Hobart Smith - Blue Ridge Legacy

Ok here's a real haunt. I mean a real old-school, dirt-road revenant. The mad stylings of MC Hob'. A one-man mountain. A freakish genius with a penchant for coaxing twisted gnarled jewels out of old musical roots. What can I say? He's as wild as a jackrabbit and as unbelievable as a jackelope. There's nobody like him. Not even Roscoe Holcomb, and he probably comes closest. I mean, Hobart can whip out 'Cindy' as a fiddle-banjo duet (i forget which he plays in this version, since he can do both... for all i know he's probably playing them simultaneously... freak...) which is pretty standard fare for your every day old-time throw-in-an-extra-bar-this-time-around mountain music, but then he completely turns the tune on its head playing it on old-time mountain PIANO. The way this guy plays, it seems like the only thing that's keeping the tune from falling apart is the instrument, which itself sounds like it's about to fall apart. But that's what makes it so compelling: he pushes every tune to the breaking point -- one step further and you'll fall over trying to dance to it. Then you apply this breaking point philosophy to a death-knell song like Last Chance. And the result is something as unforgettably haunting as Blind Willie Johnson or Dock Boggs, and a mite odder as well.

Rounder product description:
This collection of ballads, reels, and blues is the legacy of a Renaissance mountain man: Hobart Smith of Virginia. This Appalachian virtuoso was many things: a forceful singer, a brilliant guitarist, a masterful fiddler, a spellbinding banjoist, an innovative pianist, and a musical giant whose influence on old-timey music and the folk revival remains uncharted.

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Bio:
Hobart Smith was born on Little Mouton, Saltville, VA on May 10, 1897. Smith was the oldest of four brothers in a family of eight children born to King and Louvenia Smith. Both his parents were banjo pickers; his sister, Texas Gladden, a noted ballad singer.

Hobart began playing the banjo when he was seven, later the guitar and the fiddle. His repertoire of instruments also included piano, organ, harp, mandolin and most any other stringed instrument.

Recording magnate, folk and country music authority Alan Lomas of New York was the first to record Hobart. Lomas called Smith "the best mountain instrumentalist that I've ever found, and the forty-two recordings in the Library of Congress will always stand as proof of that."

Later in his life, Smith performed in two movies to be used in a cultural exchange program with other countries. During his lifetime, Hobart Smith performed at Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Constitution Hall, Washington, D. C., Radio City Music Hall and for Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. He also gave performances and seminars at many colleges in the Eastern part of the United States.

Throughout his life of entertainment, he performed with such well-known people as Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez; Judy Collins; Doc Watson; Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Music critics across the country praised Smith's work as being "the best that they had ever heart" (Chicago Daily News).

"One can learn so much about the Southern Mountain instrumental style by listening to Smith's banjo and fiddle...his singing is in a hard-cider rural voice, alive with feeling" (New York Times).

Hobart once said, "I grew up with music and I'm still trying to play". His last performance was on October 11, 1963 in Chicago, IL for which he received a standing ovation. On January 11, 1965, Hobart Smith went home to rest on Little Mountain. His music lives on!


"I GREW UP INTO IT"
as told by Hobart Smith

I started playing the banjo when I was seven years old. When I was three, I commenced playin' on an old fire shovel. I was raised in an old log house that had a fireplace and my mother had a bar that went across the fireplace with hooks that came down to cook her stuff in the pots and then she had a big oven and lid and she'd bake her bread and pull out those coals with that shovel — cover it up with red-hot coals, you know — and bake her bread thataway. We didn't have any cook-stove at that time. They said I was just three years old, I'd get that fire shovel and just pick on it; and they asked me what I was pickin' and I just said "Sour Colics!"

Now, I call my style of banjer pickin' the old-timey rappin' style. I learned it from my daddy. When I was seven years old, I could play a tune on the banjer. So, my daddy, seein' I was interested in it, he ordered me a little, small, short-necked banjer from Sears-Roebuck and I commenced pickin' on the banjer when I was seven years old.

Well, after that, I got onto a gittar — I commenced playin' that. Now, the first guitar I ever owned, I worked in a corn field and bought it. I gave four dollars for it. I was fourteen years old then. So, then I liked the fiddle. I got on the fiddle after that. I got to playin' 'em all and all of 'em sounded pretty good to me.

My father and mother was both banjer pickers. I started the banjer at home. I didn't learn the gittar at home; I learned it from different men. Now, the first of the gittar playin' that I really liked was when a bunch of colored men came in there, oh, way back yonder. I was just about fourteen or fifteen years old. It was along about that time that Blind Lemon Jefferson came through and he stayed around there about a month. He stayed with the other colored fellers and they worked on the railroad there, and he'd just play and sing to entertain the men in that work camp. I think right about there I started on the gittar. I liked his type of playin'. I just watched his fingers and got the music in my head and then I'd thumb around till I found what I was wantin' on the strings.

The way it was with me, I just grew up and it seemed like I had a feelin' in me when I'd hear this old-time music. Well, I didn't hear anything else, you know, for years and years. I didn't know anything about this fingering the banjer (Scruggs-style three-finger picking). That hadn't come out yet. Everybody rapped the banjer. I'd get around old folks that played a banjer and I'd listen to that and was just as full of music as I could be. It'd just register on me up and down like a thermometer. And, you see, I'd get that in my ear and then I'd get ahold of that banjer.

You've first got to get the tune in your mind and then find it with your fingers — keep on till you find what you want on that neck. But keep that tune in your mind just like you can hear it a-playin'. I've been to the cornfield many of a time when I was a farmer and I'd hear a good fiddle tune or a good banjer pieces and I'd commence whistlin' it. And I'd whistle that till my mouth got so tired, and I'd go home keepin' it on my mind. I'd go pretty fast and I'd whistle all the way into the holler on the mountain and my banjer would be hangin' on the wall. Sometimes I'd forget where it was at, and I'd whistle right loud and that banjer would answer me on the wall and I'd go get her. I'd keep that tune right on my mind and I'd find that tune on the strings before I'd quit.

There was a feller I was raised up with by the name of John Greer. The fact about it — all of my banjer pickin' is John Greer's type. Now, my daddy picked a banjer; he picked the old-timey rap. I can play it just like him. He kept his thumb on the thumb string and that thumb string was just a-goin' all the time. Now, John Greer come along and went from thumb string to the bottom, double-notin', and he was the best man I ever heard on that banjer. And I patterned after him. "Coo-Coo Bird" and "The Banging Breakdown" I got from John Greer.

Now the first fiddle that ever I heard in my life, when I was a kid — there was an old colored man who was raised up in slave times. His name was Jim Spencer. He played "Jinny Put the Kettle On" and all those old tunes like that, you know. And he would come up to our house and he'd play one night for us, and he'd go over to my uncle's and play one night for them, and then go down to my aunt's in the other holler — we lived in three different hollers in the mountains, you know. He'd make a round. Now, that was the first fiddling I ever heard in my life, although both my grandaddies were fiddlers. But my granddaddy on my mother's side died of TB in the old Civil War and my other grandaddy, I never did hear him but saw a little bit on it, buy my daddy said he used to be a good fiddler. So, I'd hear old-timey fiddlers in different places and I"d just get it in my head and work it out with my fingers.

We'd have a square dance in the community twice a week. We'd have one on Wednesday night and Saturday night. But then, in my home, all of my kinfolk would meet and my daddy would pick the banjo and we'd dance to twelve o'clock every night of the week. We'd go to the mountain and get us some back-logs to throw on this fireplace to throw the heat out. The boys would all help us drag wood off'n the mountain and then we'd fire up that fire and your legs'd be burnin' off and your back a-chillin', but we really enjoyed it. The way they would do the square dance in them days, they'd have one in one person's house, say tonight – say"Where'll we have the next 'un?" – "In my house, tomorrow night." Just like prayer meetin'; catch it around from house to house. There was square cancan every night. They'd work pretty hard during the day, but they'd get ready for it. They'd come in and get washed and they were ready for it.

My first life was farming. My daddy'd farmed all his life and I went into farming. And I went into wagoning long before the trucks came around, you know, or any cars at all. My daddy had a team and I had a team and we'd haul coal for people and move people and go to the station and get trunks out. And then I'm a pretty good painter; I used to paint a whole lot. And I was a butcher; I worked with the Olin-Mathieson people for twelve years, a-butchering for 'em. At the time of the first World War, I had got married and was lookin' for my first kid. Well, I got fourth class and the war never lasted but sixteen months and I never was called.

Me and my sister, Texas, went on Whitetop for the festivals. I met Horton Barker and Richard Chase at Whitetop. We played for Mrs. Roosevelt there in '36. Then, after she went back, she sent a telegram to Roanoke, to my sister, wantin' to know if we'd come up to the White House and sing some of those old songs. She wanted her husband to hear 'em. And so we did go. We went up there and spent a couple of nights with them and we had a program.

I had a band. I had two boys that played with me. I played with Tom (Clarence) Ashley thirty or thirty-five years ago. I played in a minstrel show for two years. I played my own music and danced my own music — that's one curiosity that everybody thought so much about. No, I wasn't makin' a livin' out of it. We'd just go places and play and maybe they'd give us so much. I played in dance halls back along in Hoover's time, you know, when you couldn't get ahold of a dollar nowhere. I played the fiddle the most — tunes like "Golden Slippers" and "Coming Around the Mountain" — for dances.

The fact about it — I went into this pop'lar stuff and got to playin' on that and then when I got in with Alan Lomax in 1942, he wanted me to pull back into the old folk music. And he said, "Don't you ever leave it no more!" I had just about left it. I hadn't owned a banjer in twenty-five years till the Vega people sent me that banjer from Boston as a gift several years ago. Pete Seeger got 'em to send it. I hadn't owned one in twenty-five years. Maybe I'd go to somebody's house and there'd be a banjer sittin' there and maybe I'd pick it up and play just one tune and set it down. I'd been playin' the fiddle and the gittar and the piano. And, you see, all of those old pieces on the banjer was just gettin' away from me and I didn't fool with 'em. But after I got this new banjer, why it came back to me in just a little time. In thirty days I was back just as good as I ever was.

So, I've had a life in music ever since I was a kid. I grew up into it and I'm still tryin' to play it.


Alan Lomax Collection: Portraits
Hobart Smith - Blue Ridge Legacy
Released 01/01/2001
Label: Rounder

Tracks:
1 - The Devil's Dream - 02:29
2 - Drunken Hiccups - 02:50
3 - The Cuckoo Bird - 02:40
4 - Banging Breakdown - 01:00
5 - Arkansas Traveller - 01:43
6 - Railroad Bill - 02:58
7 - Clause Allen - 03:36
8 - Hangman, Swing Your Rope - 03:26
9 - Wayfaring Stranger - 02:03
10 - Sourwood Mountain (Piano) - 01:22
11 - Going Down the Road Feeling Bad - 01:19
12 - Pateroller - 01:44
13 - Chinquipin Pie - 01:50
14 - Last Chance - 02:20
15 - Jim Along - 02:28
16 - Two brothers (The Little Schoolboy) - 03:55
17 - Ellen Smith - 02:27
18 - Graveyard Blues - 03:24
19 - K.C. Blues - 03:05
20 - Unidentified electric guitar tune - 02:20
21 - Cindy (string band) - 01:23
22 - At an Old-Time Dance (interview) - 04:45
23 - Cindy (piano) - 02:02
24 - The Thrill of Dance Music (interview) - 00:22
25 - What Did the Buzzard Say to the Crow? - 01:40
26 - Buck Dance - 01:30
27 - Old Joe Clark - 01:55
28 - Dixie - 02:25
29 - Sourwood Mountain (banjo) - 01:06
30 - Hawkins County Jail - 02:41
31 - Rocky Mountain - 01:43

what'd he say?
mp3 128kbps | w/ cover | 64mb

you unrepentant Faheyites will notice Cindy is the melody that JF used for 'Tell Her to Come Back Home'

and if you like this and want more, there's another disc available from Rounder or at the Broke Down Engine archive.

Jelly Roll Morton Centennial: His Complete Victor Recordings (1926-1939)

I remember one day, probably over the dinner table, and seemingly out of nowhere, my dad said to me, "So you know, Jazz is basically all about sex." Such a thought had never occurred to me, nor did it make much sense at the time, since my notion of jazz was mostly the abstracted bebop of New York. But over the ensuing years, I became more familiar with New Orleans music and early 20th Century American music in general, I realized it was true. Well, ok, some songs were about reefer, but most of the rest really were about sex, or if not nominally about sex, it was an ever-present undercurrent. There is a strutting quality to New Orleans jazz, as well as a dark and primal power that can be found in Jelly Roll Morton's music. This raised eyebrow and lick of the lips became diluted as jazz was passed into the hands of white people in the northern cities.

Actually, as he told Lomax some years later, Morton had to write incredibly racy, saucy lines or else people would take him - a slender, long-fingered piano-player (piano was considered a lady's instrument at the time) - to be of the queer, effeet variety, and that would have been (carreer) suicide.

There's also a joyful exuberance to this work that lies just on the cusp of total anarchy and chaos but is tightly structured enough to come barreling through in one piece.


THE DOZENS: JELLY ROLL MORTON by Rob Bamberger

It’s evening in Washington, D.C., and the year is 1938. Pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton, who had once known far better times, tuned in his radio to Robert Ripley’s popular broadcast, “Believe It Or Not.” Ripley’s guest was W.C. Handy, the man who composed or set down some of the most popular blues tunes of all—notably the “St. Louis Blues,” “Memphis,” and “Beale Street Blues.” When Handy was introduced as the originator of jazz and the blues, Morton went uncorked and fired off a 4000-word screed to the Baltimore Afro-American and Downbeat magazine. “W.C. Handy is a liar,” was the headline of the Baltimore paper.

“Dear Mr. Ripley,” wrote Morton, “you have done me a great injustice and you have almost misled many of your fans… . It is evidently known, beyond contradiction that New Orleans is the cradle of jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902. . . .” Morton signed his letter and titled himself the “Originator of Jazz and Stomps, Victor Artist, World’s Greatest Hot Tune Writer.”

It is always a tricky thing in jazz to declare “firsts” and ascribe invention to anyone because so much of the music in its early years took place away from the recording horn and out of earshot. Nonetheless, it is beyond denying that Morton, in his nomadic wanderings during the early twentieth century, codified a wealth of influences into a music that broke from the stiffness of ragtime to fashion a nascent jazz that was greater than the sum of its parts.

Biography by Scott Yanow

One of the very first giants of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth, claiming to have invented jazz in 1902. Morton's accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth.

Morton was jazz's first great composer, writing such songs as "King Porter Stomp," "Grandpa's Spells," "Wolverine Blues," "The Pearls," "Mr. Jelly Roll," "Shreveport Stomp," "Milenburg Joys," "Black Bottom Stomp," "The Chant," "Original Jelly Roll Blues," "Doctor Jazz," "Wild Man Blues," "Winin' Boy Blues," "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say," "Don't You Leave Me Here," and "Sweet Substitute." He was a talented arranger (1926's "Black Bottom Stomp" is remarkable), getting the most out of the three-minute limitations of the 78 record by emphasizing changing instrumentation, concise solos and dynamics. He was a greatly underrated pianist who had his own individual style. Although he only took one vocal on records in the 1920s ("Doctor Jazz"), Morton in his late-'30s recordings proved to be an effective vocalist. And he was a true character.

Jelly Roll Morton's pre-1923 activities are shrouded in legend. He started playing piano when he was ten, worked in the bordellos of Storyville while a teenager (for which some of his relatives disowned him) and by 1904 was traveling throughout the South. He spent time in other professions (as a gambler, pool player, vaudeville comedian and even a pimp) but always returned to music. The chances are good that in 1915 Morton had few competitors among pianists and he was an important transition figure between ragtime and early jazz. He played in Los Angeles from 1917-1922 and then moved to Chicago where, for the next six years, he was at his peak. Morton's 1923-24 recordings of piano solos introduced his style, repertoire and brilliance. Although his earliest band sides were quite primitive, his 1926-27 recordings for Victor with his Red Hot Peppers are among the most exciting of his career. With such sidemen as cornetist George Mitchell, Kid Ory or Gerald Reeves on trombone, clarinetists Omer Simeon, Barney Bigard, Darnell Howard or Johnny Dodds, occasionally Stomp Evans on C-melody, Johnny St. Cyr or Bud Scott on banjo, bassist John Lindsay and either Andrew Hilaire or Baby Dodds on drums, Morton had the perfect ensembles for his ideas. He also recorded some exciting trios with Johnny and Baby Dodds.

With the center of jazz shifting to New York by 1928, Morton relocated. His bragging ways unfortunately hurt his career and he was not able to always get the sidemen he wanted. His Victor recordings continued through 1930 and, although some of the performances are sloppy or erratic, there were also a few more classics. Among the musicians Morton was able to use on his New York records were trumpeters Ward Pinkett, Red Allen and Bubber Miley, trombonists Geechie Fields, Charles Irvis and J.C. Higginbotham, clarinetists Omer Simeon, Albert Nicholas and Barney Bigard, banjoist Lee Blair, guitarist Bernard Addison, Bill Benford on tuba, bassist Pops Foster and drummers Tommy Benford, Paul Barbarin and Zutty Singleton.

But with the rise of the Depression, Jelly Roll Morton drifted into obscurity. He had made few friends in New York, his music was considered old-fashioned and he did not have the temperament to work as a sideman. During 1931-37 his only appearance on records was on a little-known Wingy Manone date. He ended up playing in a Washington D.C. dive for patrons who had little idea of his contributions. Ironically Morton's "King Porter Stomp" became one of the most popular songs of the swing era, but few knew that he wrote it. However in 1938 Alan Lomax recorded him in an extensive and fascinating series of musical interviews for the Library of Congress. Morton's storytelling was colorful and his piano playing in generally fine form as he reminisced about old New Orleans and demonstrated the other piano styles of the era. A decade later the results would finally be released on albums.

Morton arrived in New York in 1939 determined to make a comeback. He did lead a few band sessions with such sidemen as Sidney Bechet, Red Allen and Albert Nicholas and recorded some wonderful solo sides but none of those were big sellers. In late 1940, an ailing Morton decided to head out to Los Angeles but, when he died at the age of 50, he seemed like an old man. Ironically his music soon became popular again as the New Orleans jazz revivalist movement caught fire and, if he had lived just a few more years, the chances are good that he would have been restored to his former prominence (as was Kid Ory).

Jelly Roll Morton's early piano solos and classic Victor recordings (along with nearly every record he made) have been reissued on CD.

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Wikipedia:
Birth
Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe was born into a Creole community in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana 1890. A baptismal certificate issued in 1894 lists his date of birth as October 20, 1890; however Morton himself and his half-sisters claimed the September 20, 1885, date is correct. His World War I draft registration card shows September 13, 1884. He was born to F.P. Lamothe and Louise Monette (written as Lemott and Monett on his baptismal certificate). Eulaley Haco (Eulalie Hécaud) was the godparent. Eulalie helped him to be christened with the name Ferdinand. Ferdinand’s parents were in a common-law marriage and not legally married. No birth certificate has been found to date. He took the name "Morton" by Anglicizing the name of his stepfather, Mouton.

New Orleans
He was, along with Tony Jackson, one of the best regarded pianists in the Storyville District early in the 20th century. At the age of fourteen, he began working as a piano player in a brothel (or as it was referred to then, a sporting house.) While working there, he was living with his religious church-going great-grandmother and had her convinced that he worked in a barrel factory.

Morton's grandmother eventually found out that he was playing jazz in a local brothel, and subsequently kicked him out of her house. "When my grandmother found out that I was playing jazz in one of the sporting houses in the District, she told me that I had disgraced the family and forbade me to live at the house... She told me that devil music would surely bring about my downfall, but I just couldn't put it behind me." Tony Jackson was a major influence on his music; according to Morton, Jackson was the only pianist better than him; he was also a pianist at whorehouses, as well as an accomplished guitar player.

Touring
Around 1904, Morton started wandering the American South, working with minstrel shows, gambling and composing. His works "Jelly Roll Blues," "New Orleans Blues," "Frog-I-More Rag," "Animule Dance" and "King Porter Stomp" were composed during this period. He got to Chicago in 1910 and New York City in 1911, where future stride greats James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith caught his act, years before the blues were widely played in the North. In 1912–1914 he toured with girlfriend Rosa Brown as a vaudeville act before settling in Chicago for three years. By 1914 he had started writing down his compositions, and in 1915 his "Jelly Roll Blues" was arguably the first jazz composition ever published, recording as sheet music the New Orleans traditions that had been jealously guarded by the musicians. In 1917 he followed bandleader Bill Johnson and Johnson's sister Anita Gonzalez to California, where Morton's tango "The Crave" made a sensation amongst the early Hollywood set.

Chicago
Morton moved back to Chicago in 1923 to claim authorship of his recently-published rag "The Wolverines" which had become a hit as "Wolverine Blues" in the Windy City. There he released the first of his commercial recordings, first as piano rolls, then on record, both as a piano soloist and with various jazz bands.

In 1926, Morton succeeded in getting a contract to make recordings for the US's largest and most prestigious company, Victor. This gave him a chance to bring a well-rehearsed band to play his arrangements in Victor's Chicago recording studios. These recordings by Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers are regarded as classics of 1920s jazz. The Red Hot Peppers featured such other New Orleans jazz luminaries as Kid Ory, Omer Simeon, George Mitchell, Johnny St. Cyr, Barney Bigard, Johnny Dodds, and Baby Dodds. Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers were one of the first acts booked on tours by MCA.

New York City
In November 1928 Morton married showgirl Mabel Bertrand in Gary, Indiana and moved to New York City, where he continued to record for Victor. His piano solos and trio recordings are well regarded, but his band recordings suffer in comparison with the Chicago sides where Morton could draw on many great New Orleans musicians for sidemen. Although he did record with such great musicians as clarinetists Omer Simeon, George Baquet, Albert Nicholas, Wilton Crawley, Barney Bigard, Lorenzo Tio and Artie Shaw, trumpeters Bubber Miley, Johnny Dunn and Henry "Red" Allen, saxophonists Sidney Bechet, Paul Barnes and Bud Freeman, bassist Pops Foster, and drummers Paul Barbarin, Cozy Cole and Zutty Singleton, Morton generally had trouble finding musicians who wanted to play his style of jazz, and his New York sessions failed to produce a hit. With the Great Depression and the near collapse of the phonograph record industry, Morton's recording contract was not renewed by Victor for 1931. Morton continued playing less prosperously in New York, briefly had a radio show in 1934, then was reduced to touring in the band of a traveling burlesque act while his compositions were recorded by Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman and others, though he received no royalties from these recordings.

Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress interviews
In 1935, Morton moved to Washington, DC, to become manager and piano player at a dive called at various times the "Music Box", "Blue Moon Inn" and "Jungle Inn" in the African American neighborhood of Shaw. (The building that hosted the nightclub still stands, at 1211 U Street NW.) Morton was also the master of ceremonies, bouncer, and bartender of the club. He was only in Washington for a few years; the club was owned by a woman named Cordelia who allowed all her friends free admission and drinks, which prevented Morton from making the business a success. When Morton got stabbed by one of her disgruntled friends in 1938 in which he suffered wounds to the head and chest, his wife Mabel demanded that he depart Washington. There is speculation the attack may have contributed to his early demise.

However, it was during his brief residency at the Music Box that folklorist Alan Lomax first heard Morton playing piano in the bar. In May 1938, Lomax invited Morton to record music and interviews for the Library of Congress. The sessions, originally intended as a short interview with musical examples for use by music researchers in the Library of Congress, soon expanded to record more than eight hours of Morton talking and playing piano, in addition to longer interviews during which Lomax took notes but did not record. Despite the low fidelity of these non-commercial recordings, their musical and historical importance attracted jazz fans, and they have helped to assure Morton's place in jazz history.

Lomax was very interested in Morton's Storyville days and some of the off-color songs played in Storyville. Morton was reluctant to recount and record these, but eventually obliged Lomax. Morton's "Jelly Roll" nickname is a sexual reference and many of his lyrics from his Storyville days were vulgar. Some of the Library of Congress recordings were unreleased until near the end of the 20th century due to their nature.

Morton was aware that if he had been born in 1890, he would have been slightly too young to make a good case for himself as the actual inventor of jazz, and so may have presented himself as being five years older than he actually was, and his statement that Buddy Bolden played ragtime but not jazz is not accepted by consensus of Bolden's other New Orleans contemporaries. It is possible, however, that the contradictions may stem from different definitions for the terms "ragtime" and "jazz". Most of the rest of Morton's reminiscences, however, have proven to be reliable.

These interviews, released in various forms over the years, were released on an eight-CD boxed set in 2005, The Complete Library of Congress Recordings. This collection won two Grammy Awards. The same year, Morton was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Later years
During the period when he was recording his interviews, Morton was seriously injured by knife wounds when a fight broke out at the Washington, D.C. establishment where he was playing. A nearby whites-only hospital refused to treat him, and he had to be transported to a lower-quality hospital further away. When he was in the hospital the doctors left ice on his wounds for several hours before attending to his eventually fatal injury. His recovery from his wounds was incomplete, and thereafter he was often ill and easily became short of breath. Morton made a new series of commercial recordings in New York, several recounting tunes from his early years that he had been talking about in his Library of Congress Interviews.

Death
A worsening asthma affliction sent him to a New York hospital for three months at one point and when visiting Los Angeles with a series of manuscripts of new tunes and arrangements, planning to form a new band and restart his career, the ailment took its toll. Morton died on July 10, 1941, aged 51 or 56, after an eleven-day stay in Los Angeles County General Hospital.

here are some song reviews:

Original Jelly Roll Blues:
Comparing Morton’s piano solo recording of the “Jelly Roll Blues” [on his Library of Congress Recordings] with this version by his Red Hot Peppers affords an opportunity to hear how Morton translated a piano composition into an ensemble format. Whether as a piano solo or band side, the "Jelly Roll Blues" is replete with choruses of what Morton described as the "Spanish tinge," inspired by the tangos he recalled from his New Orleans youth. This tune came to make such an impression that Shelton Brooks included a reference to it—"when they play those 'Jelly Roll Blues'"—in his lyrics to the "Darktown Strutters' Ball."

Black Bottom Stomp:
This recording was added to the Library of Congress National Sound Registry in 2006, and it sums up in three minutes the essence of New Orleans jazz—and what differentiates it from “Dixieland.” New Orleans style had, at its center, a reliance on ensemble polyphony. The instruments in the front line—trumpet, clarinet and trombone—have different but complementary functions that, in the hands of musicians skilled in the tradition, allow all three instruments to play simultaneously without creating a musical hash. Morton’s aesthetic is on display: By balancing the ensemble and the soloists, and peppering the performance with instrumental breaks, a stop-time passage and more, the “Black Bottom Stomp” takes on compositional form, but never at any sacrifice of the New Orleans spirit that lies at its heart.

Doctor Jazz:
Morton sometimes worked as an entertainer during his nomadic years, and fancied himself a great comic. But the sketch openings on a few of his records reveal that Morton’s sense of humor was devoid of subtlety for anything but a tent show audience. Morton’s inability to outgrow the conventions of early twentieth-century vaudeville account in part for the lack of common ground between Morton and the new generation of swing musicians in New York during the 1930s. However, as a singer and raconteur, Morton was nonpareil, as he is on “Dr. Jazz.” Jelly’s elongated “Well” at the start of his vocal (more like “Wal-l-l-l-llll”) sounds like a cicada with strep and draws us right to the side of ‘ole Dr. Jazz.

Wolverine Blues:
The success of this tune may have helped convince Morton to devote all his energies to music. Morton claimed to have written “Wolverines” around 1906. Years later, the publishing rights were sold to Melrose Music, and Morton was disturbed when the Melrose brothers published it as the “Wolverine Blues.” Titling a song a “blues” was good for sales; however, Morton was fussy about such things and didn’t like “Wolverines” designated a blues when it wasn’t. Here are three New Orleans masters at their craft, Morton and the Dodds each employing half the record to show just how much the published “Wolverine Blues” wasn’t!

Freakish:
It is among the profoundest ironies in jazz that by the time Morton recorded titles like “Black Bottom Stomp” and “Dr. Jazz,” the New Orleans polyphonic ensemble had become an anachronism. Morton was not entirely unmindful that orchestras were getting larger and the traditional multi-strain compositions displaced by the AABA of Tin Pan Alley popular song. “Freakish” is one sign that Morton knew changes were afoot. Jim Dapogny has noted that the final strain of the piece uses a device that was “enduringly modern in conception: [Morton’s] use of repeated two-measure phrases,” which would prove to be the basis of many a jazz tune in the years to come.

Deep Creek:
Once he was in New York, Morton’s recording ensembles grew in size. Single instruments gave way to sections. “Deep Creek” was not attributed to the Red Hot Peppers, but to “Jelly-Roll Morton and his Orchestra.” This piece might not be a consensus pick for inclusion in a list of Morton recordings pared to a dozen, but it’s a blues so unhurried and inspired in its use of space that it leaves one mesmerized and stunned by record’s end. It’s unusual for Morton to commit so much of a performance to individual solos, but Morton uses the resources of the ensemble to provide a deep and rich organ-like background that persists until his final floating chord.

The Pearls:
Morton remarked on one occasion that “The Pearls” was one of the most difficult of his numbers to perform, and said that its various strains were carefully matched like pearls and strung together to make the perfect necklace. Like the New Orleans polyphonic tradition itself, “The Pearls,” taken as a whole, is greater than the sum of its parts, estimable as they may be. At a running time of nearly five minutes, this rendition of “The Pearls” is contemplative, and laid out with a jeweler’s precision.

King Porter Stomp:
It’s difficult to imagine Jelly Roll Morton and the City of New York sitting down together over a glass of beer. Their respective musical outlooks never charted the same course. Yet, in late 1939, his optimism renewed, Morton made one last assault on the burg he once described as “that cruel city.” Morton made a fresh recording of his “King Porter Stomp” that has a free and unfettered joie de vivre. Named for Porter King, a pianist Morton met in his travels, Jelly Roll dated its origin to 1906. The composition had been a hit for Benny Goodman and served as a major anthem in the launch of the Swing Era four years earlier, but Morton’s inflexibility and grandiosity had not endeared him to the new generation of musicians, and he watched from the sidelines.
- from http://www.jazz.com/dozens/the-dozens-jelly-roll-morton

---


Jelly Roll Morton Centennial: His Complete Victor Recordings (1926-1939)

Label: Bluebird/RCA
Year: 1990
5-CD Box Set
Total Time: 335:16

Review by Scott Yanow
This five-CD set contains the very best band recordings of Jelly Roll Morton's career. There are 111 performances in this reissue, including all of the alternate takes. Bypassed are the pianist's recordings with the vaudevillian clarinetist Wilton Crawley, singers Lizzie Miles and Billie Young, and two songs he performed on a radio broadcast in 1940; otherwise, all of his Victor recordings are here. The classics (most from the 1926-1928 period) include the remarkable "Black Bottom Stomp," "Grandpa's Spells," "The Pearls," "Wolverine Blues" (a trio with clarinetist Johnny Dodds and drummer Baby Dodds), "Shreveport Stomp," "Low Gravy," "Strokin' Away," and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say," but listeners will have their own favorites. In general, this is New Orleans jazz at its best, with Jelly Roll Morton (as with the best jazz composer/bandleaders) creating his own world of music.

A negative review by an Amazon customer:
The very best music found in this box set (particularly the Red Hot Pepper Recordings) are essential in any jazz collection, as they are as important to the evolution of jazz as the recordings made by Armstrong's Hot Fives & Sevens and Ellington's Blanton-Webster Band. These are the epitome of small combo recordings, celebrated for their composition, arrangements, and performance. Having said that, this particular box set is a disappointment.

It's bad enough that Morton's 100th birthday nearly passed without any notice (this box set was virtually the only piece of commemoration; even concert tributes were curiously absent). But this box set adds insult to injury. At first glance, it seemed like a cause for celebration, collecting all of Morton's RCA recordings and having been directed by Orrin Keepnews, who has given jazz so much invaluable support over the last few decades. However, upon closer inspection, it's painful to find how poorly this box set was put together.

For starters, the listening experience is dragged down by the lazy sequencing, which places things in order they were recorded. That means master takes are often surrounded by alternate takes. With other artists, like Charlie Parker, it wouldn't be so bad because the alternate takes are often vastly different and sometimes better than the master take. That is NOT the case with Jelly Roll Morton. These performances were carefully arranged and composed, and early takes were rarely anything more than rehearsals for the master take; basically, the alternate takes sound like imperfect versions of the master takes. While they may still be interesting to jazz enthusiasts, it would have been a lot wiser to place them on separate discs.

The main reason why this set is a disappointment lies in the sound. Up until the mid-90's, BMG/RCA had a terrible reputation for hastily mastering their CD's from inferior sources, refusing to spend the time and effort to track down originals. On this box set, a large number of tracks weren't mastered from original sources or even vintage 78's. Instead, a large number of tracks were taken from old analogue multi-generational copies. If that wasn't bad enough, all the recordings were heavily processed with a primitive version of Sonic Solutions' NoNoise system, stripping the music of any hiss and surface noise, but compressing the life out of the recordings.

BMG/RCA has yet to remaster these recordings, but luckily, there's a great, affordable alternative: famed jazz expert John T.R. Davies remastered these recordings for JSP, a small, British label. Taking more care in the mastering process and utilizing golden sounding, vintage 78's from private collections, his work puts this box set to shame. His work is available at a much more affordable price on Amazon as well; also a 5-CD set, it's called "As Artist" (even thought that's not really the set's title).

Don't be a fool; buy the JSP set, not "The Centennial."

...but beggars can't be choosers, e? [edit - perhaps we can… see below]

Tracks:
1 Black Bottom Stomp - Morton - 3:12
2 Smoke-House Blues - Luke - 3:27
3 The Chant [Take 1] - Stitzel - 3:12
4 The Chant [Take 3] - Stitzel - 3:11
5 Sidewalk Blues [Take 2] - Melrose, Morton - 3:32
6 Sidewalk Blues [Take 3] - Melrose, Morton - 3:29
7 Dead Man Blues [Take 1] - Morton - 3:13
8 Dead Man Blues [Take 2] - Morton - 3:23
9 Steamboat Stomp - Morton, Senter - 3:08
10 Someday, Sweetheart [Take 2] - Spikes, Spikes - 3:29
11 Someday, Sweetheart [Take 3] - Spikes, Spikes - 3:29
12 Grandpa's Spells [Take 2] - Morton - 2:54
13 Grandpa's Spells [Take 3] - Morton - 2:54
14 Original Jelly-Roll Blues [Take 1] - Morton - 3:01
15 Original Jelly-Roll Blues [Take 2] - Morton - 3:03
16 Doctor Jazz - King Oliver, Melrose - 3:24
17 Cannon Ball Blues [Take 1] - Bloom, Morton, Rider - 2:52
18 Cannon Ball Blues [Take 2] - Bloom, Morton, Rider - 3:33
19 Hyena Stomp [Take 2] - Morton - 3:12
20 Hyena Stomp [Take 3] - Morton - 3:12
21 Billy Goat Stomp [Take 1] - Morton - 3:32
22 Billy Goat Stomp [Take 3] - Morton - 3:27
23 Wild Man Blues [Take 1] - Armstrong, Morton - 3:08
24 Wild Man Blues [Take 3] - Armstrong, Morton - 3:13
25 Jungle Blues [Take 2] - Morton - 3:26
26 Jungle Blues [Take 3] - Morton - 3:30
27 Beale Street Blues [Take 1] - Handy - 3:14
28 Beale Street Blues [Take 2] - Handy - 3:09
29 The Pearls [Take 2] - Morton - 3:22
30 The Pearls [Take 3] - Morton - 3:25
31 Wolverine Blues [Take 1] - Morton, Spikes, Spikes - 3:18
32 Wolverine Blues [Take 2] - Morton, Spikes, Spikes - 3:23
33 Mr. Jelly Lord - Melrose, Morton - 2:51
34 Georgia Swing - Morton, Pecora - 2:28
35 Kansas City Stomp - Morton - 2:53
36 Shoe Shiner's Drag - Morton - 3:20
37 Boogaboo - Morton - 3:17
38 Shreveport Stomp [Take 1] - Morton - 3:15
39 Shreveport Stomp [Take 2] - Morton - 3:14
40 Mournful Serenade - Oliver - 3:26
41 Red Hot Pepper - Morton - 3:08
42 Deep Creek Blues - Morton - 3:31
43 Pep - Morton - 2:57
44 Seattle Hunch [Take 1] - Morton - 3:12
45 Seattle Hunch [Take 2] - Morton - 3:07
46 Frances (Fat Frances) - Morton - 3:05
47 Freakish [Take 1] - Morton - 2:52
48 Freakish [Take 2] - Morton - 2:58
49 Burnin' the Iceberg [Take 1] - Morton - 3:03
50 Burnin' the Iceberg [Take 2] - Morton - 3:01
51 Courthouse Bump [Take 1] - Morton - 3:02
52 Courthouse Bump [Take 2] - Morton - 3:00
53 Pretty Lil [Take 1] - Morton - 3:12
54 Pretty Lil [Take 2] - Morton - 3:12
55 Sweet Anita Mine [Take 1] - Morton - 2:44
56 Sweet Anita Mine [Take 2] - Morton - 2:45
57 New Orleans Bump [Take 1] - Morton - 3:30
58 New Orleans Bump [Take 2] - Morton - 3:21
59 Down My Way - Morton - 3:17
60 Try Me Out - Morton - 2:30
61 Tank Town Bump [Take 1] - Morton - 3:11
62 Tank Town Bump [Take 2] - Morton - 3:10
63 Sweet Peter [Take 1] - Morton - 2:48
64 Sweet Peter [Take 2] - Morton - 2:56
65 Jersey Joe [Take 1] - Morton - 2:24
66 Jersey Joe [Take 2] - Morton - 2:29
67 Mississippi Mildred [Take 1] - Morton - 3:22
68 Mississippi Mildred [Take 2] - Morton - 2:56
69 Mint Julep - Morton - 3:04
70 Smilin' the Blues Away - Morton, Smith - 2:55
71 Turtle Twist - Morton - 3:09
72 My Little Dixie Home - Morton - 2:58
73 That's Like It Ought to Be - Morton - 2:57
74 Each Day [Take 1] - Morton - 2:54
75 Each Day [Take 2] - Morton - 3:03
76 If Someone Would Only Love Me - Morton - 3:39
77 That'll Never Do - Morton - 2:55
78 I'm Looking for a Little Bluebird - Morton - 2:51
79 Little Lawrence - Morton - 2:56
80 Harmony Blues - Morton - 3:29
81 Fussy Mabel - Morton - 3:16
82 Ponchartrain - Morton - 2:56
83 Oil Well [Take 1] - Morton - 2:40
84 Oil Well [Take 2] - Morton - 3:04
85 Load of Coal [Take 1] - Morton - 2:58
86 Load of Coal [Take 2] - Morton - 2:58
87 Crazy Chords [Take 1] - Morton - 3:03
88 Crazy Chords [Take 2] - Morton - 2:55
89 Primrose Stomp [Take 1] - Morton - 3:02
90 Primrose Stomp [Take 2] - Morton - 3:03
91 Low Gravy - Morton - 2:44
92 Strokin' Away [Take 1] - Morton - 2:54
93 Strokin' Away [Take 2] - Morton - 2:57
94 Blue Blood Blues [Take 1] - Morton - 3:02
95 Blue Blood Blues [Take 2] - Morton - 3:02
96 Mushmouth Shuffle - Morton - 2:42
97 Gambling Jack [Take 1] - Morton - 2:51
98 Gambling Jack [Take 2] - Morton - 2:45
99 Fickle Fay Creep - Morton - 3:13
100 Oh, Didn't He Ramble? [Take 1] - Handy - 3:10
101 Oh, Didn't He Ramble? [Take 2] - Handy - 3:03
102 High Society - Piron, Williams - 2:47
103 I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say - Morton - 3:12
104 Winin' Boy Blues [Take 1] - Morton - 3:10
105 Winin' Boy Blues [Take 2] - Morton - 3:07
106 Climax Rag [Take 1] - Scott - 2:27
107 Climax Rag [Take 2] - Scott - 2:25
108 Don't You Leave Me Here [Take 1] - Morton - 2:23
109 Don't You Leave Me Here [Take 2] - Morton - 2:36
110 West End Blues - King Oliver, Williams - 2:50
111 Ballin' the Jack - Burris, Smith - 2:14

mp3 320kbps | cover w/in mp3 files
5 disks in 10 parts in a share-folder:
stomp, bump & strut.

so, uh, after all that, does anyone have the JSP set?. [edit - see below]

Astarte graciously uploaded the JSP set, so ye can all have the pleasure of setting your ears of discretion upon a comparison, and judge for yourself. Though the JSP set we have here is only at 128kbps, and contains a good deal more surface noise, I must say that it preserves more of the life of the music, and sounds less like there's a blanket laid over the speaker. Anywho, judge for yourself:


Jelly Roll Morton - 1926-1930
Label: JSP
Year: 2000

Review by arwulf arwulf: [is this name for real?]
JSP's five-CD set devoted to Jelly Roll Morton contains all of his Victor recordings cut between September 1926 and October 1930. The sound quality is excellent and complete discographical information is provided along with insightful liner notes. Alternate takes are presented on separate discs so as to avoid redundancy. This creates doppelgängers, as it were, of most of the sessions involving larger ensembles. Jelly Roll Morton is heard as a solo pianist and as leader of his trios, Red Hot Peppers, and orchestra. The only shortcoming is the absence of eight titles recorded for Victor's Bluebird imprint in 1939 by Morton's New Orleans Jazzmen. Had the producers of this otherwise excellent compilation opted for these classic latter-day Jellies instead of obsessing over every single alternate take from the earlier sessions, this would be a serious contender for the "best and most affordable Jelly Roll Morton set" award. As it stands, JSP's hefty anthology is a great way to obtain most of Morton's major work on CD at relatively little cost. The very best way to study this artist is to start at the beginning of his discography using the Classics Chronological Series and then move forward. After hearing these canonic classic jazz recordings as presented by JSP, some folks will indeed want to zoom in for close-ups and study every recorded episode in this primal jazzman's life and works.

A few amazon-customer reviews:

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.

---

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.


Track Listings

Disc 1:
1. Black Bottom Stomp
2. Smoke-House Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Luke, Charles
3. The Chant - Jelly Roll Morton, Stitzel, Mel
4. Sidewalk Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Melrose, Walter
5. Dead Man Blues
6. Steamboat Stomp
7. Someday, Sweetheart - Jelly Roll Morton, Spikes, Benjamin
8. Grandpa's Spells
9. Original Jelly Roll Blues
10. Doctor Jazz - Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver
11. Cannonball Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Bloom, Marty
12. Hyena Stomp
13. Billy Goat Stomp
14. Wild Man Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Armstrong, Louis
15. Jungle Blues
16. Beale Street Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Handy, W.C.
17. The Pearls
18. Wolverine Blues
19. Mr. Jelly Lord

Disc 2:
1. Red Hot Pepper
2. Deep Creek Blues
3. Pep - Jelly Roll Morton,
4. Seattle Hunch
5. Frances
6. Freakish
7. Burnin' the Iceberg
8. Courthouse Bump
9. Pretty Lil
10. Sweet Anita Mine
11. New Orleans Bump
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. The Chant - Jelly Roll Morton, Stitzel, Mel
2. Sidewalk Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Melrose, Walter
3. Dead Man Blues
4. Someday, Sweetheart - Jelly Roll Morton, Spikes, Benjamin
5. Grandpa's Spells
6. Original Jelly Roll Blues
7. Cannonball Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Bloom, Marty
8. Hyena Stomp
9. Billy Goat Stomp
10. Wild Man Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Armstrong, Louis
11. Jungle Blues
12. Beale Street Blues - Jelly Roll Morton, Handy, W.C.
13. The Pearls
14. Wolverine Blues
15. Georgia Swing
16. Kansas City Stomp
17. Shoe Shiner's Drag
18. Boogaboo
19. Shreveport Stomp
20. Mournful Serenade - Jelly Roll Morton, Oliver, Joe "King"

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
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

astarte said:
When I got this, covers were included, but I didn't keep coverart at the time. I vaguely remember there was a lot of yellow in it. I decided to not make it a split archive. So, if this might disappoint you , you don't need to download all of it in order to hear some samples.

cd1 | cd2 | cd3 | cd4 | cd5
mp3 128kbps | w/o cover | 42-56mb each

thanks astarte!

and in case any of you have moral squabbles over this, consider the following attest by an Amazon customer:

JSP Records is short for the owner. John Steadman Productions. He is famous in the record world for surreptiously recording concerts he has produced over the years and releasing the material on his label without either paying royalties or making any attempt at getting any permission from the artists he has. The list is very long. He has been called the "British Don Robey" and is so reviled in London he has to have a bodyguard. Beware JSP records. It's a shame this man gets away with what he does.

pirate is as pirate does; all's fair on a dead man's ship, says aye.

Pierre Laniau - Erik Satie: Pièces Pour Guitare

Erik Satie (1866-1925)
The man
For some people, Erik Satie is known as an eccentric who gave his works odd titles that seem almost derisive and ridicolous:

Chilled Pieces, Drivelling Preludes (for a Dog), Dried up Embryos ...

Many believe that this was not only a result of his bizarre wit but also a way of offending the music critics at the time. It was known that Satie didn't like music critics and that the feelings were mutual.

Those performing his works are well aware of his weird instructions to the performer.

The instructions are meant as a dialogue between the composer and the performer only:

To whoever. I forbid anyone to read the text aloud during the musical performance. Failure to obey to my instruction will provoke my just indignation against anyone so presumptuous. No exception to this rule will be granted.

From the short piano piece, titled Vexations (1893):
To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.

This instruction has been taken seriously by many prominent piano performers. Many performances have been made worldwide with great success. But perhaps he was only trying to fool the performer? After all, it isn't an instruction that the performer must play it 840 times. He just stated, "To play this motif 840 times..." Of course, we will never know what was his true intention as the piece wasn't published during his lifetime.

Satie was also a collector. Once someone asked him what he wished for birthday present. He replied - I saw this beautiful handkerchief the other day.... After his death they found in his wardrobe 84 identical handkerchieves, besides 12 identical velvet costumes and dozens of umbrellas.

Satie was considered as an outsider, a lone wolf with projects of his own. For example he founded his own church. As a result he valued his privacy very highly and never let anyone see his apartment in Arceuil, where he lived for the last 27 years of his life. He only had one known relationship in his life - an intense love affair in 1893 with the model, painter and former trapeze artiste Suzanne Valadon.

Satie lived as a true artist, for his music and his ideals. He had no respect for money and lived a poor life for many years. He was never afraid of expressing his true opinion. If he found someone to be a jerk he made this perfectly clear (and took the consequences).

His music
Even though Satie was a fascinating person in many ways, it is his music that is the major reason for his popularity. He was very creative and had a great influence on his colleagues Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc. Because his music was ahead of his time and regarded as timeless, he also has great influence on many modern composers.

Satie was a forerunner to minimalism. He experimented with what he called furniture music, meant to be in the background rather than listened to. He composed music to be listened at different angles, similar pieces divided into several parts. Many of his compositions have influences from medieval music and from French composers.

His most famous works are the serene Gymnopédies (three similar piano pieces), the mystical Vexations (short piano piece repeated 840 times), the popular piano suite Trois Morceaux en forme de Poire (duet), the ballet Parade (with some very odd instruments) and the ballet Relâche (with film sequences included).

His music was rather unknown and underrated until the 1960s. His popularity has grown ever since.

Cefalophones (by Erik Satie)
2 flutes with keys (F sharp)
1 alto overcoat (C)
1 duckbill (E)
2 stroke clarinets (G flat)
1 siphon in C
3 keyboard trombones (D flat)
1 bass in leather (C)
Chromatic tub in H

Instruments belonging to the remarkable group cefalophones, with 30 octaves extent, completely unperformable. An amateur in Vienna tried in 1875 to handle the siphone in C; after having jared with a piercing drill, the instrument burst, broke the spine on the executor and scalped him completely. Since then no one has dared to concern oneself with the powerful assets that cefalophones contain and the state has forbidden all schools teaching the instruments.

The true musician (by Erik Satie)
He grows in wisdom...He is brilliant...He learns to do without
and is prepared to make great sacrifices...enormous sacrifices...
if I may say...His energy is tremendous...
In other words he is prepared for the struggle...and with honesty he shall fight it...

The performance of an Art demands complete self-denial...
...It was not meant as a joke what I just said...about sacrifices...
The Music makes heavy demands upon those who want to
devote themselves in it...This is what I have wanted you to call your attention to...

A true musician must subordinate himself his Art; ...he must place himself above human suffering; ...he must draw courage from within...and only from within.

What I am
Everyone will tell you I am not a musician. That is correct.
From the very beginning of my career I class myself a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical. Take my Fils des Étoiles, or my Morceaux en forme de Poire, my En habit de Cheval or my Sarabandes - it is evident that musical ideas played no part whatsoever in their composition. Science is the dominating factor.
Besides, I enjoy measuring a sound much more than hearing it. With my phonometer in my hand, I work happily and with confidence.
What haven't I weighed or measured? I've done all Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. It's fascinating.
The first time I used a phonoscope, I examined a B flat of medium size. I can assure you that I have never seen anything so revolting. I called in my man to show it to him.
On my phono-scales a common or garden F sharp registered 93 kilos. It came out of a fat tenor whom I also weighed.
Do you know how to clean sounds? It's a filthy business. Stretching them out is cleaner; indexing them is a meticulous task and needs good eyesight. Here, we are in the realm of pyrophony.
To write my Pièces Froides, I used a caleidophone recorder. It took seven minutes. I called in my man to let him hear them.
I think I can say that phonology is superior to music. There's more variety in it. The financial return is greater, too. I owe my fortune to it.
At all events, with a motodynamophone, even a rather inexperienced phonometrologist can easily note down more sounds that the most skilled musician in the same time, using the same amount of effort. This is how I have been able to write so much.
And so the future lies with philophony.

Theatricalities
I have always had it in mind to write a lyric play on the following specific subject:
At that time I was taken up with alchemy. One day I was having a rest, alone in my laboratory. Outside the sky was leaden, livid and sinister - really ghastly!
I was feeling sad without knowing why; almost afraid without knowing the cause. Into my head came the idea of amusing myself by counting on my fingers slowly from 1 to 260,000.
This I did: and very boring it was. I stood up, took hold of a magic nut and gently placed it in a casket of alpaca bone studded with seven diamonds.
Straightaway a stuffed bird took flight; a monkey's skeleton ran off; a sow's skin climbed along the wall. Then night descended, covering up objects, destroying shapes.
But someone is knocking on the far door, the one near the Median talismans, the talismans a Polynesian madman sold me.
What is it? Oh god! Do not forsake thy servant. He is indeed a sinner, but is repentant. Have mercy on him, I beseech Thee.
Now the door opens, opens, opens like an eye; a silent and shapeless being comes nearer, nearer, nearer. Not a drop of perspiration remains on my quaking skin; moreover I am very thirsty, very thirsty.
In the shadows a voice is heard:
- Sir, I think I have second sight.
I do not recognize this voice. It says:
- Sir, it is I, it is only I.
- Who? comes my terrified reply.
- I, your servant. I think I have a second sight. Did you not just place a magic nut gently in a casket of alpaca bone studded with seven diamonds?
Suffocated, I can only reply:
- Yes, my friend. How do you know?
He draws near me, a gliding shadow in the darkness of the night. I feel him trembling. He is probably afraid that I may take a shot at him.
With a sob, like a little child, he murmurs:
- I saw you through the keyhole.

Odd corners of my life
The origins of the Saties probably go back to ancient times. Oh yes... I can't confirm anything on this point - but neither can I unconfirm it.
However, I presume that the family was not part of the nobility (nor even the papacy); that its members were good and humble serfs, and that was once an honour and a pleasure (for the serf's overlord, of course). Oh yes...
I don't know what the Saties did in the Hundred Years War; nor have I any information on their attitude and the part they played in the Thirty Years War (one of our loveliest wars).
Let the memory of my ancient ancestors rest in peace. Oh yes...
Let us pass on. I shall come back to this subject later.

As for me, I was born in Honfleur (Calvados), in the Pont-l'Evêque district, on 17 May 1866... So that makes me a quinquagenarian, and I might as well be called that as anything else.
Honfleur is a small town watered by the poetic waves of the Seine and - in complicity - the tumultous ones of the Channel. Its inhabitants (honfleurais) are very polite and very agreeable. Oh yes...
I remained in that city until I was twelve (1878) and then moved to Paris.... My childhood and adolescence were undistinguished - nothing happened worth recording in serious writings. So I shall say nothing of them.
Let us pass on. I shall come back to this subject later.

I'm burning to give you my description here (enumeration of my physical particulars - the ones I can mention decently, that is):... Hair and eyebrowns dark auburn; eyes grey (probably clouded); hair covering forehead; nose long; mouth medium; chin wide; face oval. Height 1 metre 67 centimetres.
The description on this document dates from 1887, the time when I did military service in the 33rd Infantry Regiment at Arras (pas-de-Calais). It would not fit me today.
I'm sorry I can't give you my digital (finger) prints. Oh yes. I don't have them on me, and these special reproductions are not good to look at (they look like Vuillermoz and Laloy combined).
Let us pass on. I shall come back to this subject later.

Following a rather short adolescence, I became an ordinary young man, tolerable but no more. At that moment in my life I began to think and to write music. Oh yes.
Wretched idea!... very wretched idea!
It certainly was, for I lost no time in developing an unpleasant (original) originality, irrelevant, anti-French, unnatural, etc...
Then life became so impossible for me that I resolved to retire to my estates and pass the rest of my days in an ivory tower - or one of some other (metallic) metal.
That is why I acquired a taste for misanthropy; why I nurtured hypochondria; why I became the most (leaden-like) miserable of men. It distressed people to look at me - even through hall-marked gold eye-glasses. Oh yes.
And all this happened to me because of music. That art has done me more harm that good, really: it has made me quarrel with people of quality, most honourable, more-than-distinguished, terribly genteel people.
Let us pass on. I shall come back to this subject later.

As a person, I am neither good nor bad. I waver between the two, so to speak. So I have never really done harm to anyone - nor good, come to that.
All the same, I have plenty of enemies - loyal enemies, of course. Why? For the most part, it is because they don't know me - or only know me second-hand, in short, through hearsay (lies worse than death).
Man can never be perfect. I bear no grudge against them: they are the main victims of their ignorance and short-sightedness.... Poor folk!...
So I am sorry for them.
Let us pass on. I shall come back to this subject later.

- from http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/intro.html


Pierre Laniau - Erik Satie: Pièces Pour Guitare
Label: ECM
Year: 1982

"I must confess, the idea of adapting Erik Satie's piano compositions for guitar initially did not appeal."
...he said, and then proceeded to make an album of absolutely brilliant interpretations. Not only has Laniau mastered the call-and-response between bass and treble that is so central to Satie's work, but he has immersed himself in it to the extent that he sometimes sounds like two players... this is also one of the most enduring qualities of Fahey's more psychomathematical works, and it comes across in an entirely different, but still psychomathematical way here.

He also nurtures a very essential Satiean quality: an emptiness/spaciousness, which is communicated perhaps more perfectly by the fragile nylon strings of the guitar than the vibrant string-clusters of the pianoforte.

And lastly, Laniau draws forth that rarest of qualities which can be found in Satie's pieces: a music simultaneously intellectual, playful, and soulful.

"Satie was reputed to have been enthralled by the performance of a Romanian folk ensemble who entertained the brimming crowds with their lugubrious, melancholic repertoire and singular instrumental technique. In light of this, especially, it is intriguing to hear the faint spectre of gypsy folk dance in Laniau's interpretations for guitar."

"It has been said that the word gnossienne refers to the antique Knossos and the crane dance that was performed outside the labyrinth where the Minotaur was held captive..."

Just as intriguing, is the suggestion that the title for these six pieces derives from the Greek "gnosis" - knowledge - with inherent leanings towards esoteric religious practice: his "first musical expression born out of Satie's collaboration with Péladan and his Rose et Croix sect."

Tracks:
1. Four Gnossiennes 1-Lent 3:34
2. Four Gnossiennes 2 - Avec etonnement 1:53
3. Four Gnossiennes 3 - Lent 3:00
4. Four Gnossiennes 4 - Lent (sans presser) 3:12
5. Musiques Intimes et Secrètes - Desespoir agreable 0:53
6. 06 Musiques Intimes et Secrètes 2 - Caresse 2:05
7. 07 Musiques Intimes et Secrètes 3 - Songe creux 1:43
8. Musiques Intimes et Secrètes 4 - Fâcheux example 1:09
9. Musiques Intimes et Secrètes 5 - Nostalgie 1:02
10. Je te Veux 4:46
11. Gymnopédie No. 1 3:06
12. Petite Musique de clown triste 2:18
13. La diva de l'empire 2:36
14. Premier prélude du nazaréen 5:20
15. Les pantins Dansent 2:06

this is not a pipe.
mp3 192kbps | w/ cover | 60mb

The Devil & Michael Cleveland

So get this:
The Devil goes down to Georgia, announces that he will eat all the children one by one unless a man can beat him in a fiddle contest. Now Georgia, as I'm sure you know, has had a plethora of able fiddlers over the years, and as you could guess there were quite a handful lining up to keep old Goathead at bay. But then our Clovenhoofed Cavalier informed the assembled fiddlers of an extra condition of his challenge. If they should lose, not only would he eat all the children, but he would also make the loser blind, fat, and crass; no woman would ever love them. And, almost as an afterthought, the genial Prince of Darkness declared that if any fool should face him and win, he would bestow upon the winner a 5-string fiddle and initiate that fiddlin' fool into the Ancient Mysterious Arcanum of Fierceome Fiddling, as revealed to Mr. Paganini, Hardänger, Diotti, Sándor Lakatos and Scotty Stoneman -- and, as an added benefit, the young initiate would even get to keep his soul. And, since it was to show off to women that all of the fiddlers had developed such hot chops in the first place… they all backed down.

Well, all except 1. There was a young boy present, about 12 years of age, stocky, pudgy, with a squint in his eye and a hitch in his step. Even though he was always teased and picked on by the other kids, he couldn't bear the thought of them getting swallowed by some big Pointy-Taled Pook. He even played a little fiddle; he'd been practicing for the school talent show. And, hearing of the Evil One's challenge, this little boy thought to himself, "Well, shucks. I dun have nuthin' to lose either way, an ah stand to profit a neat ol' 5-string outa thuh bargain."

So the contest was held, and since you haven't heard of any Georgian pedovorian travesties, you can guess who came out on top. The sad fact was, try as he might (and he mightily did) old Beelzebub didn't stand much of a chance. And to add a pinch of manure on the pile of defeat, when our Vociferous Villain prepared to initiate young Michael of Cleveland, the lad denied, having already inherited the soul of Scotty the Stone Man and old St. Nicolo. Our pious protector did, however, take the Demon up on his offer of a 5-string fiddle. Our Red-Horned Bogieman presented young Michael with the ancient Fiddle of Souls, strung with the strings of pity, of hope, of love, of joy, of death.

Not only was young Michael of Cleveland the only person in history to ever own this fiddle who did not have to give up his soul in exchange for it, but our unnasuming lad was also the only person humble enough to wield such a mighty instrument safely. Head held high aloft his pudgy neck-chin, he returned to his village, past the saved and ingrateful children, and entered into the school talent show. I need not tell you what a magnificent performance he delivered therein: the audience was transfixed and transported to realms eternal for the entire duration of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." But in the end, the school's prize went to little Priscilla for her recitation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," which included synchronized courtseys and headbobs.

Though not prone to jealousy, our young hero was not stupid either. He could see a path splitting in front of him - a choice of futures - and so naturally he chose the one where he could be of best use, most appreciated and partake in the greatest qualities of life. So he walked out of the school, walked to a crossroads in the middle of the night, and called out to the Ghastly Goat-Man to come. And ever after, they have enjoyed one anothers' company, Luciferically inducing the more weakwilled of the human class to drink, dance, stand slackjawed and generally have a good time, outside the confines of Mary's Little Flock.

How's that for an off-the-cuff legend?

I just discovered this guy today, when my dad sent me an email about him. Here's what the Old Man said about Michael Cleveland:

He's late 20's, short, blind, pudgy, ugly with a cleft palate/hairlip, very nice guy, and a MONSTER on the fiddle. He's been a sideman for well-known BG singers until the last couple of years, but now he's the bandleader, he seems to enjoy it and he really leans into it, with a near-violence that hasn't been seen, as far as I know, since Scottie Stoneman. He plays a 5-string fiddle, and his first set, first tune he BROKE a string, with his bowing..................

Enjoy this Devilish auditory car accident:
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper - Lee Highway Blues



I really like how the word "Flamekeeper" means both the carrier of a tradition and a vessel to contain something REALLY HOT. Well named, guys.