Jelly S Blues

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. A virtuoso pianist with a larger-than-life personality, he composed such influential early jazz pieces as "Kansas City Stomp" and "New Orleans Blues." But by the late 1930s, Jelly Roll Morton was nearly forgotten as a visionary jazz composer. Instead, he was caricatured as a braggart, a hustler, and, worst of all, a has-been. He was ridiculed by the white popular press and robbed of due royalties by unscrupulous music publishers. His reputation at rock bottom, Jelly Roll Morton seemed destined to be remembered more as a flamboyant, diamond-toothed rounder than as the brilliant architect of that new American musical idiom: Jazz.In 1992, the death of a New Orleans memorabilia collector unearthed a startling archive. Here were unknown later compositions as well as correspondence, court and copyright records, all detailing Morton's struggle to salvage his reputation, recover lost royalties, and protect the publishing rights of black musicians. Morton was a much more complex and passionate man than many had realized, fiercely dedicated to his art and possessing an unwavering belief in his own genius, even as he toiled in poverty and obscurity. An especially immediate and visceral look into the jazz worlds of New Orleans and Chicago, Jelly's Blues is the definitive biography of a jazz icon, and a long overdue look at one of the twentieth century's most important composers.

When Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton sat at the piano in the Library of Congress in May of 1938 to begin his monumental series of interviews with Alan Lomax, he spoke of his years on the West Coast with the nostalgia of a man recalling a golden age, a lost Eden. He had arrived in Los Angeles more than twenty years earlier, but he recounted his losses as vividly as though they had occurred just recently. The greatest loss was his separation from Anita Gonzales, by his own account "the only woman I ever loved," to whom he left almost all of his royalties in his will. In Dead Man Blues, Phil Pastras sets the record straight on the two periods (1917-1923 and 1940-1941) that Jelly Roll Morton spent on the West Coast. In addition to rechecking sources, correcting mistakes in scholarly accounts, and situating eyewitness narratives within the histories of New Orleans or Los Angeles, Pastras offers a fresh interpretation of the life and work of Morton, one of the most important and influential early practitioners of jazz. Pastras's discovery of a previously unknown collection of memorabilia—including a 58-page scrapbook compiled by Morton himself—sheds new light on Morton's personal and artistic development, as well as on the crucial role played by Anita Gonzales. In a rich, fast-moving, and fascinating narrative, Pastras traces Morton's artistic development as a pianist, composer, and bandleader. Among many other topics, Pastras discusses the complexities of racial identity for Morton and his circle, his belief in voodoo, his relationships with women, his style of performance, and his roots in black musical traditions. Not only does Dead Man Blues restore to the historical record invaluable information about one of the great innovators of jazz, it also brings to life one of the most colorful and fascinating periods of musical transformation on the West Coast.

In this jaunty and intimate collection, Kevin Young invents a language as shimmying and comic, as low-down and high-hearted, as the music from which he draws inspiration. With titles such as “Stride Piano,” “Gutbucket,” and “Can-Can,” these poems have the sharp completeness of vocalized songs and follow a classic blues trajectory: praising and professing undying devotion (“To watch you walk / cross the room in your black / corduroys is to see / civilization start”), only to end up lamenting the loss of love (“No use driving / like rain, past / where you at”). As Young conquers the sorrow left on his doorstep, the poems broaden to embrace not just the wisdom that comes with heartbreak but the bittersweet wonder of triumphing over adversity at all. Sexy and tart, playfully blending an African American idiom with traditional lyric diction, Young’s voice is pure American: joyous in its individualism and singing of the self at its strongest.

An essential work for rock fans and scholars, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll surveys the origins of rock 'n' roll from the minstrel era to the emergence of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Unlike other histories of rock, Before Elvis offers a far broader and deeper analysis of the influences on rock music. Dispelling common misconceptions, it examines rock's origins in hokum songs and big-band boogies as well as Delta blues, detailing the embrace by white artists of African-American styles long before rock 'n' roll appeared. This unique study ranges far and wide, highlighting not only the contributions of obscure but key precursors like Hardrock Gunter and Sam Theard but also the influence of celebrity performers like Gene Autry and Ella Fitzgerald. Too often, rock historians treat the genesis of rock 'n' roll as a bolt from the blue, an overnight revolution provoked by the bland pop music that immediately preceded it and created through the white appropriation of music till then played only by and for black audiences. In Before Elvis, Birnbaum daringly argues a more complicated history of rock's evolution from a heady mix of ragtime, boogie-woogie, swing, country music, mainstream pop, and rhythm-and-blues--a melange that influenced one another along the way, from the absorption of blues and boogies into jazz and pop to the integration of country and Caribbean music into rhythm-and-blues. Written in an easy style, Before Elvis presents a bold argument about rock's origins and required reading for fans and scholars of rock 'n' roll history.

Dramatizes the life of Jelly Roll Morton, pianist, composer, and self-proclaimed inventor of jazz.

Boom's Blues stands as both a remarkable biography of J. Frank G. Boom (1920-1953) and a recovery of his incredible contribution to blues scholarship originally titled The Blues: Satirical Songs of the North American Negro. Wim Verbei tells how and when the Netherlands was introduced to African American blues music and describes the equally dramatic and peculiar friendship that existed between Boom and jazz critic and musicologist Will Gilbert, who worked for the Kultuurkamer during World War II and had been charged with the task of formulating the Nazi's Jazzverbod, the decree prohibiting the public performance of jazz. Boom's Blues ends with the annotated and complete text of Boom's The Blues, providing the international world at last with an English version of the first book-length study of the blues. At the end of the 1960s, a series of thirteen blues paperbacks edited by Paul Oliver for the London publisher November Books began appearing. One manuscript landed on his desk that had been written in 1943 by a then twenty-three-year-old Amsterdammer Frank (Frans) Boom. Its publication, to which Oliver gave the title Laughing to Keep from Crying, was announced on the back jacket of the last three Blues Paperbacks in 1971 and 1972. Yet it never was published and the manuscript once more disappeared. In October 1996, Dutch blues expert and publicist Verbei went in search of the presumably lost manuscript and the story behind its author. It only took him a couple of months to track down the manuscript, but it took another ten years to glean the full story behind the extraordinary Frans Boom, who passed away in 1953 in Indonesia.

The first comprehensive guide to pre-1934 female popular vocal recordings sung in English—from around the world and including all styles—this discographical study includes solos, duets, trios, and quartets composed by the great songwriters of the early 1900s (from Irving Berlin to Victor Young). The majority of the listings includes material that has not been previously published, and a large number of entries profile such prolific artists as Helen Clark and Gladys Rice, who are not in previous discographies. A special feature includes data on sound-on-disc recording made for early talking-picture musical shorts (especially by Vitaphone) that is not documented elsewhere. A comprehensive title index includes composer credits for the majority of the titles listed. The first comprehensive guide to pre-1934 female popular vocal recordings sung in English—from around the world and including all styles—this discographical study includes solos, duets, trios, and quartets composed by the great songwriters of the early 1900s (from Irving Berlin to Victor Young). The majority of the listings includes material that has not been previously published, and a large number of entries profile such prolific artists as Helen Clark and Gladys Rice, who are not in previous discographies. A special feature includes data on sound-on-disc recording made for early talking-picture musical shorts (especially by Vitaphone) that is not documented elsewhere. A comprehensive title index includes composer credits for the majority of the titles listed. Many of the records documented in this volume are by the artists who introduced these songs at this time or who performed them in the original productions of the shows or movies for which they were written. The singing styles include those of cabaret performers, music-hall and vaudeville acts. Songs for the stage, screen, and radio are also included.

What did rap music and hip hop culture inherit from the spirituals, classic blues, ragtime, classic jazz, and bebop? What did rap music and hip hop culture inherit from the Black Women’s Club Movement, New Negro Movement, Harlem Renaissance, Hipster Movement, and Black Muslim Movement? In Hip Hop’s Amnesia award-winning author, spoken-word artist, and multi-instrumentalist Reiland Rabaka answers these questions by rescuing and reclaiming the often-overlooked early twentieth century origins and evolution of rap music and hip hop culture.