Description
Book SynopsisA biography of Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll' Morton, one of the world's most influential composers of jazz.
Trade Review"Alan Lomax has fashioned a biography that, for utter candor and spontaneity of utterance, rivals the self-revelations of Rousseau and Saint Augustine." - Chicago Tribune "You get a fresh idea of what was behind the development of the new music that said so many things to so many people. You see that jazz was actually a cultural transmission, as Mr. Lomax puts it, a 'wordless counterpoint of protest and pride.' No one with even the slightest feeling for the subject can afford to miss this book." - San Francisco Chronicle
Table of ContentsPreface to the 1993 Edition
Preface to the 1973 Edition
Prelude
LOUISIANA TOWN
My Folks Was All Frenchmans
Really Tremendous Sports
Money in the Tenderloin
INTERLUDE ONE: The Family
STORYVILLE
Where the Birth of Jazz Originated From
Uptown-Downtown
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm
INTERLUDE TWO: The Boys in the Bands
ALABAMA BOUND
Half-hand Bigshot
Those Battles of Music
The Lion Broke Down the Door
Jack the Bear
Can't Remember All Those Towns
Jelly Roll Blues
I TOOK CALIFORNIA
The Cadillac in Bloom
Diamonds Pinned to My Underwear
Mama Nita
INTERLUDE THREE:
Hello, Central, Give Me Doctor Jazz
THE BITTERS WITH THE SWEET
Mabel
Red Hot Pepper
It Like to Broke My Heart
Till the Butcher Cut Him Down
Acknowledgments
Appendix One: The Tunes
Appendix Two: The Records
Afterword
by Lawrence Gushee
Select Discography and Bibliography
