New Orleans Blues
Jelly Roll Morton
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Browse piano sheets by Jelly Roll Morton on Zen Virtual Piano. Britannica says Morton’s music was more formal than early Dixieland jazz, though his arrangements only sketched parts and allowed for improvisation. It calls him an important innovator in the move from early jazz to orchestral jazz that happened in New Orleans around the turn of the century. Arrangements that sketch the outline and leave room for improvisation can be read as a style in which the performance finished the music. Jelly Roll Morton was born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (or Lemott) around 20 September 1890, though he gave his birth year as 1884 on his 1918 draft registration card and as 1885 to the interviewer Alan Lomax. Morton learned the piano as a child and from 1902 was a professional pianist in the Storyville district of New Orleans. Syncopated Times adds that he claimed to have invented jazz in 1902. A claim to have invented jazz, set beside professional playing from 1902, can be read as a statement about his own place in the music rather than a settled fact. His compositions include Jelly Roll Blues, New Orleans Blues, Frog-I-More Rag, Animule Dance and King Porter Stomp. He made his recording debut in 1923, and from 1926 to 1930 he made a series of recordings with a group called Morton’s Red Hot Peppers that gained him a national reputation. King Porter Stomp, written thirty years earlier and arranged by Fletcher Henderson, became Benny Goodman’s first hit in 1935 and a swing standard, though Morton received no royalties from the recordings. The distance between King Porter Stomp’s success and the royalties Morton received invites the thought of how far a composition could travel beyond its maker’s reach. In 1938, while living in Washington, D.C., Morton came to the Library of Congress at the invitation of the folklorist Alan Lomax to record an oral history interview while sitting at a piano in the Coolidge Auditorium. The Library of Congress calls these celebrated, historic recordings a fascinating view of how jazz was created in New Orleans at the dawn of the twentieth century. He moved first to New York, where he made recordings in 1939 and 1940, and then to California, trying to restart his career. Recorded at a piano by a performer and composer of the music under discussion, an oral-history interview may offer a view of early New Orleans jazz from inside it.
Browse piano sheets by Jelly Roll Morton on Zen Virtual Piano.
Britannica says Morton’s music was more formal than early Dixieland jazz, though his arrangements only sketched parts and allowed for improvisation. It calls him an important innovator in the move from early jazz to orchestral jazz that happened in New Orleans around the turn of the century. Arrangements that sketch the outline and leave room for improvisation can be read as a style in which the performance finished the music.
Jelly Roll Morton was born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (or Lemott) around 20 September 1890, though he gave his birth year as 1884 on his 1918 draft registration card and as 1885 to the interviewer Alan Lomax. Morton learned the piano as a child and from 1902 was a professional pianist in the Storyville district of New Orleans. Syncopated Times adds that he claimed to have invented jazz in 1902. A claim to have invented jazz, set beside professional playing from 1902, can be read as a statement about his own place in the music rather than a settled fact.
His compositions include Jelly Roll Blues, New Orleans Blues, Frog-I-More Rag, Animule Dance and King Porter Stomp. He made his recording debut in 1923, and from 1926 to 1930 he made a series of recordings with a group called Morton’s Red Hot Peppers that gained him a national reputation. King Porter Stomp, written thirty years earlier and arranged by Fletcher Henderson, became Benny Goodman’s first hit in 1935 and a swing standard, though Morton received no royalties from the recordings. The distance between King Porter Stomp’s success and the royalties Morton received invites the thought of how far a composition could travel beyond its maker’s reach.
In 1938, while living in Washington, D.C., Morton came to the Library of Congress at the invitation of the folklorist Alan Lomax to record an oral history interview while sitting at a piano in the Coolidge Auditorium. The Library of Congress calls these celebrated, historic recordings a fascinating view of how jazz was created in New Orleans at the dawn of the twentieth century. He moved first to New York, where he made recordings in 1939 and 1940, and then to California, trying to restart his career. Recorded at a piano by a performer and composer of the music under discussion, an oral-history interview may offer a view of early New Orleans jazz from inside it.
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Jelly Roll Morton
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Jelly Roll Morton, born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, was a New Orleans pianist, composer and arranger, an innovator in the move from early jazz to orchestral jazz.
They include Jelly Roll Blues, New Orleans Blues, Frog-I-More Rag, Animule Dance and King Porter Stomp.
From 1926 to 1930 he made a series of recordings with a group called Morton’s Red Hot Peppers that gained him a national reputation.
In 1938 he recorded an oral history interview at a piano in the Coolidge Auditorium at the invitation of Alan Lomax.