Echoes from the Red Light District The Musical Saga of Jelly Roll Morton

Step into the storied streets of New Orleans' Red Light District with me, Harriet West-Moore, as we raise a glass to the pioneer of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton. On this Friday night's Moore Wine and Music podcast, I weave through the melodies and memories of Morton's remarkable life, revealing how a young boy's experiences in the vibrancy and vice of his neighborhood shaped the future of an entire music genre. From his blossoming days with the Red Hot Peppers to his ingenious blend of ragtime, blues, and swing, we celebrate the talent of a man who composed with as much complexity and flair as the city he called home.

As we clink glasses in honor of Jelly Roll's legacy, we'll confront the raw edge of his music—where explicit lyrics meet unapologetic truth, mirroring the untamed spirit of his youth. Despite stirring controversy and censorship, Morton's tunes echo through time, influencing countless artists and jazz aficionados. We'll tease the story of Buddy Bolden, whose tribute we'll savor in the next episode, but for now, sit back and let the syncopated rhythms of a jazz legend transport you to a time where the music was as fearless and free as the man behind the piano.

Intro/outro music by Soundstripe Music

Website: https://moorewineandmusic.com
Email: moorewinemusic@gmail.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

Hey everybody, happy Friday. This is Harriya Westmore with the More Wine and Music podcast, the podcast where I discuss music genre over a glass of wine. I'd like to welcome you on a Friday night. I hope everybody is doing well on a Friday. I was in another platform trying to go live through that platform. I'm still not. It's still not working for me. I don't know what is going on, but nevertheless we're going to keep it moving, all right. So anyone that is here tonight, please hit that like and subscribe. Hi, auntie, I'm glad you are here tonight. Please hit that like and share the podcast in the broadcast with someone else.

Speaker 1: 1:19

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Speaker 1: 2:22

All right, so let's get started for tonight's episode, episode number two of the season two of the jazz genre. So today I wanted to discuss one of the early innovators of the jazz music, which is Jelly Roll Morton. He was one of them. He wasn't the actual first person, but he was one of the earlier jazz artists who created the jazz sound. So Fertin and Joseph Lamott was born on October 20th, either 1890 or 1885, depending on which store she went to go with. Again, back then, the dates, birth dates and everything of certain artists were always in controversy. No one really knows the true dates of a lot of these artists, but he was born in New Orleans. He was a son of a mixed Creole parents, and if anybody doesn't know what Creole is, it's a mixture of African, french and Spanish heritage. So he came from that. His parents were of mixed heritage. For some reason he took his stepfather's last name. There's nothing really known about his parents per se, so I'm assuming that his biological father wasn't around, or maybe he passed away and his mother decided to remarry with a guy named. My name is Morton, and so Jelly Roll decided to take his dub dad's last name At the age of 10, or at the age of eight, depending on, again, the source, he began playing the piano.

Speaker 1: 4:36

And he actually started playing the piano in the Red Light District and if anybody who knows about New Orleans, the Red Light District is the area where there was a lot of prostitutions or down what they call it, bordellos. So at age eight and 10 or age, you know, still young he was playing. He learned, he taught himself how to play the piano and I guess he was good enough to where he started playing in a lot of these areas, city areas in the Red Light District, at eight years old. So this young man have seen a lot at his, I mean at a very, very early age. It was there that he received his nickname Jelly Roll, because he was able to blend the style of Rack Time and the blues in his piano playing, so being able to infuse both of those type of sounds, people started nicknamed him Jelly Roll. So here and after, this is what I'm going to refer him as.

Speaker 1: 5:59

When he became a teenager I guess he had enough of the Red Light scene he decided to. As a teenager, he decided to leave New Orleans and he became a music performer in Waterville, which was part of the menstrual shows. So he became, you know, during his teenage years he became to play for those type of shows and he was a pimp. He became a gambler. He was a pimp and a musician. So he seemed to live a very fast life at a very young age. If you see a picture of him, he's very nice looking, very. He was a very nice looking man and so I guess he used his good looks, you know, just didn't know he'd become a pimp. And I think in some sources said that he was actually was in jail for a little bit, but obviously it didn't stop him from composing and making music.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So he's after leaving you know, the New Orleans area and after and while doing so, of being a pimp and a gambler and a womanizer, he made his way out to Los Angeles and he stayed out there for about five years. But his really mark was made when he moved from Los Angeles to Chicago. It was in Chicago in 1922 that he started to produce and started to hone in his craft of what was now known as jazz, his first earlier recordings. He had a seven-piece band and they were called the Red Hot Peppers, jolly Morton and Red Hot Peppers. It consisted of the horns, the drums, piano, of what she played and there wasn't any vocals. Like I said earlier, like I said last week earlier jazz music you didn't have vocals, you just had the instruments and playing instrumental music.

Speaker 1: 8:38

He was able to compose a piece that incorporated the swing style. Like I said, he incorporated, he had the ragtime and blues and he up-tempo the beat. So it was like a swing type jazz style, a swing tone to it and he pretty much kept to his roots in New Orleans because that's the style that he played and it came from New Orleans so he didn't deviate from that type of style. So he maintained his roots and keeping that swing beat when he composed his music. His first hit was called the Black Bottom Stomp and Smokehouse Blues and it was that swing and that tone was later patterned by upcoming artists later on down the road. But he remained in that band. The band was doing pretty good for four years in Chicago and so he left them four years later, from 26 to around 1930. In 1930, he went to Kansas City and he wrote the song Kansas City Stomp and Tank Down Bump.

Speaker 1: 10:19

Again, he kept that New Orleans style, he kept his roots, he stayed close to his roots of that swing style and over time, while it was good, it started to wear off because you starting to have more upcoming artists who used his style as a foundation, but they built upon it and after a while that swing style became kind of outdated. And so after things started to kind of wear off as far as him performing, because new songs, new sounds were coming, were up and coming, so of course after a while you get left by the wayside. It's like in the 60s, a lot of that. When you first start with the 50s into the early 60s, you had that doo-wop, sock hop type, innocent type songs and stuff and after a while it gets played out. Over time. People wanted to. You got a group or a singer that wanted to push the envelope a little farther and so that gained more audience and so that doo-wop, sock hop type music was getting played out. People wanted more progressive and more aggressive style music and that was the same thing that happened to Jelly Roll and as a result, during the beginning of the Depression years, which was like in the late 20s and into the 30s, he kind of fell off in the wayside.

Speaker 1: 12:24

So, however, in 1938, jelly Roll met the folklorist Alan Lomax. Alan Lomax was basically responsible for recording a lot of the early blues genre. So he would go you know he wanted to capture that sound. So he would go down self and find these musicians oh you know, country musicians and he would record their music. So that's what Alan O'Max was known for and Jelly Roll was able to meet up with him and from that Jelly Roll was kind of coming back a little bit. It kind of re-energized the interest, the public interest, of his music because of Alan O'Max and he was invited to come to New York and do some composing and do some recording with some of the side artists such as Sidney Beckett, red Alan and Alvin Nicholas. I mean, these were band musicians and Jelly Roll was able to record some songs with them.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Unfortunately it didn't really go anywhere. I mean it wasn't as popular, the songs weren't really catching on to the audience or either that or again it was still behind time. So he wasn't able to regain his fame that he had in the early turn of the century, of the 20th century, into the early 20s. So he pretty much was kind of left dropped by the wayside. But you know, as depressive as that was, he was determined, he was trying his best to try to make a comeback, and so he decided to leave New York and go back to Los Angeles.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Well, he's you know figure, if I can make it in New York, maybe I'll you know, try to look again in Los Angeles. So he went back in Los Angeles around the early 40s and, however, unfortunately he was in bad health. I couldn't find what exactly was his ailment. It could be a combination of things, but in October 10th of 41, he passed away. He was in Los Angeles and he was only 50 years old when he passed away, so I'm sorry, let me change the date. He was born in October. He died July 10th, so July 10th of 1941, ferdinand Joseph Lamont, aka Jelly Roll Morton, passed away at the age of 50 for bad health reasons.

Speaker 1: 15:52

And it's ironic as usual, as most often early artists, they didn't get their just dues until after, usually don't get their just dues in recognition until after they're dead, and Jelly Roll was no exception. Years later, his music became revitalized and in 1998, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the first innovators of the jazz genre, and in 2005, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for being one of the early musicians that innovated the tone and the sound of jazz. So there you have it, jelly Roll Morton. You can go on YouTube or even Google him and you'll see pictures of him. Like I said, he was a very handsome man, very handsome looking man, and you can listen to some of his tunes, particularly the Black Bottom Stomp, and when you listen to it it does, it sounds. It is that early, early turn of the 20th century style of music. But I mean again, no one else was doing that before him. And even Rack Time was different. Rack Time style was different. It was an infusion of Rack Time in blues. He just up the tempo. So that was that's who he was.

Speaker 1: 17:52

So anybody have any other artists that they would like to for me to research and talk about Again, let me know. Just go on to wwwwarwineandmusiccom and leave a comment and leave some suggestions. My source for this biography of Jelly Roll Morton was from biographycom. So there you have it. Next week I'm going to be talking about Buddy Bolden. He was an early cornet player and, matter of fact, jelly Roll wrote a song about Buddy Bolden, one of the things.

Speaker 1: 18:46

Other thing I forgot to mention about Jelly Roll a lot of people didn't want to play his music because he was actually in some of his interviews. There was a piece that I saw on his interview. He was very profanity and he was very raunchy. I guess that's from being a pimp and working in the Red Light District and the brothels. He was very open and very raunchy in some of his songs, so that may be why a lot of he didn't get his. Even though he's recognized as one of the earlier artists, it didn't get too many play all around the world because of his language.

Speaker 1: 19:47

I was listening to it earlier today and I was like, oh, he would say some raunchy stuff. So you know, that's the interesting fact about him. He did write a song about Buddy Bolden and so I'll be talking about him next week. So stay tuned and happy. Fourth, and again, if you're interested in purchasing a t-shirt locally, I do have some in stock, I have them here and I will make sure, auntie, if there's not a black t-shirt, I can definitely create one and I'll order some and have it as the white style or the black. So, all right, I guess you guys wish you guys well, wish you guys happy Friday night, okay, and you guys have a nice night, all right, good night. Soundstripe.