- published: 27 Apr 2015
- views: 125407
Jelly roll or Jelly Roll may refer to:
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (October 20, 1885 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer.
Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spirit and characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues" was the first published jazz composition, in 1915. Morton is also notable for naming and popularizing the "Spanish tinge" (habanera rhythm and tresillo), and for penning such standards as "Wolverine Blues", "Black Bottom Stomp", and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say", the latter a tribute to turn of the 19th to 20th century New Orleans personalities.
Reputed for his arrogance and self-promotion as often as recognized in his day for his musical talents, Morton claimed to have invented jazz outright in 1902 — much to the derision of later musicians and critics. However, jazz historian, musician, and composer Gunther Schuller writes about Morton's "hyperbolic assertions" that there is "no proof to the contrary" and that Morton's "considerable accomplishments in themselves provide reasonable substantiation".
Actors: Ennio Morricone (composer), Maurizio Millenotti (costume designer), Giuseppe Tornatore (writer), Pruitt Taylor Vince (actor), Peter Vaughan (actor), Anita Zagaria (actress), Marco Chimenz (producer), Bryan Pringle (actor), Nicola Di Pinto (actor), Clarence Williams III (actor), Tim Roth (actor), Bill Nunn (actor), Kevin McNally (actor), Giuseppe Tornatore (director), Heathcote Williams (actor),
Plot: Shortly after the Second World War, Max, a transplanted American, visits an English pawn shop to sell his trumpet. The shopkeeper recognizes the tune Max plays as one on a wax master of an unreleased recording, discovered and restored from shards found in a piano salvaged from a cruise ship turned hospital ship, now slated for demolition. This chance discovery prompts a story from Max, which he relates both to the shopkeeper and later to the official responsible for the doomed vessel, for Max is a born storyteller. Though now down on his luck and disillusioned by his wartime experiences, the New Orleans-born Max was once an enthusiastic and gifted young jazz musician, whose longest gig was several years with the house band aboard the Virginian, a posh cruise ship. While gaining his sea legs, he was befriended by another young man, the pianist in the same band, whose long unlikely name was Danny Boodman T.D. Lemons 1900, though everyone just called him 1900, the year of his birth. Abandoned in first class by his immigrant parents, 1900 was found and adopted by Danny, a stoker, and raised in the engine rooms, learning to read by reading horseracing reports to his adoptive dad. After Danny's death in an accident, 1900 remained on the ship. Increasingly lured by the sound of the piano in the first-class ballroom, he eventually became a gifted pianist, a great jazz improvisationist, a composer of rich modern music inspired by his intense observation of the life around him, the stories passengers on all levels of the ship trusted him enough to tell. He also grew up to be a charming, iconoclastic young man, at once shrewd and oddly innocent. His talent earned him such accolades that he was challenged by, and bested Jelly Roll Morton in an intense piano duel that had poor Max chewing paper on the sofa in agonies of suspense. And yet for all the richness and variety of his musical expression, he never left the ship, except almost, once, in the aftermath of his infatuation with a beautiful young woman immigrant who inspired the music committed to the master Max discovers in the pawnshop. Max realizes that 1900 must still be on the ship, and determines to find him, and to find out once and for all why he has so consistently refused to leave.
Keywords: 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, abandoned-baby, abandonment, accident, accidental-death, accordion, babyDid they used to call you sissy?
Er, well, no, they didn’t . . . they didn’t call me
sissy, but they always said that, er, that, er, a piano
was a girl’s instrument. So then I had taken to the
guitar, er, that was due to the fact that my godmother
was always interested in me. And I become to be a very
efficient guitarist, until I met, er, Bud Scott, one of
the famous guitarists in this country today. I was
known to be the best. And when I found out that, er, he
was dividing with me my popularity, I decided
immediately to quit playing guitar and try the piano,
which I did secretly — that is, with the exception of
my family. They’re the only ones that knew.
I taken lessons. I tried under different teachers and
I’d find that most of them were fakes, those days. They
couldn’t read very much theirselves. During that time
they used to have, er, in the Sunday papers different
tunes come out, and when these tunes would come out, it
would be my desire to have to play these tunes
correctly.
At the time I had a coloured teacher by the name of
Mrs. Moment. Mr. Moment was no . . . Mrs. Moment was no
doubt the biggest ham of a teacher that I’ve ever heard
or seen since or before. She fooled me all the time.
When I’d take these numbers and place in front of her,
she would rattle them off like nobody’s business. And
at about the third one she rattled off sound like the
first one. Then I began to get wise and wouldn’t take
lessons any further. Then I demanded I would either go
by myself and learn the best way I knew how, or be
placed under an efficient teacher, which I was then
placed under a teacher at the St. Joseph University, a
Catholic University in, in the city of New Orleans.
And I become to learn under the Catholic tutelage,
which was quite efficient. I then later taken lessons
from a, a known professor, coloured professor, named
Professor Nickerson, which is considered very good. I
tell you things was driving along then.
Then one day at the French Opera House, going there
with, with my folks, I happened to notice a pianist
there that didn’t wear long hair. That was the first
time I decided that the instrument was good for a
gentleman, same as it was a lady.
What was his name and when was this?
Well, I don’t remember his name but I . . . undoubtedly
I was . . . must have been about ten years old. I don’t
remember his name.
That was about when?
Well, er, er, that was no doubt about the year of
nineteen ninety-f . . . er, er, eighteen ninety-five.
Was he from France?
Well, he’s supposed to be. All the French Opera players
was supposed to be from France. I remember the old
building very well on Royal Street.
Do you remember any of the stuff they used . . . the
pianists used to play in the French Opera?
Well, they used to play numbers like “Faust” and tunes
like that, you know — French numbers. And for an
instant, they used to play this number and sing it and
. . .
Miserere [begun]
Did they, er, play any Debussy? Do you remember?
What was that?
Did they play any Debussy?
Well, I don’t remember now, it’s . . .
Did you ever hear . . . of a composer named Gottschalk?
Yes.
Did they use to play his stuff around there?
No doubt they did, but I was kind of young at that
time. This is “Miserere” from Il Trovatore.