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Renaissance’, a vivid outpouring of black poetry and art, whose interaction with jazz was only uncertain, intermittent and to some degree ambiguous. The complex racial demarcations of American culture – this at a time when Ku Klux Klan activity and violence in the South was at a higher pitch than any since Reconstruction – were never more evident. Jazz recording does not necessarily reflect those ambiguities very well, but they remain as a subtext to the decade’s great music …
    JELLY ROLL MORTON &
    Born Ferdinand Joseph Lemott (or La Mott, or La Menthe), 20 October 1890, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 10 July 1941, Los Angeles, California
    Piano, voice
    The Piano Rolls
    Nonesuch 79363-2
    Morton (p rolls). 1920, February 1997.
    In his own immortal words: ‘Jazz is to be played sweet, soft, plenty rhythm’ , and with a ‘Spanish tinge’.
    The first great composer in jazz – its inventor, he claimed – led a picaresque life in New Orleans as a pianist, pimp, billiards player, tailor, minstrel-show entertainer, hustler and more. Though these piano rolls date from earlier, he began recording in Chicago in 1923, then bandleading with his Red Hot Peppers, making some of the classic early jazz recordings. He scuffled over unpaid royalties during the ’30s, then began recording his life story (and his history of jazz) for the Library of Congress in 1938. This sparked a series of attempted comebacks at the end of the decade but Morton died in California, bitter and unrewarded.
    The Nonesuch disc is one of the most fascinating retrievals of recent years. Morton’s 12 original piano rolls have been analysed in the light of his other recordings by Artis Wodehouse, who has subsequently converted the information to computer data and edited a previously missing interpretative element into the way the rolls are reproduced. The subsequently annotated rolls were then played back on a nine-foot Disklavier piano, in a concert hall, and recorded. The remarkable outcome may be the closest we can ever get to hearing what Morton might truly have sounded like at this early peak of his career. Or they may not. Sceptics will point to the issue that, however meticulous the homework, this is still only somebody’s idea of how the rolls should sound. Yet the results are exhilarating enough to suggest that Jelly’s ghost is indeed seated at the keyboard. If there is an inevitable sense of something mechanical in the delivery, it’s offset by the rocking syncopations, rips and general brio which always seem to be among the hallmarks of a Morton performance. The odd combination of ferocity and gentility in ‘Grandpa’s Spells’, the dizzying double-time break in ‘Midnight Mama’ and the unbridled virtuosity of ‘Shreveport Stomps’ have certainly never sounded more convincing. It is altogether a memorable event and essential for anyone intrigued by the early steps of the master.
    & See also Jelly Roll Morton 1926–1928 (1926–1928, p. 25), The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings (1938, but in ‘Beginnings’ section, p. 5)
    LADD’S BLACK ACES / ORIGINAL MEMPHIS FIVE
    Formed c.1917–19
    Group
    The Complete Ladd’s Black Aces 1921–1924
    Timeless TCD 77
    Phil Napoleon, Benny Bloom, Harry Gluck (c); Moe Gappell, Vincent Grande, Sammy Lewis, Miff Mole, Charles Panelli (tb); Doc Behrendson, Jimmy Lytell (cl); Ken ‘Goof’ Moyer (cl, as); Loring McMurray (as); Cliff Edwards (k2); Rube Bloom, Jimmy Durante, Frank Signorelli (p); John Cali, Ray Kitchingham (bj); Joe Tarto (bb); Jack Roth (d); Vernon Dalhart, Arthur Fields, Mandy Lee, Billy de Rex (v): collective personnel. August 1921–August 1924.
    Original Memphis Five: Columbias 1923–1931
    Retrieval RTR 79026
    Phil Napoleon (t); Tommy Dorsey, Miff Mole, Charles Panelli (tb); Jimmy Lytell (cl); Jimmy Dorsey (cl, as); Frank Signorelli (p); Ray Kitchingham (bj); Jack Roth, Ted Napoleon (d); Billy Jones, Joseph A. Griffith (v): collective personnel. May 1923–November