Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton

The great trumpeter Rafael Mendez once said that he lived by one golden rule his father taught him: "Never boast. Someone better than you may be lurking around the corner, waiting to take your place." This was a lesson that Jelly Roll Morton (1886-1941) didn't learn until bad luck, lack of opportunity and rivals who DID take his place (particularly Ellington and Art Tatum) humbled him into reassessing his talent and his place in contemporary music. But, as this remarkable book points out, he not only learned his lessons but learned from them, remaking both his image and his music in the face of near-total indifference.When reading through this bio, I had reached about page 148 and had some reservations as to its worth over Alan Lomax's half-bio, half-autobiography, "Mister Jelly Lord." It seemed to me that the authors had bent over backward to excuse Morton's past as a pimp, gambler and hustler simply because he was the first to codify jazz in written music, and indeed even seemed to claim his superiority as a jazz musician over such luminaries as Bunk Johnson, Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Chapter Five, in particular, had several errors in both fact and judgment, consistently referring to Morton making his early acoustic recordings in front of "microphones" (they used a big metal horn to focus the sound into a steel cutting needle, no microphones were used at all, hence the term "acoustic"), renaming Bing Crosby as Bill (a typo so glaring that even a modern yuppie proofreader should have spotted it), and their astounding demotion of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings to "a rinky-dink ensemble" in their records without Morton. (In plain truth, the NORK was the first band to actually swing on records, even from their very first records in 1922, by virtue of their rolling, "loping" beat, similar in feel to that of Sidney Bechet's New Orleans Feetwarmers of a decade later. Listen and hear for yourself.)At this point, then, I was going to give this book 3 stars, mostly for factual accuracy but not for value judgments or style. But then something happened. They began chronicling, in full detail, the meeting and eventual partnership of Morton and Roy Carew. They fully documented, as Lomax had not, all of Morton's personal, medical and legal battles with their results in his lifetime and after. They described in full Morton's second and last stay in New York, quoted what he really said to black musicians on the street corners of Harlem, and told just how he re-evaluated the musical value of contemporary musicians and planned to compete with them. And they described in detail his sad last months in California and the creative new music he had written for large orchestra, something far beyond his greatest accomplishments of the 1920s.Morton, then, is truly given his just due as a man and musician. The loudmouthed "braggart" is revealed as a man who did not proselytize his music above all others in Harlem, but warned younger black musicians not to trust the powers that be in the music business of their time because they would get railroaded as he had. The quixotic dreamer who Lomax described as wanting to create carbon-copy Red Hot Peppers bands across America to push his name above all others is shown as a man who truly cared about finding work in the Depression for good musicians who deserved better. And the "moldy fig" whose stomps and blues were already outdated by 1939 is shown as a vital creator who was still coming up with startling new material. So much is already evident to Morton fans from a few of the 1939-40 General recordings, but this book also describes his innovative large-band scores "Mr. Joe," "Oh Baby" (not to be confused with the pop `20s song of the same name), "Why?" and especially "Ganjam." More satisfyingly for the reader, it chronicles how Morton's "loudmouthed" complaints of the early 1940s eventually led to real reform in the 1950s and `60s of the entire music business and the rules it had to follow.As a result, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Forget the sometimes stiff and schoolbookish writing style. Forget the occasional errors in fact and judgment. The overall picture it paints of Mr. Jelly Lord, especially in his last years, is a fine and noble one. If you think you know the Morton story, I'm here to tell you you DON'T, at least not until you read this book. I always had the utmost respect for Morton's musical mind, one of those rare organs that was able to remember with photographic precision everything it heard and synthesize it into a unique and personal style. Now I have respect for Morton the person as well, at least the Morton of his last years. Jelly Roll had indeed redeemed himself, and you WILL be startled by some of the things you read here. I guarantee it.

This book is able to provide allot of information on the life and music of Jelly Roll Morton. It is worth reading.

Prior to reading this marvelously researched and written book, Jelly Roll Morton was only a jazz name in the back of my mind, not a well etched personality. Upon listening to some classic Glenn Miller tunes, I noted that one of my favorites, "King Porter Stomp," was written by Morton and arranged by Miller nearly 35 years later. This is one of those great depression era big band renditions that is difficult not to start tapping your feet to. My next step was to search for a good biography of Morton and this book looked like it might be the definitive treatment.Indeed it is. The relentless self-promoter who claimed he invented jazz turns out to have done just that. Referring to King Porter Stomp, Reich and Gaines note that "In this single composition-- a three minute masterpiece if ever there were one-- a composer at the dawn of the twentieth century was pointing the way for at least two decades of musical evolution to come. Morton had announced his genius." So in this one thin man with the gold and diamond-studded smile, a man who also prospered conspicuously as a card shark, hustler and pimp, we had a writing and performing tour de force whose influence on jazz amounted to a virtual Louisiana hurricane that ripped through Chicago where he spent his best years out to California and New York and beyond. Morton was a remarkable force of nature, but a tragic man who made endlessly bad business arrangements and decisions, largely due to a rigged and oppressive industry including the pernicious ASCAP.In the end, Morton in his fifties was ultimately too sick and neglected by the industry and his friends to prevent his terrible penniless decline into oblivion. He is buried in essentially a pauper's grave in Los Angeles, a man who ended his transcendent life on society's scrap heap. We can thank the authors for restoring as best they can Morton's luster and legacy. His talent was titanic, his influence hard to overstate. Thank you, Mssrs. Reich and Gaines for a job superbly well done.

this is one of the best jazz history books I have read. Used book but in excellent condition well written well researched and easy reading. Highly recommend.

Great biography of a true innovator. I'm assuming his story is not unique. A Creole man from New Orleans creates an American art form, and never, ever got the recognition so duly deserved. Between a racist society, a cut throat industry, and music publishers seeking to get rich of the mans vision and talent. Morton never gained the fame he deserved until long after his death. Morton kept trying when most men would have given up. I really admire the man even more.

This biography corrects the widely-held impression that Jelly was a jerk. Certainly his early years were not played according to Hoyle, but he more than repaid that karmic debt with the dues that were extracted by the music industry, specifically the Melrose brothers and ASCAP. The previously written "Mr. Jelly Roll" by Alan Lomax and many disparaging remarks by the great Duke Ellington have tended to paint an ugly picture of Jelly's life and character. Learning that Lomax did not compensate Jelly for the LIbrary of Congress sessions and that the Duke was a beneficiary of Jelly's crusade against ASCAP puts quite a different spin on this great American artist.

Exce

Una bella storia, ben raccontata, di un pioniere del jazz dalla vita controversa. E soprattutto non ben inquadrato dalla critica contemporanea e odierna. Ci sono molti punti poco chiari, spesso resi oscuri dallo stesso Morton. Questo libro è più soft rispetto a quello di Alan Lomax, basato sulle lunghe interviste rilasciate da Morton e registrate (sono da ascoltare: in molti album di Morton, si trovano). Descrive una vita senza troppi sensazionalismi, dal periodo della fama fino al declino. Declino che considero la parte meglio descritta del libro