Jelly Roll Morton: pioneer of jazz composition and improvisation

Jelly Roll Morton was born Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe in 1890 and later became a pioneer of modern American jazz. Growing up in New Orleans, he played piano in saloons and brothels when he was still a child. As an adult, he formed a band, the Red Hot Peppers and also played on his own. Morton is renown for his ability to bring traditionally black musical styles to the mainstream and he was heavily influenced by his New Orleans upbringing. Morton is particularly remembered for a series of recordings he made in Chicago for RCA Victor in the 1920s, and Morton is credited as being one of the first to mix individual improvisation with more structured group arrangements. Although he claimed to have invented jazz, this is not strictly true; instead, he is credited as the first jazz composer. After Morton, improvisation became a staple of jazz. His best-known tunes included "Jelly Roll Blues," "King Porter Stomp," and "Black Bottom Stomp." Jelly Roll Morton was not only a jazz legend, but he helped shape all of American popular music during his life and after his death.

Early life

Jelly Roll Morton grew up in New Orleans and started to learn piano at the age of ten. By 1902, he was playing French quadrilles, ragtime and some operatic classics in the bars and bordellos of Storyville. Around 1904, Morton went on the road, playing in Southern states such as Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. While he remained based in New Orleans, he went on to play in Memphis, St. Louis, and Kansas City, and he frequently worked in the popular minstrel shows of the time. He eventually broadened his travels, playing in New York and as far west as Los Angeles in 1917. Using his travels as inspiration, Morton brought together a variety of black musical styles, including ragtime, blues, hollers, religious hymns, and spirituals, and incorporated Caribbean music and white pop songs. This melting pot of style and substance was akin to a new musical genre being developed: jazz.

The music

Jelly Roll's musical roots were Midwestern ragtime and blues, as performed in the less reputable joints of New Orleans. He mastered this piano style, and although ragtime's structure and form remained with Morton throughout his career, he transcended its limitations to expand his skill. To judge from his accomplished first recordings, his style must have developed well before he arrived in Chicago in 1923; and, although his claims to have invented jazz were at best, an overstatement of the case, he was certainly an important early influence in the genre. Morton's compositions stand head and shoulders above the work of his contemporaries. Morton's attention to detail and structure solidify his place as the first important jazz composer and a true influence on Ellington, Mingus and Gil Evans.

Morton wrote more than one thousand songs, including:"Wolverine Blues," "The Pearls," "Mama Nita," "Froggie More," "Black Bottom Stomp," "London Blues," "Sweet Substitute," "Creepy Feeling," "Good Old New York," "Sidewalk Blues," "Tank Town Bump," "Kansas City Stop," "Freakish," "Shake It," "Burnin' The Iceberg," "Ganjam," "Pacific Rag," "My Home Is In A Southern Town," "Turtle Twist," "Why?," "New Orleans Bump," "Fickle Fay Creep," "Stratford Hunch," "Shreveport Stomp," "Milneberg Joys," "Red Hot Pepper," "Jungle Blues," "Mint Julep," "Pontchartrain," "Pep," "Someday Sweetheart," "The Finger Buster," "The Crave," and "Grandpa's Spells." Several of his compositions were musical tributes to himself, including "Winin' Boy," "The Original Jelly-Roll Blues" and "Mister Jelly Lord." During the Big Band Era, "King Porter Stomp" was a big hit for Fletcher Henderson and Benny Goodman. Two Broadway shows have featured his music, Jelly Roll and Jelly's Last Jam.

Morton's recordings were both innovative and authentic, springing from his experiences in New Orleans and beyond. When Morton began recording with his Red Hot Peppers, he created a fusion between disciplined composition and inspired improvisation. Pieces like "Grandpa's Spells," "Black Bottom Stomp," and the "Pearls" demonstrate Morton's creativity as an composer, an arranger and a pianist. "Grandpa's Spells" was composed by Morton and recorded in 1923 in Richmond, Indiana. The Pearls was recorded at the same time and was also a Morton composition. Both "Grandpa's Spells" and "Pearls" were piano solos engineered by Ezra C.A. Wickemeyer at Gennett Recording Company. "The Pearls" has a deep sensuality to it, and "Grandpa's Spells" is upbeat and features distinctive eight-note breakdowns in the beginning that make it more jaunty than it would otherwise have been. These works were designed to display texture and timbre, and they were thoroughly rehearsed without sounding forced; the spirit of improvisation is certainly in evidence.

A true musical leader, Morton provided opportunities for all the performers to contribute solos "without losing sight of overall structural unity and a balance between solo and ensemble" (New Grove Dictionary of Jazz). "Black Bottom Stomp," which was recorded at the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1926, featured George Mitchell on the cornet, Edward "Kid" Ory on the trombone, Omer Simeon on the clarinet, Morton on piano, Johnny St. Cyr on the banjo, John Lindsay on the string bass and Andrew Hilaire on drums. "Black Bottom Stomp" has a distinct New Orleans flavor as it is both joyful and decadent at the same time. The ensemble passage that begins the piece is clean and crisp, followed by a bridge featuring a harmonious balance between clarinet and trumpet. These are followed by an upbeat, jaunty clarinet solo and a definitive piano segment by Morton.

While Jelly Roll Morton may not have "created" jazz, as he claimed many times, he certainly made an indelible mark on the genre and helped take jazz to new heights. Influenced by his early life in New Orleans and later by music he heard during his extensive travels, Morton combined well-designed composition with improvisation. Morton was considered by many to be the first true jazz composer, and he incorporated traditionally black, Latino and white musical styles into his own. By no means a man without ego, Morton was the consummate performer and soloist, but he still allowed ample opportunity for his fellow musicians to shine. Although his time was relatively short, Morton had and continues to have a strong influence over American music.