1939 JELLY ROLL MORTON PIANO Scott Joplin Original Rags/ Mamie's Blues GENERAL
$
50
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Description
A series of great JAZZ Records from early Ragtime to Beb-Bop on 78 rpm Victrola Records
More great Jazz and Vocal Records in my other listings!
Great Jazz by JELLY ROLL MORTON Piano talking and singing in his last commercial sessions for the GENERAL label
The musical record left by Jelly Roll Morton is incomplete, leaving out as it does the first 20 years of his career. However, all is not lost, and through Jelly Roll's genius he was able to recreate the piano styles of Storyville in the first decade of the twentieth century. Listening to his solo piano on songs like "Sporting House Rag" and "Naked Dance" from the 1939 sessions for General (later released as New Orleans Memories ), one understands and hears that Morton's piano playing was characterized by rhythmic variety, shifted accents, delays and anticipations, and melodic embellishments, all leading to a sense of fantastic and frenzied variation. His most successful solo and ensemble recordings reveal his vision of jazz as requiring contrast and variety at all levels.
Reeves Sound Studios
1600 Broadway, New York City, New York
Recording Engineer : Hazard E. Reeves
Recorded : 14th December 1939
R-2561 ORIGINAL RAGS (Scott Joplin) General 4001-B
Recorded : 16th December 1939
R-2573 MAMIE’S BLUES (Morton) General 4001-A
Please see top of the page for condition
General
Profile:
U.S. label (ca. 1939-1942). Produced by the General Records Division of Consolidated Records Inc.. The label's owner, Hazard Reeves, also operated Reeves Sound Studios and General's R-prefixed masters were recorded there. Both 10" and 12" discs were produced and these were generally devoted to jazz performances, including some of Jelly Roll Morton's final commercial recordings. General also produced label variations, including "General Topical Tempos" and "General Tavern Tunes", a low-priced brand introduced in 1940. General went out of business following the Petrillo recording ban of 1942. Reeves sold his studio to Eli Oberstein in 1944. Commodore purchased the label in 1946 and reissued some General material.
Jelly Roll Morton Real Name: Ferdinand Joseph Morton né LaMothe Profile: American pianist, bandleader and composer, often considered as the first true composer of jazz music.
Born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe on 20/09/1885 or 20/10/1890 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Died 10/07/1941 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
His birth name was changed to Morton when he was three years old and his mother married again. In WW I, he was drafted as Ferd Joseph Morton.
Inducted into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 (Early Influence).
Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers Orch
b. Sept. 13, 1884, New Orleans, LA, USA. d. July 10, 1941, Los Angeles, CA, USA. (Cardiac Arrest). (Note: Many differerent birthdates are claimed by various sources. This birthdate is from his World War 1 draft card - a date that Morton gave to the draft board
Overview:
Morton has been credited with the concept of individual improvisation within rehearsed orchestral arrangements, a format which became a Jazz staple. He was Jazz's first great composer, writing such songs as "Wolverine Blues," "Milenburg Joys," "Black Bottom Stomp," "Shreveport Stomp," "Doctor Jazz (his only vocal)," "Grandpa's Spells," "The Pearls," "Mr. Jelly Roll," "The Chant," "Wild Man Blues," "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say," "Original Jelly Roll Blues," "Winin' Boy Blues,""Don't You Leave Me Here," "Sweet Substitute" , and "King Porter Stomp" (which later became huge hits for both the Fletcher Henderson and Benny Goodman orchestra's during the 'Swing' era).
In 1926, the members consisted of Jelly Roll Morton (piano); Kid Ory (t'bone); George Mitchell (trumpet); John Lindsay (bass); Andrew Hillaire (drums); Johnny St. Cyr (banjo); Omer Simeon (clarinet)
In 1904, while he was still in his teens, Jelly's began his career playing piano in the brocade-and-mirrored halls of New Orleans bordellos. In the "Street Vernacular" of old New Orleans, words such as jelly roll, biscuit, biscuit roller and cream puff had come to be common euphemisms for sexual organs and intercourse. It is said that Jelly Roll got his name upon seeing a black vaudeville comedian introduce himself as "Sweet Papa Cream Puff, right out of the bakery shop." Never one to be upstaged, Morton soon began announcing himself as "Papa Jelly Roll, with stove pipes in my hips and all the women in town dyin' to turn my damper down."
Earning a living could be quite difficult for a Black man in those days and so Jelly Roll rounded out his income from Piano Playing with such other work as pimping, pool hustling, card sharking, bell-hopping and tailoring. In 1908, at just age 18, he left New Orleans and began a tour of cities on the Gulf coast and in Texas. It is known that he also went to St. Louis and visited Scott Joplin. After touring briefly with a minstrel show, he settled in California, - living there from 1917 to 1922.
By this time he had a fairly well established reputation as a musician, songwriter, bandleader and arranger. In late 1922, he moved his operations to Chicago, IL, then the center of the Jazz world. In 1927, he moved to New York. But by now the times were changing. The terrible World Wide 1929 Depression would soon hit and shortly thereafter, Benny Goodman introduced the world to a new type of Music, - Swing! "Dixieland" or "Jazz" music was in decline and Morton fell on hard times during those 'depression' years. (It was said he even had to pawn the diamond in his front tooth.) Some of Jelly's compositions were still being played, but he received little or no royalties, and he fell into some obscurity.
In 1938, Alan Lomax, then a folk archivist for the Library of Congress, found Jelly playing in a Washington, D.C. "dive" called "The Jungle Inn". Lomax was able to record some interviews with Jelly Roll. By the time Lomax had completed the interview (some weeks later), Lomax had accumulated today's equivalent of a few dozen LPs of music and "Mr. Jelly Lord's" , recounting of the early history of New Orleans and how he - Jelly Roll - had invented Jazz.
Shortly after the interviews with Lomax, Morton returned to New York, but not finding much work there, he again set out for California,- this time driving cross country in a dilapidated vehicle which kept breaking down. In California, his health began to fail. Mr. Jelly Lord blamed his condition on a voodoo spell, and he died in Los Angeles on July 10, 1941.
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