 1930. His New York version of The Red Hot Peppers featured sidemen like Bubber Miley, Pops Foster and Zutty Singleton. Like so many of the Hot Jazz musicians, the Depression was hard on Jelly Roll. Hot Jazz was out of style. The public preferred the smoother sounds of the big bands. He fell upon hard times after 1930 and even lost the diamond he had in his front tooth, but ended up playing piano in a dive bar in Washington D.C. In 1938 Alan Lomax recorded him in for series of interviews about early Jazz for the Library of Congress, but it wasn't until a decade later that these interviews were released to the public. Jelly Roll died just before the Dixieland revival rescued so many of his peers from musical obscurity. He blamed his declining health on a voodoo spell.

For more information about Jelly Roll Morton's life and music you are encouraged to visit Monrovia Sound Studio's Jelly Roll Morton Page







THE MUSIC OF JELLY ROLL MORTON: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH JELLY ROLL MORTON

Jelly Roll Morton - Hesitation Blues


The Best of Jelly Roll Morton | Jazz Music


Jelly Roll Morton - King Porter Stomp


The Definitive Jelly Roll Morton - Ragtime & Early Sounds


Jelly Roll Morton - New Orleans Blues


Jelly Roll Morton - Dr. Jazz-1926


 

Jelly Roll Morton - Greatest Hits (FULL ALBUM 

 



Jelly Roll Morton - Pretty Lil-1929 




Jelly Roll Morton - Wolverine Blues




The Pearls (A Stomp) - Jelly Roll Morton







JELLY ROLL MORTON PIANO ROLL Dead Man Blues


 


Jelly Roll Morton - Honky Tonk Blues 

 

 

The Crave - Jelly Roll Morton (Original Version)

 

 

Jelly Roll Morton - The Chant-1926 

 

 

Jelly Roll Morton-Each Day 1930

 

JELLY ROLL MORTON - KING PORTER STOMP (FULL

 

Jelly Roll Morton - Mamie's Blues 

 

 

Jelly Roll Morton - Wild Man Blues

 


 

Jelly Roll Morton, Creepy Feeling

 

Jelly Roll Morton - Blackbottom Stomp-1926 

 

"Jelly Roll Blues" by Jelly Roll Morton (Ragtime Piano ..

 

Jelly Roll Morton - Georgia Swing 

 

JELLY ROLL MORTON PIANO SOLO Tom Cat Blues

 

Jelly Roll Morton - Mamie's Blues 

 

 

Jelly Roll Morton - Dead Man Blues


Jelly Roll Morton - Buddy Bolden's Blues

Jelly Roll Morton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
JELLY ROLL MORTON
(1890-1941) 
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (October 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941),[1] known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer who started his career in New Orleans, Louisiana.  
Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spirit and characteristics when notated.[2] His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was the first published jazz composition. Morton also wrote the standards "King Porter Stomp", "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the last a tribute to New Orleans musicians from the turn of the 20th century. 
Morton's claim to have invented jazz in 1902 aroused resentment.[3] The jazz historian, musician, and composer Gunther Schuller says of Morton's "hyperbolic assertions" that there is "no proof to the contrary" and that Morton's "considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation".[4] Alan Lomax, who recorded extensive biographical interviews of Morton at the Library of Congress in 1938, did not agree that Morton was an egoist: 
In being called a supreme egotist, Jelly Roll was often a victim of loose and lurid reporting. If we read the words that he himself wrote, we learn that he almost had an inferiority complex and said that he created his own style of jazz piano because "All my fellow musicians were much faster in manipulations, I thought than I, and I did not feel as though I was in their class." So he used a slower tempo to permit flexibility through the use of more notes, a pinch of Spanish to give a number of right seasoning, the avoidance of playing triple forte continuously, and many other points". --Quoted in John Szwed, Dr Jazz.[5] 

Biography

Early life 

Morton was born into the inward-looking, Creole (free people of color) community[6] in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana, c. 1890. Both parents could trace their Creole ancestry back four generations to the 18th century.[7] Morton's exact date and year of birth are uncertain, owing to the fact that in common with the majority of babies born in 19th-century New Orleans, no birth certificate was ever issued for him. The law requiring birth certificates for citizens was not enforced until 1914.[8] His parents were Edward Joseph (Martin) Lamothe, a bricklayer by trade, and Louise Hermance Monette, a domestic worker. His father left his mother when Morton was three (they were never married) and when his mother married William Mouton in 1894, Ferdinand adopted his stepfather's surname: anglicizing it to Morton. He showed musical talent at an early age. At the age of 12, he had depression; he suffered for a month before getting help.[citation needed] 

Career 

 
Morton claimed to have written "Jelly Roll Blues" in 1905.
At the age of fourteen, Morton began working as a piano player in a brothel (or, as it was referred to then, a sporting house). In that atmosphere, he often sang smutty lyrics; he took the nickname "Jelly Roll", which was African-American slang for female genitalia, and by extension a lover of same.[9][10]While working there, he was living with his churchgoing great-grandmother; he convinced her that he worked as a night watchman in a barrel factory.
After Morton's grandmother found out that he was playing jazz in a brothel, she kicked him out of her house.[11] He said:
When my grandmother found out that I was playing jazz in one of the sporting houses in the District, she told me that I had disgraced the family and forbade me to live at the house. ... She told me that devil music would surely bring about my downfall, but I just couldn't put it behind me.[11]
The cornetist Rex Stewart recalled that Morton had chosen "the nom de plume 'Morton' to protect his family from disgrace if he was identified as a whorehouse 'professor'."[9] 
Tony Jackson, also a pianist at brothels and an accomplished guitar player, was a major influence on Morton's music. Morton said that Jackson was the only pianist better than he was.  

Touring

Around 1904, Morton also started touring in the American South, working in minstrel shows including Will Benbow's Chocolate Drops,[12] gambling and composing. His works "Jelly Roll Blues", "New Orleans Blues", "Frog-I-More Rag", "Animule Dance", and "King Porter Stomp" were composed during this period. He got to Chicago in 1910 and New York City in 1911, where future stride greats James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith caught his act, years before the blues were widely played in the North.[13] 
In 1912–14, Morton toured with his girlfriend Rosa Brown as a vaudeville act before settling in Chicago for three years. By 1914, he had started writing down his compositions. In 1915, his "Jelly Roll Blues" was  arguably the first jazz composition ever published, recording as sheet music the New Orleans traditions that had been jealously guarded by musicians. In 1917, he followed the bandleader William Manuel Johnson and Johnson's sister Anita Gonzalez to California, where Morton's tango, "The Crave", was a sensation in Hollywood.[14] 

Vancouver 

Morton was invited to play a new nightclub, The Patricia, on East Hastings Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. The jazz historian Mark Miller described his arrival as "an extended period of itinerancy as a pianist, vaudeville performer, gambler, hustler, and, as legend would have it, pimp".[15] 

Chicago 

Morton returned to Chicago in 1923 to claim authorship of his recently published rag, "The Wolverines", which had become a hit as "Wolverine Blues" in that city. He released the first of his commercial recordings, first as piano rolls, then on record, both as a piano soloist and with various jazz bands.[16] 
In 1926, Morton succeeded in getting a contract to make records for the largest and most prestigious record company in the United States, the Victor Talking Machine Company. This gave him a chance to bring a well-rehearsed band to play his arrangements in Victor's Chicago recording studios. These recordings, by Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers, are regarded as classics of 1920s jazz. The Red Hot Peppers featured such other New Orleans jazz luminaries as Kid Ory, Omer Simeon, George Mitchell, Johnny St. Cyr, Barney Bigard, Johnny Dodds, Baby Dodds, and Andrew Hilaire. Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers were one of the first acts booked on tours by MCA.[17]

Marriage 

In November 1928, Morton married Mabel Bertrand (1888-1969), a showgirl, in Gary, Indiana. 

New York City 

They moved that year to New York City, where Morton continued to record for Victor. His piano solos and trio recordings are well regarded, but his band recordings suffer in comparison with the Chicago sides, for which Morton could draw on many great New Orleans musicians as sidemen.[18] Even though Morton generally had trouble finding musicians who wanted to play his style of jazz, he recorded with such noted musicians as the clarinetists Omer Simeon, George Baquet, Albert Nicholas, Wilton Crawley, Barney Bigard, Russell Procope, Lorenzo Tio and Artie Shaw, the trumpeters Bubber Miley, Johnny Dunn and Henry "Red" Allen, the saxophonists Sidney Bechet, Paul Barnes and Bud Freeman, the bassist Pops Foster, and the drummers Paul Barbarin, Cozy Cole and Zutty Singleton. His New York sessions failed to produce a hit.[19] 
With the Great Depression and the near collapse of the record industry, RCA Victor did not renew Morton's recording contract for 1931. He continued playing in New York but struggled financially. He briefly had a radio show in 1934, then took on touring in the band of a traveling burlesque act for some steady income. In 1935, Morton's 30-year-old composition "King Porter Stomp", as arranged by Fletcher Henderson, became Benny Goodman's first hit and a swing standard, but Morton received no royalties from its recordings.[20] 

Washington, D.C. 

In 1935, Morton moved to Washington, D.C., to become the manager and piano player of a bar called at various times the Music Box, Blue Moon Inn, and Jungle Inn, in Shaw, an African-American neighborhood of the city. (The building that housed the nightclub still stands, at 1211 U Street NW.) Morton was also the master of ceremonies, bouncer, and bartender of the club. He lived in Washington for a few years; the club owner allowed all her friends free admission and drinks, which prevented Morton from making the business a success.[21] 
In 1938, Morton was stabbed by a friend of the owner and suffered wounds to the head and chest. After this incident, his wife, Mabel, demanded that they leave Washington.[21] 
During Morton's brief residency at the Music Box, the folklorist Alan Lomax heard him playing in the bar. In May 1938, Lomax invited Morton to record music and interviews for the Library of Congress. The sessions, originally intended to be a short interview with musical examples for use by music researchers in the Library of Congress, expanded to more than eight hours of Morton talking and playing piano. Lomax also conducted longer interviews during which he took notes but did not record. Despite the low fidelity of these noncommercial recordings, their musical and historical importance has attracted numerous jazz fans, and they have helped to ensure Morton's place in jazz history.[22] 
Lomax was interested in Morton's days in Storyville, in New Orleans, and the ribald songs of the time. Although reluctant to recount and record these, Morton eventually obliged Lomax. Because of the suggestive nature of the songs, some of the Library of Congress recordings were not released until 2005.[22] 
In these interviews, Morton claimed to have been born in 1885. He was aware that if he had been born in 1890, he would have been slightly too young to make a good case for being the inventor of jazz. He said in an interview that Buddy Bolden played ragtime but not jazz, a view not accepted by Bolden's other New Orleans contemporaries. The contradictions may stem from different definitions of the terms ragtime and jazz. These interviews, released in different forms over the years, were released on an eight-CD boxed set in 2005, The Complete Library of Congress Recordings. The collection won two Grammy Awards.[22] The same year, Morton was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Later years 

When Morton was stabbed and wounded, a nearby whites-only hospital refused to treat him, as the city had racially segregated facilities. He was transported to a black hospital farther away.[citation needed]When he was in the hospital, the doctors left ice on his wounds for several hours before attending to his eventually fatal injury. His recovery from his wounds was incomplete, and thereafter he was often ill and easily became short of breath. Morton made a new series of commercial recordings in New York, several reprising tunes from his early years that he discussed in his Library of Congress interviews.[citation needed]
Worsening asthma sent him to a New York hospital for three months at one point. He continued to suffer from respiratory problems when visiting Los Angeles with a series of manuscripts of new tunes and arrangements, planning to form a new band and restart his career. Morton died on July 10, 1941, after an eleven-day stay in Los Angeles County General Hospital.
According to the jazz historian David Gelly in 2000, Morton's arrogance and "bumptious" persona alienated so many musicians over the years that no colleagues or admirers attended his funeral.[23] However, a contemporary news account of the funeral in the August 1, 1941, issue of Downbeatmagazine reported that the musicians Kid Ory, Mutt Carey, Fred Washington and Ed Garland were among his pallbearers, noting the absence of Duke Ellington and Jimmie Lunceford, both of whom were appearing in Los Angeles at the time. (The article is reproduced in Alan Lomax's biography of Morton, Mister Jelly Roll, University of California Press, 1950.)

Piano style

Morton's piano style was formed from early secondary ragtime and "shout", which also evolved separately into the New York school of stride piano. Morton's playing was also close to barrelhouse, which produced boogie-woogie.[24]
Morton often played the melody of a tune with his right thumb, while sounding a harmony above these notes with other fingers of the right hand. This added a rustic or "out-of-tune" sound (due to the playing of a diminished 5th above the melody). This may still be recognized as belonging to New Orleans. Morton also walked in major and minor sixths in the bass, instead of tenths or octaves. He played basic swing rhythms with both the left and the right hand.  

Compositions

 

The following list is a selection of Morton's compositions, listed alphabetically.

  • "Bert Williams"
  • "Big Foot Ham" (also called "Ham & Eggs")
  • "Big Lip Blues"
  • "Boogaboo"
  • "Buddy Bertrand's Blues"
  • "Buffalo Blues/Mr. Joe"
  • "Burnin' the Iceberg" (based on "Weary Blues")
  • "Chicago Breakdown"
  • "The Crave"
  • "Creepy Feelin"
  • "Croc-O-Dile Cradle"
  • "Dead Man Blues"
  • "The Dirty Dozen"
  • "Fat Frances"
  • "Fickle Fay Creep"
  • "Finger Buster"
  • "Freakish"
  • "Frog-I-More Rag"
  • "Ganjam"
  • "Georgia Swing" (based on "She's Crying For Me")
  • "Get The Bucket"
  • "Good Old New York"
  • "Grandpa's Spells"
  • "I Hate A Man Like You"
  • "Jungle Blues"
  • "London Blues"
  • "Mama Nita"
  • "Milenberg Joys"
  • "Mint Julep"
  • "Murder Ballad"
  • "My Home Is in a Southern Town"
  • "The Naked Dance"
  • "New Orleans Bump"
  • "Pacific Rag"
  • "The Pearls"
  • "Pep"
  • "Perfect Rag/Sporting House Rag"
  • "Pontchartrain"
  • "Red Hot Pepper"
  • "Shreveport Stomp"
  • "Sidewalk Blues"
  • "Spanish Swat"
  • "State and Madison"
  • "Stratford Hunch"
  • "Sweet Jazz Music"
  • "Sweet Substitute"
  • "Tank Town Bump"
  • "Turtle Twist"
  • "Why?"
Several of Morton's compositions were musical tributes to himself, including "Winin' Boy", "The Jelly Roll Blues" (subtitled "The Original Jelly-Roll"); and "Mr. Jelly Lord". In the big-band era, his "King Porter Stomp", which Morton had written decades earlier, was a big hit for Fletcher Henderson and Benny Goodman; it became a standard covered by most other swing bands of that time. Morton claimed to have written some tunes that were copyrighted by others, including "Alabama Bound" and "Tiger Rag". "Sweet Peter", which Morton recorded in 1926, appears to be the source of the melody of the hit song "All of Me," which was credited to Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons in 1931.
His musical influence continues in the work of Dick Hyman,[25] David Thomas Roberts,[26] and Reginald Robinson.[27] 

Legacy 

Representation in other media 

  • Two Broadway shows have featured his music: Jelly Roll and Jelly's Last Jam. The first draws heavily on Morton's own words and stories from the Library of Congress interviews.
  • The piano "professor" character in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby is based on Morton, portrayed by the actor Antonio Fargas, with piano by Bob Greene and vocals by James Booker.
  • Jelly Roll Morton's Last Night at the Jungle Inn: An Imaginary Memoir (1984), by the ethnomusicologist and folklorist Samuel Charters, embellishing Morton's early stories about his life.[29]
  • Morton and his godmother, who went by the name Eulalie Echo, appear as characters in David Fulmer's mystery novel Chasing the Devil's Tail.
  • Morton is featured in Alessandro Baricco's book Novecento. He is the "inventor of jazz" and the protagonist's rival throughout the book. This book was adapted as a movie, The Legend of 1900, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, in which Morton is played by Clarence Williams III.
  • The play Don't You Leave Me Here, by Clare Brown, which premiered at West Yorkshire Playhouse on September 27, 2008, deals with Morton's relationship with the musician Tony Jackson.
  • Morton is mentioned in "Cornet Man", sung by Barbra Streisand in the Broadway musical Funny Girl (1964).[30]
  • The fictional attorney Perry Mason is a fan of jazz, including music by Morton (The Case of the Missing Melody).
  • In the chorus of And It Stoned Me, the opening track of his seminal 1970 album Moondance, Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison sings "And it stoned me to my soul, stoned me just like Jelly Roll, and it stoned me." The reference is thought to be to the childhood memory of listening to his father's Morton recordings.[31]

Selected discography

  • 1923/24 (Milestone, 1923–24)
  • Red Hot Peppers Session: Birth of the Hot, The Classic Red Hot Peppers Sessions (RCA Bluebird, 1926–27)
  • The Pearls (RCA Bluebird, 1926–1939)
  • Jazz King of New Orleans (RCA Bluebird, 1926–30)
  • Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings, Vols. 1–8 (8-CD Box Set) (Rounder, 2005)

See also


References 


  1. Yanow, Scott (July 10, 1941). "Jelly Roll Morton: Biography". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 2015-10-05.

  3. Giddins, Gary; DeVeaux, Scott (2009). Jazz. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-06861-0.

  5. The music critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth, claiming to have invented jazz in 1902. Morton's accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth."

  7. Schuller, Gunther (1986). The History of Jazz. Volume 2. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 136. ISBN 0-19-504043-0. In 2013, Katy Martin published an article arguing that Alan Lomax's book of selected interview transcriptions  Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz" (1950), presented Morton in a way that negatively influenced his subsequent reputation. See Katy Martin (2013). "The Preoccupations of Mr. Lomax, Inventor of the 'Inventor of Jazz'". Popular Music and Society 36.1. pp. 30–39. doi:10.1080/03007766.2011.613225.

  9. Book accompanying the box set Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax, Rounder 11661-188-BK01 (2005)

  11. John Szwed, "Doctor Jazz", booklet in Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings, Rounder (2005), p. 3.

  13. Detailed information, complete with charts, and drawing on the authoritative research of Lawrence Gushee, Emeritus Professor of music at the University of Illinois, is available from Peter Hanley's Jelly Roll Morton: An Essay in Genealogy (2002)

  15. Hanley, Jelly Roll Morton: An Essay in Genealogy. His baptismal certificate lists his date of birth as October 20, 1890, but Hanley's research leads him to prefer the birthdate of September 20, 1890. John Szwed, on the other hand, prefers the date of 1895. See "Doctor Jazz" in Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings (Rounder Records, 2005), p. 4.

  17. Stewart, Rex (1991). Boy Meets Horn. Claire P. Gordon, ed. University of Michigan Press. Cited in Levin, Floyd (2000). Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians. University of California Press. pp. 109–110. ISBN 9780520213609. Retrieved October 16, 2015.

  19. Major, Clarence (1994). Juba to Jive: The Dictionary of African-American Slang. New York: Penguin. p. 256. ISBN 9780140513066.

  21. "The Devil's Music: 1920's Jazz". Pbs.org. February 2, 2000. Retrieved 2015-10-05.

  23. "Jelly Roll Morton: On the Road, 1905–1917". DoctorJazz.co.uk. Retrieved March 8, 2017.

  25. Reich, Howard; Gaines, William (2003). Jelly's Blues: the Life, Music and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press. pp. 39–41. ISBN 0-306-81350-5.

  27. Reich and Gaines (2003). Jelly's Blues. pp. 42–59.

  29. "Jelly Rolled into Vancouver". CBC Radio 2. March 31, 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-09.

  31. Reich and Gaines (2003). Jelly's Blues. pp. 70–98.

  33. Reich and Gaines (2003). Jelly's Blues. pp. 114–127.

  35. Reich and Gaines (2003). Jelly's Blues. pp. 132–135.

  37. Reich and Gaines (2003). Jelly's Blues. pp. 132–144.

  39. Reich and Gaines (2003). Jelly's Blues. pp. 144–146.

  41. "U Street Jazz – Performers – Prominent Jazz Musicians: Their Histories in Washington, D.C". Gwu.edu. Retrieved 2015-10-05.

  43. "Library of Congress Recordings of Jelly Roll Morton Win at Grammys". Library of Congress. Loc.gov. January 14, 2006. Retrieved 2009-12-27.

  45. Gelly, David (2000). Icons of Jazz: A History In Photographs, 1900–2000. San Diego, California: Thunder Bay Books. ISBN 1-57145-268-0.

  47. "Jelly Roll Morton". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2016-10-08.

  49. Carr, Ian; Fairweather, Digby; Priestley, Brian (January 1, 2004). The Rough Guide to Jazz. Rough Guides. ISBN 9781843532569.

  51. Dee, Jim. "Introduction – David Thomas Roberts". David Thomas Roberts. Retrieved June 3, 2017.

  53. Kinzer, Stephen (November 28, 2000). "The Man Who Made Jazz Hot; 60 Years After His Death, Jelly Roll Morton Gets Respect". New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-01-24.

  55. "Louisiana Music Hall of Fame". LouisianaMusicHallOfFame.org. Retrieved 2015-10-05.

  57. Charters, Samuel Barclay (1984). Jelly Roll Morton's Last Night at the Jungle Inn: An Imaginary Memoir. Marion Boyars. ISBN 0-7145-2805-6.

  59. "Cornet Man Lyrics". MetroLyrics. Lyricsmania.com. Retrieved 2017-05-26.

  61. "Song Review 'And it stoned Me'". AllMusic. allmusic.com. Retrieved 2018-03-26.

    1. Gates, Jerry (February 16, 2011). "Chord Symbols As We Know Them Today – Where Did They Come From?". Berklee College of Music. Archived from the original on October 22, 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-13. 

    Sources 

    1. Dapogny, James. Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton: The Collected Piano Music. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982.
    2. The Devil's Music: 1920s Jazz. PBS.
    3. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. p. 486.
    4. "Ferdinand J. 'Jelly Roll' Morton". A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography (1988), pp. 586–587.
    5. "Jelly". Time, March 11, 1940.
    6. Ward, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Kenneth. Jazz, a History of America's Music. Random House.

    Further reading 

    1. Dapogny, James (1982). Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton: The Collected Piano Music. Smithsonian Institution Press.
    2. Gushee, Lawrence (2010). Pioneers of Jazz : The Story of the Creole Band. Oxford University Press.
    3. Lomax, Alan (1950, 1973, 2001). Mister Jelly Roll. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22530-9.
    4. Martin, Katy (2013). "The Preoccupations of Mr. Lomax, Inventor of the 'Inventor of Jazz.'" Popular Music and Society 36.1 (February 2013), pp. 30–39. DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2011.613225.
    5. Pareles, Jon (1989). "New Orleans Sauce for Jelly Roll Morton: 'He Was the First Great Composer and Jazz Master', Tribute to Jelly Roll Morton." New York Times, 1989, sec. Arts.
    6. Pastras, Phil (2001). Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West. University of California Press.
    7. Reich, Howard; Gaines, William (2004). Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81350-5.
    8. Russell, William (1999). Oh Mister Jelly! A Jelly Roll Morton Scrapbook, Copenhagen: Jazz Media ApS.
    9. Szwed, John. "Doctor Jazz" (2005). Liner notes to Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax. Rounder Boxed Set. 80-page illustrated monograph. This book-length essay is also available without illustrations at Jazz Studies Online: John Szwed, Doctor Jazz: Jelly Roll Morton.
    10. Wright, Laurie (1980). Mr. Jelly Lord. Storyville Publications.

    External links

    1. Jelly Roll Morton at Encyclopædia Britannica
    2. Ferd 'Jelly Roll' Morton
    3. Genealogy of Jelly Roll Morton
    4. Ferd Joseph Morton WWI Draft Registration Card and essay
    5. Jelly Roll Morton on RedHotJazz.com; biography with audio files of many of Morton's historic recordings
    6. Mister Jelly Roll, complete 1950 book by Alan Lomax; chronicles the early days of jazz and one of its main developers
    7. Free scores by Jelly Roll Morton at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
    8. Jelly Roll Morton at Find a Grave

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