Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Black Bottom Stomp
2. Smoke-House Blues
3. Chant
4. Sidewalk Blues
5. Dead Man Blues
6. Steamboat Stomp
7. Someday, Sweetheart
8. Grandpa's Spells
9. Original Jelly Roll Blues
10. Doctor Jazz
11. Cannonball Blues
12. Hyena Stomp
13. Billy Goat Stomp
14. Wild Man Blues
15. Jungle Blues
16. Beale Street Blues
17. Pearls
18. Wolverine Blues
19. Mr. Jelly Lord

Disc 2:

1. Red Hot Pepper
2. Deep Creek Blues
3. Pep
4. Seattle Hunch
5. Frances [Fat Frances]
6. Freakish
7. Burnin' the Iceberg
8. Courthouse Bump
9. Pretty Lil
10. Sweet Anita Mine
11. New Orleans Bump [Monrovia]
12. Down My Way
13. Try Me Out
14. Tank Town Bump
15. Sweet Peter
16. Jersey Joe
17. Mississippi Mildred
18. Mint Julep
19. Smilin' the Blues Away
20. Turtle Twist
21. My Little Dixie Home
22. That's Like It Ought to Be

Disc 3:

1. Each Day
2. If Someone Would Only Love Me
3. That'll Never Do
4. I'm Looking for a Little Bluebird
5. Little Lawrence
6. Harmony Blues
7. Fussy Mabel
8. Ponchartrain
9. Oil Well
10. Load of Coal
11. Crazy Chords
12. Primrose Stomp
13. Low Gravy
14. Strokin' Away
15. Blue Blood Blues
16. Mushmouth Shuffle
17. Gambling Jack
18. Fickle Fay Creep

Disc 4:

1. Chant
2. Sidewalk Blues
3. Dead Man Blues
4. Someday, Sweetheart
5. Grandpa's Spells
6. Original Jelly Roll Blues
7. Cannonball Blues
8. Hyena Stomp
9. Billy Goat Stomp
10. Wild Man Blues
11. Jungle Blues
12. Beale Street Blues
13. Pearls
14. Wolverine Blues
15. Georgia Swing
16. Kansas City Stomp
17. Shoe Shiner's Drag
18. Boogaboo
19. Shreveport Stomp
20. Mournful Serenade

Disc 5:

1. Shreveport Stomp
2. Seattle Hunch
3. Freakish
4. Burnin' the Iceberg
5. Courthouse Bump
6. Pretty Lil
7. Sweet Anita Mine
8. New Orleans Bump [Monrovia]
9. Tank Town Bump
10. Sweet Peter
11. Jersey Joe
12. Mississippi Mildred
13. Each Day
14. Oil Well
15. Load of Coal
16. Crazy Chords
17. Primrose Stomp
18. Strokin' Away
19. Blue Blood Blues
20. Gambling Jack

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75532 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-12
• Number of discs: 5
• Formats: Box set, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: 1.02 pounds

Amazon.com
In both sound quality and price, England's JSP Records continues to put the American major labels to shame with their prewar jazz collections. Following superb multidisc releases of seminal recordings by Louis Armstrong and Django Reinhardt, JSP now offers this Jelly Roll Morton compendium, which includes all his Victor recordings from 1926 to 1930. Thanks to the work of remastering guru John R.T. Davies and a sinfully reasonable price, this five-disc collection far surpasses any U.S. release. The music is exuberant and evocative throughout, as Morton's substantial composing and arranging talents come into clear focus. He was able to maintain the joyous ensemble spirit of New Orleans jazz while continuing the music's evolution toward swing's sophistication. Focusing on Morton's Chicago prime, volume 1 is full of highlights, not just of this set, but of early jazz as a whole. Especially noteworthy is the trio date with the Dodds brothers, from June 1927, that yielded "The Pearls," "Wolverine Blues," and "Mr. Jelly Lord."

Volume 2 follows Morton to New York and features a few forceful piano solos, a strong session with trumpeter Red Allen and unsung clarinet player Albert Nicholas, plus a standout trio date with clarinetist Barney Bigard and drummer Zutty Singleton. Volume 3 is not as consistently brilliant, but offers some gems as well, including cuts with Nicholas and trumpeter Ward Pinkett on board from July 1930. The final two discs contain mostly alternative takes, but unfortunately, the masters of Morton's terrific New York session debut are for some reason buried at the end of disc four's alternates. It is, however, a tiny caveat considering the overall worth of this indispensable box. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

The DEFINITIVE collection to a historic body of work
Jelly Roll Morton made a lot of exaggerated claims in his life, taking credit for the birth of jazz. No one really believes these claims, but it's amazing how much truth there is to them. For one thing, Jelly Roll Morton revolutionized the form, more than Charlie Parker did and maybe even Louis Armstrong. His early RCA Victor recordings laid much of the music's foundation, particularly the Chicago "Red Hot Peppers" recordings, and Morton himself has been hailed as the first great jazz composer in a long tradition of composers that include Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, and Wayne Shorter. Simply put, you can't say enough about the greatness and the importance of Morton's music.

This collection by JSP is an absolute godsend. Originally a British import that received poor circulation in the U.S., it went out of print for many years when JSP was bought by another company that went on to re-issue all of their CD's. As any jazz collector can tell you, these CD's are famous for the meticulous remastering done by jazz archivist/sound expert, John T. R. Davies, and this Jelly Roll Morton box set is one of THE gems of the JSP catalog. It covers pretty much the same recording as the RCA Victor box set, "Centennial," including every track of Morton's best and most famous work with his Red Hot Peppers. JSP's box set is much more preferable than the RCA Victor set for many reasons. First, alternate takes are place on separate discs (RCA stacks them on top of the master take), which makes for better listening. Second, the JSP box is much less expensive. Third and most important of all is sound quality. RCA's box set was released in 1990, and like all it's reissues of that era, it was heavily processed with NoNoise, leaving a squeaky clean sound, but with the high and low end frequencies lopped off. Furthermore, good sources weren't always secured by RCA, so many tracks on their set were taken from analogue tape copies of old source material. The overall result was a muffled, heavily compressed sound that squeezed the life out of the music. It was all the more depressing considering that the music was recorded extraordinarily well for their time. With this JSP box set, Davies secured superior sources, including some rare 78 rpm records from private collections. Furthermore, noise reduction was very minimal, which means there's more surface noise on these CD's, but the liveliness of the sound is simply amazing. Simply put, there's absolutely no reason to buy "The Centennial" box set when you have this beauty available.

Much of this music is essential to any jazz collection, and this box set from JSP is absolutely the best way to attain it. Great music, amazing sound quality, and a great bargain.

The best transfers at a bargain price.
Gotta agree with the other reviewer: I've heard both the RCA Victor set and the JSP set, and there is simply no comparison: the JSP set is far superior in terms of remasterd sound quality. Plus, the alternate takes for a particular recording are spread out across the set, which makes listening a lot easier. And 'nuff said about the music: except for a handful of embarrassing novelty numbers, this is some of the most vital and inspired jazz ever recorded. If you like Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, you're going to like this.

Provided you can read the microscopic printing on the CD booklet notes, they're serviceable. But if you're really interested in "Mr. Jelly Lord," there are some good books available that will probably serve you better.

The CD booklet covers leave a lot to be desired; this is definitely a "budget" set. But if you listen to the music instead of look at the packaging, this set has it all over the RCA set -- and at a bargain box price, at that.

Get it now before it goes out of print again.

A musical treasure
If you want your CD collection to contain only the greatest recordings of the 20th century, then in the field of Jazz this is one collection you should have (along with Armstrong, Bechet, Ellington, Basie, Parker, Miles Davis, and Coltrane).
The music played by Morton in the 20's ranked 2nd to none, although there was no soloist of Armstrong's calibre in his bands (there was only ONE Armstrong !). Morton skills as an arranger, composer and pianist were above everyone else during this period.

The first CD is from 09/26 to 06/27. There are the all time classics such as Doctor Jazz, Dead Man blues, and the tracks with the great clarinettist Johnny Dodds (the last eight tracks). Dodds presence added something extra to what was already great music. The last two tracks offer a chance to hear Morton the pianist - as he is joined only by the Dodds brothers.

The 2nd CD offers anything from piano solos to a semi big band, recorded in 1929. Instead of Dodds we have the opportunity to hear Barney Bigard and Zutty Singleton, two other New Orleans giants, join Morton for a trio on the last four tracks. There are also highlights featuring a band with Henry Allen, J.C Higginbotham, Paul Barbarin and Pops Foster, among others.

The 3rd CD was recorded during 1930, and is actually the last CD of the box set, as the remaing two CD's contain alternative takes of songs that appear in the first three. It contains swinging music, and such names as Wilbur De Paris, Bubber Miley and Albert Nicholas. I love "Harmony Blues", "Ponchatrain" - to me this is just outstanding music.

CD's 4 and 5 are alternative takes of some of the best songs. They offer a chance to see how much of the music was actually improvised and how much was written down.

Overall - for its musical depths, it historic value, its great remastering, and the very reasonable price - this is HIGHLY recommended.