Yea , so you're swimmin' around , mind you , gettin' ready to go into popsickle
shock , and I wonder if any of those soon to be (wealthy) ghosts , I mean I wonder
if they had any last regrets ? Or were they thinkin' how unfair it was that they
were here, freezzzzzzzzzzzzing to death while the likes of somone like Jack John-
sonnnnaahhhggg was back home , nice and warm and on dry land ? We'll never know ,
but it seems to me that we are still dealing with ssome of those same , unresolved
issues 100 years later .
I didn't start out to write about the Titanic or about the unfair treatment of
some past , great person of color . But sort of fell into it as I started thinking
about Jelly Roll Morton and the book I'm reading called ; Jelly's Blues .
I haven't finished reading it yet but feel it's worthy of a comment , least my
karma should land me in some improbable situation tommorow and I be swallowed up
by the waves of time and no one would ever know how much I hope that the authors
are right . You see , Howard Reich and William Gaines have written this remarkable
story with the premise in mind to redeem Mr. Morton from the ignominy of not only
denying his own African heritage but despising it in others . As reported by Ken
Burns in his docu-drama on 'Jazz' or Gunther Schuller in his landmark treatise,
'Eary Jazz' it seems that many reliable sources have painted the redoubtable Ferd
with a racists' brush . I'm only about half way through 'Jelly's Blues' and have
to say that for as racy as the authors have made Morton's early career , and
completely believable , the socio/economics of New Orleans and the middle-class
mullatto status of the 'Mouton's' feels a bit neglected . Even the anglecizing
of the French to the more acceptable 'Morton' shows a person who was highly
concerned about the perceptions of waspy white patrons and indicates one who
wouldn't hesitate to toss his family baggage under the bus if it meant he could
rise one step higher in his status and be 'priviledged' enough to entertain the
highest ranks of this racially segregated nation . Of course the French were not
so much worried about this when it came to wealthy men and what they did in the
bedroom . Supposedly the authors have access to a veritable , new mountain of
information on Morton's life and I'm guessing his thoughts but the title alone
makes me frown a little . Jelly's 'BLUES' . For to my understanding , he was not
playing the 'Blues' per se , and as their language and descriptions have all but
danced around the issue , Jelly Roll Morton's music was a heavy blend of the Rags and'Habenara and the classical and the disscordnant black keys (later in
his development) , all he seems to have done , to me, is partake in an aspect
of the blues but never actually embraced it . Even later , when Bessie Smith
taught the best piano men in the bizzness how to find those sad notes , Ferd
stuck to his road of playing some of the most baroque trills and complex , strict time rags any American composer had ever attempted to imagine . But it
was not the Blues . Not as we've come to know the blues by that or any of the other names that marketeers used to induce a music hungry public . Stomps , Jumps , Jigs , Rags , Hops , Trots etc. Still, he did use those blue strains
and created somthing along the way that can only be marveled at . Yet , I'm
wonderinging if this most proud man , even with a mountain of paper that records
his many ventures into that wilder , blacker world will be enough to convince
the skeptics that he was humble enough to at least level with his darker skinned
brothers , all the while smilin' that gold capped tooth with the half carat
diamond stud in the face of the 'whitey's' . I've still half the story to go ,
and all I can say is I hope so , I hope so .
