Jelly Roll Morton

A biography of Jelly Roll Morton , written by Claude Carrière , illustrated by Philip Paquet , accompanied by 2 compact discs.

Bad boy, yes; high roller, addicted to the green carpet and all its variations (dice, cards, billiards), passes again; active and open pimp, that's starting to do a lot for one man. And as if this accumulation of vices was not enough for him, the character in question, a certain Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton , born in 1890 in the suburbs of New Orleans , had added a major flaw: he was also a musician in his spare time. And not just any: pianist, composer, arranger, singer, conductor, he had proclaimed himself “originator of jazz” , just that! Proud, infatuated and braggart, he had his hour of glory in the 1920s but ended up tiring everyone with his incessant ranting, ending his days in relative oblivion in 1941.

And yet attentive listening to his recorded work reveals a supremely gifted organizer of sounds far ahead in the musical landscape of his time, coupled with a pianist full of freshness and relevance; In fact Jelly Roll the braggart also deserves his place in posterity, just like his contemporaries Louis Armstrong And Sidney Bechet .