"They always had a broken-down piano.… After four o'clock in the morning, all the girls that could get out of the houses, they were there. And the girls would start, 'Play me something, boy, play me some blues.' I'd start playing this way."
Listening to him on records, Jelly Roll then institutes a bluesy melody with a pretty flourish over insinuating syncopation and a steady footbeat. His voice rises in its winsome, salty plea:
"Let me be your wiggler, until your wobbler comes.
Let me be your wiggler, until your wobbler comes.
Then tell your wobbler what your wiggler done."
Morton's Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax, has been available before, but not in such unexpurgated, celebratory form as the piano-shaped boxed set now issued by Rounder Records. These seven CDs contain the eye-witness tall tales of the jazz composer (an eighth features interviews with his colleagues), which estimable annotator John Szwed calls "a recitation of Homeric proportions." In spontaneous yet steady-rolling cadences, Morton delivers detailed memories and vivid exaggerations of Rocket Johnny, Skinnyhead Pete, Old Florida Sam and Buddy Bolden ("They claim he went crazy because he really blew his brains out through that trumpet!"). Morton discusses tough boys and sweet women, funeral marches and swells' parades, Spanish tempos and the publishing business. He vamps as he raps, illustrates his ideas with tricky little figures, unfurls full performances of his songs including "Winin' Boy," "The Crave," "Jelly Roll Blues" and "King Porter Stomp."
A boxed set this big can be intimidating and probably isn't the right introduction to an ancient icon's music. For the Morton essentials, find the single disc Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo edition of his Red Hot Peppers blasts circa 1926 (engineered by Robert Parker, these sound as close to new recordings as anything you'll ever here from the era), or J.T. Davies' restorations of his 1923 piano solos. Yet Lomax's Library of Congress recordings present Jelly Roll Morton as if he was alive. Slip on any disc, give him half an ear and he'll draw you in. Like many old relatives, he does go on, he can be exhausting, his "facts" are dubious. But his stories are irresistible, and beyond their entertainment value and their delight to lovers of Jelly Roll and jazz, they have a strong connection to us today.
One reminder of this came with the appearance in town of one of the huge talents of whom Morton is a forebear: Allen Toussaint, the elegantly soft-spoken New Orleans exile who performed an intimate solo piano set at Joe's Pub a couple weeks ago. Stranded in New York since Hurricane Katrina but saying he likes it here, Toussaint offered a cabaret-like survey of his best-known work, starting with his breakthrough, "Java."
"I was 17," he explained to me recently after rolling through the jaunty tune, "and I showed it to Al Hirt, who showed me how to make money with it. I liked that."
Toussaint composed "Workin' in a Coal Mine," "Southern Nights," "Lady Marmalade," showcases for various Meters and Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas and the Dixie Cups, "The Dating Game" theme and at least one melody immortalized by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.
Toussaint is a mainstream entertainer, yes—so was Fats Waller, so is Stevie Wonder—but truly one with musical genius. He tossed off fancifully funkified references to 19th-century classical repertoire, and an evocation of the late New Orleans rag and rumba-boogie masters Tuts Washington and Professor Longhair. He demonstrated, subtly, how American music still feeds on elements Jelly Roll Morton stirred together 100 years ago. Give thanks I say, and hope it lasts another 100 years.
James Carter/Cyrus Chesnut/Ali Jackson/Reginald Veal
What's looking like an emerging jazz supergroup hits what's looking like the current headquarters of the Manhattan jazz scene; those happy circumstances, and the buzz surrounding the quartet's recent album, Gold Sounds, make this a "must-see" show. The inspired coupling of four well-regarded rebop traditionalists with the song catalogue of alt-rock gurus Pavement has been both praised and mocked (especially in light of the jazzmen's admission that they hadn't really heard lo-fi impresario Stephen Malkmus' esoteric band before a canny music producer suggested a cover album). This was an artistic crapshoot that could have gone either way, but thanks to the bluesy gusto and imaginative soloing of leaders Carter and Chesnut (paired with a hard swinging rhythm section) this combo turns out to be anything but a one-shot novelty act.
When Carter's tenor rumbles and squawks around Chesnut's shimmering organ chords, you're not stuck in an early '90s dorm room; you're at the Vanguard a decade earlier, listening to David Murray and Don Pullen storm the ramparts of musical imagination and come back with some serious booty. There are only eight numbers on Gold Sounds, so it's an educated guess that Carter et al. will bring some intriguing new material to stir in with the mosh classics. Iridium, 1650 Broadway (at W. 51st St.), 212-582-2121; Weds. & Thurs. 8 & 10; Fri. & Sat. 8, 10 & 11:30, $27.50–$30 (plus $10/person min.)
