in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 20, 1890. As a

child he began to learn how to play the piano at age

10 years old. He was taught by Tony Jackson, composer

of songs like “Pretty Boy” and other hits. Tony

Jackson is among the few musicians whom Morton admired

and respected. He called Jackson “ the greatest

single-handed entertainers in the world.” After the

death of his mother, Morton began playing in

whorehouses and in the bordellos of the Storyville

district of New Orleans. There he became active as a

gambler, pool shark, and a lot of things that caused

his grandmother to throw him out of the house as a bum

and a scalawag. She did not want him around his two

little sisters. As a wanderer, and during the fair of

1904, he began traveling such cities as Chicago, Los

Angeles, St. Louis, and Denver playing with various

musical organizations as an in demand musician but he

could never stay long with one band. “He couldn’t stay

long in one band too long because he was too eccentric

and too temperamental, and he was a one-man band

himself“, said by bandleader George Morrison whom

Morton played for in Denver. Morton really wanted to

over sixteen small-band sides for Victor, Inc. Pieces

renditions of his own work. Morton traveled to

his recording debut under the company’s Gennet label.

health would not let him make a contribution. Jelly

piano solos were brilliant but the band sides were

He recorded six solo numbers and retuned a year later

about twelve piano solos and twelve band sides. The

Dodds, Johnny St. Cry, and Baby Dodds. They recorded

Some topics in this essay:
William Rossiter, Tony Jackson, Library Congress, Blood Blues, Pearls Morton’s, Louis Denver, Piano Company, Roll Morton, St Louis, Washington DC, stay band, jelly roll, red hot, tony jackson, morton moved, piano solos, st louis,