Jelly Roll Morton

"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."

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe was born September 20, 1895 in New Orleans accordings to statements by himself and his siblings, although other accounts give a date of October 20, 1890. He took the last name of Morton from his stepfather; it may have been an Anglicized version of Mouton.

Morton played the harmonica, guitar and trombone as young child and by age 14 was playing piano in the brothels of Storyville. He was mentored there by ragtime pianist and composer Tony Jackson, and claimed that their after-hours jam sessions were the beginnings of jazz. It was at this time that he began using the nickname "Jelly Roll". By 1904 he was touring the South playing in minstrel shows and  honky-tonks.

Settling in Chicago in 1914, Morton began writing down his compositions with Jelly Roll Blues being the first published jazz sheet music. After living in Los Angeles and Vancouver he returned to Chicago in 1923 and began recording on the Victor label with his band, The Red Hot Peppers, becoming the most widely-known jazz musician of the day. The depression and the rise of swing music put an end to his recording career and he started touring with burlesque shows until 1935 when he was hired as the manager and piano player for a bar in the Shaw area of Washington DC.

Morton was asked by folklorist and musicologist Alan Lomax to record music and interviews for the Library of Congress in 1938, producing over eight hours of tapes. These were released as a CD boxed set in 2005, winning two Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award for Morton.

During the time of Lomax's interviews, Morton was stabbed in a bar fight, worsening previous lung problems. He moved to California to live in a more moderate climate, and died in Los Angeles on July 10, 1941.