Jelly Roll Morton
American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader and composer (1890–1941)
Biography
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American blues and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer of Louisiana Creole descent. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre.
Occupation
Jelly Roll Morton is recorded as a jazz pianist, a jazz musician, a bandleader, a musician, a pianist, a conductor and a composer, born in Louisiana (1890–1941).
Connections to Louisiana
Jelly Roll Morton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1890. Explore other notable figures from Louisiana, historic sites connected to this era, and the full colonial and statehood history of the state using the links below.
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Biographical content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia.
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