Jelly Roll MORTON

⬇️ JELLY ROLL MORTON ⬇️

(Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe)

DISCOGRAPHY 1975-2024 (74 LP/CD)

 BIOGRAPHY 

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (September 20, c. 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre.

Morton also wrote "King Porter Stomp", "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the last being a tribute to New Orleans musicians from the turn of the 20th century.

Morton's claim to have invented jazz in 1902 was criticized. Music critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth...Morton's accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth." Gunther Schuller says of Morton's "hyperbolic assertions" that there is "no proof to the contrary" and that Morton's "considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation".

Morton was born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe into the Creole community in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans around 1890, and he claimed to have been born in 1885. Both parents traced their Creole ancestry four generations to the 18th century. Morton's birth date and year of birth are uncertain, given that no birth certificate was ever issued for him. The law requiring birth certificates for citizens was not enforced until 1914.

His parents were Edward Joseph (Martin) Lamothe, a bricklayer, and Louise Hermance Monette, a domestic worker. His father left his mother when Morton was three (they were never married). When his mother married William Mouton in 1894, Ferdinand adopted his stepfather's surname, anglicizing it to Morton.

At the age of fourteen, Morton began as a piano player in a brothel. He often sang smutty lyrics and used the nickname "Jelly Roll", which was African-American slang for female genitalia. While working there, he was living with his churchgoing great-grandmother. He convinced her that he worked as a night watchman in a barrel factory. After Morton's grandmother found out he was playing jazz in a brothel, she disowned him for disgracing the Lamothe name.

"When my grandmother found out that I was playing jazz in one of the sporting houses in the District, she told me that I had disgraced the family and forbade me to live at the house...She told me that devil music would surely bring about my downfall...." The cornetist Rex Stewart recalled that Morton had chosen "the nom de plume 'Morton' to protect his family from disgrace if he was identified as a whorehouse 'professor'." ... (Wikipedia)

NEW!

1991-Blues and Stomps from Rare Piano Rolls @FLAC

2002-Saga Jazz- Originator of Jazz @FLAC

2004-Classic Jazz Archive (2CD) @FLAC

2019-After You've Gone @FLAC

2020-Hot Jazz @FLAC

2020-Jazz The Essential Collection Vol.2 @FLAC

2020-The Hot Jazz of Jelly Roll Morton (Remastered) (3CD) @FLAC

2022-Jazz Notes @FLAC

2023-Crazy Cords @FLAC

2023-The Glory of Love @FLAC

2024-A Career Anthology Vol.2 (1929-40) (3CD) @FLAC

2024-The Jelly Roll Blues @FLAC

BD JAZZ

Jelly Roll Morton @FLAC

CHRONOGICAL CLASSICS

Jelly-Roll Morton-Chronogical Classics (1928-29) @FLAC+

Jelly-Roll Morton-Chronogical Classics (1929-30) @FLAC