Track Listing

1. Red Hot Pepper
2. New Orleans Bump
3. King Porter Stomp
4. Pearls
5. Deep Creek
6. Mamanita
7. Sidewalk Blues
8. Jungle Blues
9. Big Lip Blues
10. Dead Man Blues
11. Smoke-House Blues
12. Billy Goat Stomp
13. Courthouse Bump
14. Black Bottom Stomp
15. Tom Cat Blues

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113617 in Music
• Published on: 1999-01-01
• Released on: 1999-09-07
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
Wynton Marsalis's century-closing series of jazz and classical recordings isn't nearly the pulse-quickening excursion one might expect, what with all the fanfare and all the years the vaunted trumpeter has spent in the limelight. That said, his nod to Jelly Roll Morton is probably one of the better Marsalis recordings available. It's got enough rules built in--compositional economy, instrumental variation, etc.--that it disciplines the trumpeter's more ambitious tendencies. In the liner notes, Marsalis describes Morton dually as a jazz intellectual and a streetwise hustler, and anyone familiar with Morton will know the characterization is apt. Marsalis's read of Morton, however, skips the street hustle and instead focuses on cleanly drawn portraits that amount to fine repertory pieces, works akin to chamber music in their ultimate impact. That's not so much of a putdown as it might seem, as African-American composers are so rarely treated the way European and Euro-American composers are. Morton knew this and wrote his way around it, much as Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus did. And Jelly Roll's stomping-good-time melodies are here to show his knowledge of both his audience and his compositional chops. But if you're expecting something innovative or hair-raising in the way of Marsalis rediscovering an untapped Jelly Roll vein, you'll be greeted instead with full-bore, horn-rich charts that swing strongly. And that ain't half bad. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Morton Would Be Proud
All jazz is modern, according to Wynton Marsalis. With that thought in mind, Marsalis went into the recording studios earlier this year to record a tribute to one of his idol, the man who he considers to be the first jazz intellectual ever. Indeed, Morton's some of Morton's recording are perhaps the first recorded examples of real jazz composition and arrangement and represent timeless masterpieces of early jazz. Just as importantly, Morton's music was and is New Orleans music as its best. While some tunes on the recording sound incredibly modern (for instance "New Orleans Bump" and certain sections of "The Pearls"), for the most part Marsalis stay true to the form of Morton's music, with emphasis on unified melodic lines, "stop and go" choruses and group improvisations. Morton was of course a brilliant pianist and Marsalis enlist the help of three of his generations leading pianists, Danilo Perez, Eric Reed and Harry Connick, Jr. Masters of traditional jazz like banjoist Donald Vappie and clarinetist Michael White also offer assistance to Marsalis on Mr. Jelly Lord. The recording features fifteen Morton compositions, including many tunes any New Orleanian will find familiar and several of my personal favorites like "Red Hot Pepper," "Deep Creek," and "Tom Cat Blues." Considering the familiarity of these tunes for many, Marsalis is able to put together a collection that can best be described as highly accessible and downright festive. Moreover, Marsalis is as always at his best manipulating the sounds of New Orleans, and especially the majesty of the blues.

Morton understood...
I have to admit that I am not Wynton's biggest fan. A fair amount of his music doesn't really do anything for me but this cd is excellent. No matter what I may think of Wynton's "original" music I cannot deny his incredible depth of knowledge and skill in relation to this, the music of Jelly Roll Morton.

No, every song on this cd is not played exactly the way Morton would have played them but what's wrong with that? If you want to hear these songs the way Morton played them you can always buy Morton's own cds (as well as buying this one). And let's be honest, it's not like he has turned these into funk tunes... this is still very VERY Jelly Roll. The heat and humidity of the "blues and swing" on a sticky summer New Orleans day just permeate every song on this cd.

RED HOT PEPPER kicks this cd into gear from the very first note. I feel like I could say something about all fifteen tracks but I won't. I'll just say that Danilo Perez on MAMANITA squeezes every ounce of perfection out of this tune and the crown jewel of this cd, JUNGLE BLUES is for my ears, one of the best tunes in jazz history and the version on this cd is as good as it gets. The first time I heard this cd there were moments (and JUNGLE BLUES being the main moment) where I wanted to just jump up and down and release all the joyful energy this cd radiates.

Whether you're a huge Wynton fan or a huge Wynton critic I still think you could get something great from this cd. Forget about what he says in interviews about free-jazzers (if you like free-jazz, as I do) and just absorb this music. Wynton and this whole band swing from beginning to end and they move through each passage of Morton's music with skill and soul. This is one of Wynton's best albums.

If everything he did was this great I'd be a supporter, as it is though, this is the one that really does it for me.

Excellent
I just received this as a present, and I'm on my 3rd listen already. This is Traditional Jazz at it's very best. One reviewer complained that Wynton combined Traditional and Modern Jazz. Frankly, if the Modern is there at all, it's buried so deep that I can't hear it; and I speak as a jazz pianist and composer.

This CD has my highest recommendation