[.ca] Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly ... (ISBN 0306813505)

The Biography That Reads Like a Mystery Story:
This tragic tale of the life of Jelly Roll Morton is a real page turner. You just have to read "one more chapter" to find out: How did he get that name? How did he rise to musical glory? What caused his down fall? Will things turn out better in the end? There is history, music, licentious tales (New Orleans was really wild!) and life lessons to be found within these pages. This biography is based on a cache of newly found documents which lends an immediacy to the telling. The authors are professionals who have researched every possible collaborating document. You can trust that you are getting the true telling of this gifted, yet flawed and ultimately tragic figure. You'll enjoy the read and be haunted by the story for some time to come.

Jelly Roll Rests His Case:
For much of his life, and in the decades since his death, Jelly Roll Morton has had the reputation of a flashy braggart (he claimed he invented jazz--a claim this book goes a long way in validating), a pontificator, a pimp, a card shark, a pool hustler, a pathological liar, a racist, a cliché, a brute and a bully. I'd never bothered to learn about Morton or his music because he was seldom referenced in anything but a disparaging manner. This is a shame, as Jelly Roll Morton was one of the first true pioneers of jazz. "Jelly's Blues" attempts to set the record straight and salvage Morton's reputation. The 1992 death of New Orleans jazz collector William Russell unearthed a 65,000-item collection of Jelly Roll Morton memorabilia that sheds much-needed new light on the life of Jelly Roll Morton. It is the reason this book was written. The collection contained many never-before-seen compositions Morton penned late in life. It also included his correspondence with friend and business partner Roy Carew, a man he met in 1938. In the last three years of Morton's life, Carew worked to restore him to his former place of glory and collect the royalties that were owed him. There are essentially two parts to this book. The first describes Morton's childhood and adolescence in New Orleans, where he split his time between playing piano in the brothels, pimping, card sharking, and hustling pool. He eventually abandoned these less-than-desirable vices to concentrate on his music. He had some early successes as a burgeoning composer and performer and traveled the U.S. extensively. He published his first composition during World War 1 before settling in Chicago to perform, compose and record. The early chapters highlight Jelly Roll's amazing piano playing skills, innovative compositions, and ingenuity in devising a way to set improvisational music down on paper--something Morton was the first to do. Also chronicled are his first recording sessions. The second half of "Jelly's Blues" deals with the last fourteen years of his life, in which Morton suffered one setback after another. His health began to suffer. He struggled to find work, recording or playing, and took jobs that were beneath a man of his talents. He battled with his publishers, the Melrose brothers, who paid him nothing even though they had been releasing his scores and profiting from them for years. He also took on ASCAP, which for years barred blacks from becoming members. Even when Morton was finally admitted into ASCAP near the end of his life, the pay scale was an insult. ASCAP gave approximately $16,000 a year to well-known white composers such as Berlin and Rodgers, while placing black composers in its lowest category, paying them $120 per year. Morton was never at a loss for people who were willing to take advantage of him. He suffered one inequity after another at the hands of the music industry. His compositions were widely recorded during the 20's and 30's, yet he never received a dime in royalties. There are passages in the last chapters of this book that are heartbreaking. Morton tirelessly looked to reclaim his former status and successes and to collect the royalties that were rightfully his. He had little to no success, and yet what comes through most in "Jelly's Blues" is the story of a man who had unbridled faith in himself, enduring confidence in his abilities as a pianist and composer, and a refusal to give up. Right up to the time of his death in 1941 from heart failure, he was composing innovative and complex new scores that pointed toward the avant-garde, still a decade away. Shortly after Morton's death, Downbeat Magazine published an article entitled "Jelly Roll Rests His Case". "Jelly's Blues" may finally make this claim a reality. I can think of no other figure in jazz who is more deserving of redress.

An excellent and lively biographical survey:
Jelly's Blues is Howard Reich and William Gaines's collaborative biography of jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton and recounts his birth to a large extended family in New Orleans in 1885, his rise to fame as a virtuoso pianist, and his flamboyant mark on the jazz world. From Jelly Roll Morton's struggles with poverty and obscurity to his journeys through jazz, Jelly's Blues provides an excellent and lively biographical survey.

A sad tale of injustice:
The editorial reviews rightly praise this wonderful investigative piece based on a strong archive of Jelly Roll materials. The latter half of Jelly Roll's story is a tragedy and even worse, one that has not really been redressed as two charges are quite clear: (1) ASCAP and two of Morton's publishers still owe considerable sums to his estate that has never been paid and (2) Morton's last will was signed under duress and his wife and sisters and their heirs are still not receiving the sizeable amounts due them even this many years later. Meanwhile individuals that Morton either never knew or violently detested, some of them rather racist, have profited greatly. One only hopes that someday this will be set right and at least some justice served, even if too late for Morton's own life.