The Life of Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph "Jelly Roll Morton" LaMenthe was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 20, 1890. As a child he began to learn how to play the piano at age 10 years old. He was taught by Tony Jackson, composer of songs like "Pretty Boy" and other hits. Tony Jackson is among the few musicians whom Morton admired and respected. He called Jackson " the greatest single-handed entertainers in the world." After the death of his mother, Morton began playing in whorehouses and in the bordellos of the Storyville district of New Orleans. There he became active as a gambler, pool shark, and a lot of things that caused his grandmother to throw him out of the house as a bum and a scalawag. She did not want him around his two little sisters. As a wanderer, and during the fair of 1904, he began traveling such cities as Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Denver playing with various musical organizations as an in demand musician but he could never stay long with one band. "He couldn't stay long in one band too long because he was too eccentric and too temperamental, and he was a one-man band himself", said by bandleader George Morrison whom Morton played for in Denver. Morton really wanted to be the extreme musician. After that he toured the
Tank Town Bump, Low Gravy, and the Blue Blood Blues featured his great solo improvisation, which he was always praised for. Morton, unable to adjust his style to the new jazz style, quickly lost popularity. His fame was replaced by the likes of young jazz players like Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong and other emerging musicians. http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_morton_jelly_roll.html Shaw, Arnold, Black Popular Music in America, Late in 1926, Morton formed the band Red Hot Pepper, a group of seven New Orleans jazz musicians familiar with his style and works. His band featured some of the best sidemen like Kid Ory, Barney Bigard, Johnny Dodds, Johnny St. Cry, and Baby Dodds. They recorded over sixteen small-band sides for Victor, Inc. Pieces like Grandpa's Spells, Black Bottom Stomp, and the Pearls were Morton's masterly examples of his creative talents not only as a composer and arranger, but also as a pianist. As jazz gained popularity, Morton moved to New York in 1928. In New York jazz had taken a turn towards the new big-band style of "swing" and the music of soloist. He continued to record for Victor with his New York version of The Red Hot Peppers featuring sidemen like Bubber Miley, Pops Foster and Zutty Singleton. Numbers like Kansas City Stomp,
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Approximate Word count = 940
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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