Search - Jelly Roll Morton :: Complete Library of Congress Recordings

Even when he did not invent jazz in the year 1904 .....

Eckart Wall | 01/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nearly every jazz-friend has heard about the legendary recordings, Jelly Roll Morton made for the Library of Congress, and that there he declared to have invented this music in 1904 or so....

I play jazz as an amateur since more than 50 years, and I never expected to be able to have these recordings. Now I hear his voice, I hear him play and declare, what he plays. And suddenly an important time of history of jazz, an important musician and composer got to be living for me. It's great, and I wish that every oldtime-jazz musician would listen to the stories he tells.

And I think: it does not matter, whether they are true or not - they in any case are full of a musicians life.

"

If you care about early jazz, you need this!

F. McDonald | 07/01/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I believe Duke Ellington once said that to listen to jazz with no knowledge of its history is to miss much of its charm. This is a real treasure of recordings that will broaden and deepen my appreciation of the many charms of jazz for years to come. The recordings themselves, as well as the accompanying notes and book, have already changed my concept of the roots of early jazz, Jelly's contributions to it, and his character as a human being. I no longer believe he was the outrageously self-aggrandizing braggart that some writers made him out to be. While not a flashy virtuoso like Hines or Tatum, there are some gorgeous pianistic moments."

A candid glimpse into musical history

Steven Cobb | Kansas City | 01/12/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I had downloaded a few tracks from iTunes and decided that I wanted more. I wasn't disappointed. This is a treasure trove of first-hand accounts from a great and famous musician of what his life was like. The style and tone of Jelly's speech as much as the stories he told really helped paint a picture of being a musician and just being around in the early 1900s. I wish there were more recorded accounts like this--it's sort of like spending a weekend with my grandpa listening to what it was like for him as a youth. There's a lot of great music here too, and language that will offend many, but it's a rough-and-tumble account of rough-and -tumble times. I couldn't recommend these CDs highly enough to anyone interested in the formative years of jazz, when ragtime was still hot, and New Orleans was an incubator for music that eventually swept the nation. I've listened to the entire set several times, and still listen to parts of it every week."