Jelly Roll Morton

Pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger and occasional singer Ferdinand Joseph ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton was one of the most important and influential personalities in the entire history of jazz. Born in New Orleans of Creole descent in 1890, he was one of the earliest jazz innovators and pioneers, to the extent that he actually said that he invented the genre, although his accomplishments and influence were such that he did not need to make such exaggerated claims. Starting as a ragtime pianist, his 1915 tune “Jelly Roll Blues” was one of the first published jazz compositions. His career output of recordings was so prolific that we have chosen to release them as two 3-CD sets.

Pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger and occasional singer Ferdinand Joseph ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton was one of the most important and influential personalities in the entire history of jazz. Born in New Orleans of Creole descent in 1890, he was one of the earliest jazz innovators and pioneers, to the extent that he actually said that he invented the genre, although his accomplishments and influence were such that he did not need to make such exaggerated claims. Starting as a ragtime pianist, his 1915 tune “Jelly Roll Blues” was one of the first published jazz compositions. His career output of recordings was so prolific that we have chosen to release them as two 3-CD sets.

When folklorist Alan Lomax made these epic 1938 recordings of Jelly Roll Morton's reminiscences and piano playing, he was creating the first great oral documentation of early jazz. This material has never been issued with the care, sensitivity and completeness that it gets here, with the complete interviews and musical performances sequenced over seven CDs in the order in which they took place. Morton was almost as great a raconteur as he was a musician, and his accounts of New Orleans in the early years of the 20th century–from bordellos to riots to funeral parades–are vivid, bawdy, and sometimes hilarious. His accounts of the music and his performances, from "King Porter Stomp" to the lengthy "Murder Ballad," provide a brilliant window on the mechanics and progress of jazz in its earliest years.

Jelly Roll Morton Realized By Artis Wodehouse - The Piano Rolls (1997) is a fascinating album that brings the legendary jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton into the modern era, reimagined through the efforts of pianist Artis Wodehouse. This album is part of a broader movement to bring Morton’s influential piano rolls back to life, preserving and interpreting his early 20th-century piano compositions. The 1997 release features Artis Wodehouse’s own performances based on the original piano rolls recorded by Morton in the 1920s and 1930s.

Jelly Roll Morton Realized By Artis Wodehouse - The Piano Rolls (1997) is a fascinating album that brings the legendary jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton into the modern era, reimagined through the efforts of pianist Artis Wodehouse. This album is part of a broader movement to bring Morton’s influential piano rolls back to life, preserving and interpreting his early 20th-century piano compositions. The 1997 release features Artis Wodehouse’s own performances based on the original piano rolls recorded by Morton in the 1920s and 1930s.

Jelly's Blues vividly recounts the tumultuous life of Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941), born Ferdinand Joseph Lamonthe to a large, extended family in New Orleans.

The Piano Rolls is a 1997 album of the music of Jelly Roll Morton. The piano work is not that of Morton but his works he created on piano rolls in 1929, which were then "replayed" by the piano itself in 1997 with supervision from Artis Wodehouse. This was released by the Nonesuch label.