Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West [Paperback] Review

Jelly Roll Morton, the self proclaimed "inventor of Jazz," remains one of the most complex figures in American music.Largely forgotten by the time of his death, Morton had pioneered the early New Orleans style jazz on record and seemed to be on the comeback trail and to be experimenting with the dominant swing style of the 1930s.Pastras provides an insight into Morton by examining his years on the West Coast(roughly the late teens to early twenties and then again in the early 1940s).The first period was among Morton's most satisfying both musically and personally, and the second seems to indicate an attempt at a comeback.Pastras sheds light on Morton's relationships with his godmother and his long time companaion Anita Gonzales and in the process examines the roles played by voodoo and "passing for white" among the Creole community.While the contributions of this book are many, one of the main thrusts is the often conflicting and, at times untrustworthy, nature of oral history as evidenced by Alan Lomax's previous oral history biography of Morton.In the end Lomax's book is more folklore than history.However this does not negate Lomax's contribution, but rather illuminates the pitfalls of not balancing oral history with other evidence if such evidence exists.It is Morton as he wished to present himself to the world. Pastras' text is not only interesting but instructive to those dealing with oral history, but the average reader may want to start with Lomax's book and then move to Pastras' more compelling investigation.

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Raise Up Off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes [Paperback] Review

If you like jazz, get your hands on this book and read it! Its humor, honesty, attention to detail, and readability put other autobiographies (mingus, miles) to shame.
Hawes was the bluesiest of the beboppers and could rightly be called the unrecognized father of hard bop.Unfortunately, he also had a herion habit that crippled his career.For more on that, read the book.Some of his recordings are still in print.Give them a listen, and then start calling DeCapo Press to get them to reprint this jazz literature classic!END

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Product Description:
Hampton Hawes [1928-1977] was one of jazz's greatest pianists. Among his peers from California the self-taught Hawes was second only to Oscar Peterson. At the time of his celebration as New Star of the Year by downbeat magazine (1956), Hawes was already struggling with a heroin addiction that would lead to his arrest and imprisonment, and the interruption of a brilliant career. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy granted Hawes an Executive Pardon. In eloquent and humorous language Hampton Hawes tells of a life of suffering and redemption that reads like an improbable novel. Gary Giddins has called it a major contribution to the literature of jazz. This book includes a complete discography and eight pages of photographs.

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Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz" [Paperback] Review

This is one of the rare books for it can be enjoyed by just about anyone who picks it up.Its the amazing account of the life of Jelly Roll Morton, one of the best jazz pianists of all time.Though a braggart and troubled man, he created some of the very best pieces of jazz.The book goes into his life from his childhood and his time working at Storyville to the very troubled end in the early forties.You learn about his family, his troubled relationships with Anita and Mabel and how he went from being wildly successful to dying virtually forgotten.Voodoo, New Orleans, jazz and Creole culture, its all here.
Written with flair and never boring, Mr. Jelly Roll is a book that you will read more than once.Its a look at a legend and a glimpse into a world we can only know of through books and music.Get this if you want a good read and a look at Mr. Morton's life.A true classic.

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Product Description:
When it appeared in 1950, this biography of Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton became an instant classic of jazz literature. Now back in print and updated with a new afterword by Lawrence Gushee, Mister Jelly Roll will enchant a new generation of readers with the fascinating story of one of the world's most influential composers of jazz. Jelly Roll's voice spins out his life in something close to song, each sentence rich with the sound and atmosphere of the period in which Morton, and jazz, exploded on the American and international scene. This edition includes scores of Jelly Roll's own arrangements, a discography and an updated bibliography, a chronology of his compositions, a new genealogical tree of Jelly Roll's forebears, and Alan Lomax's preface from the hard-to-find 1993 edition of this classic work. Lawrence Gushee's afterword provides new factual information and reasserts the importance of this work of African American biography to the study of jazz and American culture.

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Ferdinand Jelly Roll Morton: The Collected Piano Music: Piano Solo (Piano Collection) [Paperback] Review

The transcriptions of Jelly Roll's piano pieces are unbelievable; An exact (as far as I can tell) note-for-note transciption of piano rolls, recordings, solo's, and the majority - live performances. There is also great information on each piece. For Advanced piano players only.

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A stunning, comprehensive volume prepared in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institute. The world's first jazz critical edition. Contents: New Orleans Blues (New Orleans Joys) * Grandpa's Spells * Wolverine Blues (The Wolverines) * Mamanita * Frog-I-More Rag (Froggie Moore/Sweetheart O'Mine) * London Blues (London Cafe Blues/Shoe Shiner's Drag) * Shreveport Stomp * Big Foot Ham (Big Fat Ham/Ham and Eggs) * Tom Cat Blues (Midnight Mama) * Stratford Hunch (Chicago Breakdown) * Perfect Rag (Sporting House Rag) * Mr. Jelly Lord * Black Bottom Stomp (Queen of Spades) * Dead Man Blues * Cannonball Blues * Billy Goat Stomp * Wild Man Blues (Ted Lewis Blues) * Georgia Swing * Boogaboo * Seattle Hunch * Frances (Fat Frances) * Dixie Knows * Kansas City Stomp (Kansas City Stomps) * Jelly Roll Blues (Original Jelly Roll Blues/Chicago Blues) * Fickle Fay Creek (Soap Suds) * Jungle Blues * Sweet Peter * Hyena Stomp * State and Madison * Bert Williams * Freakish * Pep * Creepy Feeling * Spanish Swat * The Pearls * Fingerbuster (Fingerbreaker) * Honky Tonk Music * The Crave * Mister Joe (Buffalo Blues) * King Porter Stomp *

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