Who Was Jelly Roll Morton?

[@kittenonthekeys8369]

Finally, an episode about the legendary Jelly Roll Morton. Wish you guys could make more episodes like this.

[@kimbillro]

I love ragtime but for some reason I can't get into jazz. I relate to Jelly Roll Morton because he played ragtime professionally in the early days. I have the Library of Congress recordings and love to hear Jelly Roll play The Maple Leaf Rag in ragtime and then play it in his jazz style. I hope that Terry Waldo can elaborate, play, and explain how Jelly Roll did it and show how the 4 parts of The Maple Leaf Rag match up to Jelly Roll's jazz version of Maple Leaf Rag. If I had been around then in charge of the project I would have recorded Jelly Roll transcribing all of Scott Joplin's rags into Jelly's jazz style.

[@dantep4966]

@@kimbillro too bad he had forgotten some of them by then… when he was young he knew them all by heart though

[@kaylllake1]

The great Terry Waldo gives you a master class for free. It doesn't get better than this. Thanks Mr Waldo.

[@joesantamaria5874]

Wow. The joy in this man’s playing warms my heart. You can tell he LOVES the material, and takes great pleasure in sharing it. Thank you sir.

[@spyderlogan4992]

This trailblazing piano music should be played with a smile on your face. In my opinion.

[@scivalesmusicbooks1977]

Beautiful and very instructive lesson by the great Terry Waldo! Many thanks for this!

[@Rescue162]

This was good and interesting. Glad to hear about another great artist from my home (New Orleans), which also produced Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Ellis Marsalis, Al Hirt, Harry Connick, Jr, Buddy Bolden, Bunk Johnson, and many others.

[@matthewwhitton5720]

Don’t forget the late, great Mac Rebenack , aka Dr John ! Or the Meters !

[@jimsmithneworleans7867]

Add Papa Celestine, Charlie Miller, Johnny Adams, James Booker, Professor Longhair

[@Bagabonda]

Thank you for introducing me to Jelly Roll Morton. Truly wonderful music played wonderfully!

[@jseligmann]

Terrific! Thank you! I always come back to Jelly Roll for essential early Jazz.

[@abagthisbig2894]

Thank you, Terry, for showcasing Jelly Roll Morton, who I’ve heard about since childhood and of whom my mother brought home LP:s back to Sweden when she had been over in New York in 1957. Thanks for awesome playing.

[@sharonrollins5235]

Great hearing about Jelly Roll . 💖

[@Jezebel411]

The cool part of KZbin! I am so grateful for this channel and this lesson! ❤️

[@michelleselman8004]

This was so informative I had the pleasure of seeing jelly’s last jam a musical revival the is based on jelly role Morton’s life currently running at New York City center in NYC I wanted to obtain further information on this musician I learned a lot from this video if you can attend this brilliant revival of this musical please attend and thank me later! Stay wonderful

[@MarvinStroud3]

I listened to the Library of Congress recordings in the early 1950s. They should be made available to all early jazz lovers. Sometimes the songs are available on CD. The narration is raunchy but reminiscent of the Storyville sporting houses. I have visited Jelly's grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles. I said a thankful prayer in his memory.

[@matthewwhitton5720]

Amazon Prime has his Library of Congress recordings ( with all of Alan Lomax’s interviews included ) available .

[@MarvinStroud3]

@@matthewwhitton5720 Thanks so much. I may just buy them and listen again.

[@iainjacksonpiano1]

Wonderful! Thankyou so much for this enlightening discussion and beautiful playing!

[@marianlevy9232]

What a wonderful video! I am trying to learn “ The Crave” , and I definitely see many elements you discussed.. the ‘ habanera” type rhythm.. Jelly Roll’s music is definitely a challenge to play but so worth the effort !

[@JohnMcPhersonStrutt]

How i wish I had discovered Terry Waldo in my teen years !

[@privatedetective6516]

Terry You're a Humble Giant!

[@queti1862]

Big fan of Mr. Jelly Roll Morton I visit his grave here in Los Angeles every so often and smoke a funny cigarette there with him and his music, cause legends never die!

[@Thanks-Tokyo]

This is a so informative lesson.

[@TuTuChief]

This is so neat!! Hope you will cover more of the greats!

[@NihilNominis]

These are the most amazing videos! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[@tinalabelle2536]

I love that you brought the music to freedom. Bettina La Belle. Thank you

[@MarioCalzadaMusic]

Why did this video finish?

[@NelsonRodriguez_]

Far out man peace from California

[@semfedd5561]

Композитор- гений, исполнитель- блеск, спасибо!!!

[@rootbear2958]

Excellent .

[@langleybryant8641]

You can even hear how his music influenced rock if you listen closely

[@matthewwhitton5720]

He’s justifiably long been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

[@alphonsepetitboudu6552]

@@matthewwhitton5720 JellY Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers. RED hOT cHILi peppers, a rock band

[@Joe_J-MT_Boy]

ZOWIE! There's a fair degree of complexity there... and no sheet music. Excellent musicianship! However comma I do see where it's pretty easy to fall in love with this music especially as it was played by a free spirit such as Jelly Roll Morton.

[@kmramsey1]

please don't allow this to be taken down.

[@Beoulve-p3i]

Ferdinand Morton certainly was an indispensable influence on the popularity and written notation of ragtime jazz, but was more of an artist who brought it from grassroots to mainstream than an inventor.

[@Jasongy827]

I heard his recordings. I have it on CD.

[@tinalabelle2536]

Wow thank you.

[@MoneyAli75]

Yep Jesus 🙌 of the keys 🎹

[@DrummerJacob]

You forgot to mention what "Jelly Roll" means for our cultured audience :)

[@brucethomas5123]

That might be naughty

[@marlynnek6449]

I grew up in a house where my father blared JRM records all weekend. Ragtime is a wondrous and sadly lost art form.

[@cameronleesimpson5742]

Nope

[@RockSpoon123]

@@cameronleesimpson5742 It's true! There's a thriving community of ragtime and stride pianists and composers.

[@cameronleesimpson5742]

@@RockSpoon123 of course there are. I'm one of many

[@wheninroamful]

@@cameronleesimpson5742 Why'd you say Nope? Meaning you don't believe them or that you couldn't listen to JRM all day?

[@cameronleesimpson5742]

@@wheninroamful ehhh I can listen to Jelly Roll Morton now but back then I hated him for his egotistical attitude and his demeanor and didn't want to hear his music back then. Now he is alright in my book and his music is even better but yeah.

[@tinalabelle2536]

Love your mind.

[@curtissalgado1533]

Ok so Jelly Roll bragged about himself,-but he could back it up… He was telling it like it is .. the Library of Congress sessions is a must for music history before WC Handy, -Jelly was the first - and Mr. Morton gives credit to people that he admired and influenced him. He’s full of humility. Please check it out.

[@dazzjazz]

Fabulous

[@jollysheldone425]

I never thought that Jelly roll Morton, could not be considered in this way

[@Zoco101]

Can anybody discuss how Jelly incorporated his playing style into a band setting? This style of playing is great for solo piano, but can be disruptive in a full size vintage jazz band, particularly if that band doesn't want to showcase the pianist all the time. So did Jelly's bands just work around him (him being the boss and the star) or did he meet them part way and sometimes take a back seat? From what I can hear on the recordings, it seems they mainly just worked around him.

[@dantep4966]

Morton created many of the arrangements his band played. (He didn’t trust them to improvise more than a few designated spots. Of course Omer Simeon got special treatment, and a few others.) so it wasn’t up to the band to figure out how to play. Most times, Morton dials back his playing, because he doesn’t need to emulate a jazz band when there is one. However, he takes solos often where just bass and drums play. Listen to the 1929-30 Red Hot Peppers Albums and you’ll notice he is often hardly audible.

[@anorangewithacapybaraunder2370]

the legend of 1900 brought me here

[@Wolfganger]

Oml 🤦‍♂️

[@ozzleoni6609]

what a legacy!

[@theraidenshogunsword1650]

Meh teacher told me to watch this and 3 I liked it the music was great

[@RockSpoon123]

Nothing wrong with a lil' ragtime!

[@tinalabelle2536]

I did ballet. My toes love you.

[@pianorikardhallberg9162]

Even with relatively "basic"(compared to today)chords, Morton still made very harmonically cool music

[@kimbillro]

I don't believe that Jelly Roll Morton ever met Scott Joplin. I can't find it documented anywhere. When Jelly arrived in St. Luis, Missouri, I believe it was about 1912. I also believe Scott Joplin had moved and was in Chicago or New York about then. By the time Jelly arrived in Chicago in the 1920s Scott Joplin was dead, having passed away in 1917. After the stock market crash in 1929...and as the depression seeped in, Jelly moved to New York City and struggled through hard times. It is sad that both he and Scott Joplin both fell on hard times in their latter years and died quite young. If they were around today I am quite sure they would both be multi-millionaires...at least, it is fun to imagine it.

[@adonaiyah2196]

@@kimbillro yeah morton was in a lotta car crashes and stabbings but survived so wow you know

[@NoOne-kr4jc]

​@@kimbillroI read that he said he met Joplin.

[@transientcaterpillar]

I, DIO am a fan of Jazz.

[@benjaminrobles2708]

I'm not sure he "starved to death." He had complications from a stabbing that occurred at the Music Box and due to a local Whites-Only hospital rejecting his care, he had to get to a much further one. The next few months he was in hospitals getting care for asthma and complications from the stabbing.

[@paulryan7552]

TERRY STAY LAYIN IT DOWN RT

[@jeremyellismusic]

I kinda view Jelly Roll as the Pryor of jazz.

[@jamesodonnell8284]

Cool

[@fturla___156]

If you play in a style that most people are not familiar with and especially with hand movements twice as fast on the left hand, the trend will not be promoted nor even liked by people in your industry. Professional pianists have a hard time going over 200 beats and jazz piano can jump to over 300.

[@sarvsvv]

7:49 Oomph!

[@abadsenquiz1553]

Right

[@Klassenfeind]

Stanley and Oliver would be proud of you

[@dantep4966]

They would if he did a video on LeRoy Shield

[@irenezafar966]

yah, asherleigh, i know the answer to this trick question .... who was jelly roll morton? he was an all-american puano player, sir

[@bricemonchalin7398]

☝

[@williamhanes3694]

Lil Hardin

[@mikemcq10]

Sporcle brought me here.

[@shanefoley579]

Is he a music teacher for a school I sure Lerner aometging

[@MixMasterJ1221]

👌

[@layinthebed5230]

WoAh DeR ChrIsTIan SerVEr HeRe

[@beatrixwickson8477]

1:55 it's the notes that he doesn't play

[@Zacharysandilands]

Nah its also the notes that he plays

[@大塚康順]

ど、どこの教授ですか さっきのは正剛ちゃん イットーニットー 左がツービート、右が４拍子 フィンガーブレイカー、ザ、クレイブ、ガーシュウィン ラプソディーインブルー、高音はスタインウェイを意識されたんですか？！ 最後はオリジナルワールド！ ジャズイマジンみたいな！

[@大塚康順]

ヘミオラを意識したところもあった！

[@unique_newyork]

I wish you were my father

[@bornhoffer]

The people who created swing music, were barely in touch with Morton, and they certainly never sited him as an inspiration. By the late 20's he was a jazz dinosaur, dismissed as old fashioned. If you want to understand how swing came about, you have to look at things like the Goldkette recording of My Pretty Girl in 1927, or Abe Lyman's surprisingly swinging recording of Those Longing For You Blues in 1922. There certainly are a lot of riffs in that record. This is where things were happening. Morton's recordings from the following year sound stiff in comparison. James P. Johnson in New York 1921, has as much swing as Morton in Chicago in 1923, if not more. Ellington's Doin' The Voom Voom from 1929 certainly is fully fledged swing music, and if you play the Red Hot Peppers recordings from the same year. and claim they were Ellington's source of inspiration, you might be met with a laugh. Morton was an excellent pianist, band leader and composer, with his own unique style. His productions can be enjoyed independently of how they relate to other musicians, etc. There is no reason to try to elevate him to a sort of originator of all things that are jazz.

[@MrSpacejase]

the night stdlker

[@MrSpacejase]

night stalker daren

[@chelseamcduffie]

I wonder if this new jelly roll knows about the original Jelly roll so disrespectful if you ask me

[@tinalabelle2536]

I think your beautiful..

[@ricardodelano2205]

so i guess Buddy Bolden was wrong? nah not morton he did not invent jazz buddy is credited for this honor.

[@大塚康順]

王族の血を継承した喋り方、いろいろな喋り方ができるのですね。

[@yesman9721]

Jelly Roll Morton didn't invent jazz. Buddy Bolden did.

[@mindmebizness1516]

Few pics of Bolden exist-much less any recordings. Jelly Roll was top five forefathers. And a PLETHORA of his works survives. Good enough for me.

[@orsemcore]

scott joplin did...

[@nadotabbit4587]

Scott Joplin made popular the genre of ragtime, however rag was hardly jazz even though it is largely syncopated and stylized, it is not meant to improved upon and later artists such as buddy bolden and jelly roll Morton played it in a swing style and buddy bolden introduced the improvisation, likely due to the fact he could not read music, and introduced a more hot and loud style of blues music

[@danielking3170]

Scott joplin is the founder of ragtime and the father of jazz buddy bolden is the introduction of jazz. However jelly roll and Louis Armstrong are the perfection of jazz

[@dantep4966]

No proof that bolden played anything but ragtime. It’s hard to say if any one man invented jazz, but I’m certain Morton and bolden did more for pioneering jazz than anyone else. Besides, there is over 17 hours of Morton’s music but not a single second of boldens playing. As a result, Morton can get the credit for now until someone finds the lost bolden cylinder

[@jochenstossberg5427]

Ho looks like he's playing this at gunpoint. Where's the joy here?? He probably needs an audience.