3

JELLY ROLL MORTON

Three-Minute Form

One thing that leads us to believe that we should call jazz an

art, and not just acknowledge it as a remarkable expressive
musical culture, is that its best works survive the moment. In
doing that they defy all, for not only are they intended for the
moment (as is much of our culture), they are often impro-
vised on the spur of the moment.
Much jazz does survive but, to hear that it does, we must be
willing to forget what is merely stylish and what is merely
nostalgic. Probably no man in jazz was ever more the victim of
both stylishness and nostalgia than Ferdinand "Jelly Roll"
Morton. Because of the innovations of Louis Armstrong, he
was already going out of style before his major work had been
recorded. The colorful character of Jelly Roll Morton seems
to be one of the abiding cliches of jazz history. The attitude
may come from writers' efforts to get people interested in
Morton by hooking them on the "character," and it is cer-
tainly encouraged by one kind of look at a life that was full of
wandering, pimping, bragging, and wild ostentation in dress
and possessions. And the braggart, the blowhard, the exag-
gerator, the liar (often just the audacious kind of liar who
does not really expect to be believed)—they were Morton too,
and these images encourage one to make a cozy, implicitly
patronizing account of him. But in his life and his wander-
ings, amid all the delusions and painful paranoid railings, was

14
JELLY ROLL MORTON 15

a kind of larger integrity: the music in him always seemed to

triumph and led him on.
Morton was an exasperatingly complex and even contradic-
tory man, and he had a large and fragile ego that hardly
encourages one to try to understand the man and, what is
more important, his music. From his life one grasps what
seems enlightening. But the ultimate point is the music. Our
knowledge of his life and his world is important only insofar
as it enlightens us about his music. And, hearing his music, we
know that it expresses more of the man and his deeper feel-
ings than his public masks, his pride, his snobbery, his pon-
tifications, and his prejudices can show us.
One of Morton's best recordings is of a piece he called Dead
Man Blues. Like W. C. Handy's blues, and like ragtime pieces
before them, Dead Man is built on several themes—specif-
ically three. The themes obviously need to work well together.
And they need to be put into an order that gives the piece as a
whole a sense of musical and emotional development.
In planning a performance, one concern of a jazz com-
poser-arranger is to decide who plays what, who improvises
when and how much: how to bring out the best in each player
without letting him overpower the total performance. The
whole, in an ideal performance of a great jazz composition,
has to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Musically, Morton's recording of Dead Man begins with the
echo of a funeral procession, an introductory strain from the
familiar Chopin Funeral March, the lead played on trombone
with a hint of humor. From this point on, Dead Man attempts
the difficult task of being sober without being stodgy.
The first theme in Dead Man is stated in a dancing polyph-
ony1 by the trumpet's lead, with the clarinet in a quietly sim-
ple second part behind it, and a trombone in a rhythmic-
1. I have here again followed the general practice of calling the New Orleans
style polyphonic. However, polyphony implies several melodic lines of equal
importance, but in New Orleans jazz the trumpet (cornet) or trumpets obviously
l6 THE JAZZ TRADITION

melodic bass line. There is a buoyancy of melody and rhythm

in this chorus; it is quite unlike the heavy, plodding, and
strident Dixieland of earlier and later years, and such master-
ful ensemble playing in this style is perhaps a lost art.
The second section of Dead Man is a series of variations,
overlapping two of its themes. The first is a chorus by Omer
Simeon's clarinet, a variation on the first theme. The second is
a two-chorus solo by cornetist George Mitchell, comprising
the second theme plus one variation on it. Mitchell shapes
lovely, logically developed, simple melodies. They hang to-
gether but his second chorus develops his first, and it further
prepares for the entrance of the third Dead Man theme. It is
rare that a solo can have such structural uses and still be
beautiful in itself, but the great jazz composers can always
encourage such playing.
Dead Man's third section begins simply, with a trio of clari-
nets playing a lovely, riff-like blues line in harmony.2 As they
repeat the chorus, Kid Ory's trombone enters behind them
with a deep, moaning countermelody.
In the final section, as if encouraged by Ory, Mitchell and
Simeon join the trombonist, the other two clarinets drop out,
and the three horns play a lovely, three-part polyphonic vari-
ation on the opening theme. Thus the closing polyphony bal-
ances the opening. The three clarinets then tag the perfor-
mance with a brief echo of the third theme. The overall
scheme of Dead Man Blues is therefore intro/A/A1 (clarinet
solo)/B and B1 (cornet solo)/C/C1/A2/tag.
In some accounts, Morton's music is placed in a neat cate-
gory called "New Orleans style," and there the explanations
stop and the enthusiasm starts.

carry a lead melody to which the lines of the clarinet, trombone, and rhythm are
secondary.
2. This theme was not used in Morton's other versions of Dead Man; it does not
appear in the sheet music nor in the piano roll version of the piece. However,
King Oliver had recorded the strain as Camp Meeting Blues in 1923.
JELLY ROLL MORTON 17

That category is not so neat. The usual explanation is that

New Orleans style is something the Original Dixieland Jazz
Band first popularized, the style Kid Ory put on records in
1921, the style King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band recorded in
1923, the style certain of Johnny Dodds's groups (The Wan-
derers, The Boot Blacks, The Black Bottom Stampers) re-
corded later, and that the early Armstrong Hot Fives re-
flected. Such an effort to place Morton historically is far too
general to be very enlightening. There were many kinds of
music played in New Orleans and a number of these, from the
propriety of A. J. Piron to the crudeness of Sam Morgan, we
would be willing to call New Orleans jazz or something near it.
They were not all alike. Furthermore, despite the similarities,
it should be obvious that there are some musical differences
in conception between Morton's orchestral music and Ol-
iver's. Oliver's music was improvisational, blues-oriented and
played by musically integrated instrumentalists, whose great-
est virtue came from the individuals involved and the way
they blew together. Morton's is the leader's compositionally
conceived music with careful orchestrational form. Rhyth-
mically, Morton's music represents an earlier stage in jazz
than Oliver's. But for the moment he does represent, Morton
was a modernist, as far as we can tell. He was also perhaps
something of an innovator, but his music showed more so-
phistication, consciousness, and formal musical knowledge
than Oliver's, and he had definite theories about what he was
doing. At the same time, Morton never abandoned the ex-
pressive and earthy realities of jazz and the blues.
As far as we can tell—as far as written documents, pub-
lished scores, and recordings enable us to tell—Morton was
the first great master of form in jazz. In this respect, he be-
longs with Duke Ellington, John Lewis, and Thelonious
Monk. By the late 1930s, Ellington had absorbed into his
music the innovations which Louis Armstrong, as an impro-
viser, had announced. Lewis (partly by assimilating and trans-
forming form from Europe) and Monk (by working more
l8 T H E JAZZ T R A D I T I O N

directly with the implicit resources of jazz itself) found form

within the innovations represented by Parker, Gillespie, and
Monk himself.
With what resources at hand did Morton work? Buddy Bol-
den's? If we accept Bunk Johnson's re-creations of Bolden's
style, Bolden's sense of form as an improviser was a strong
one and strikingly like Morton's as an orchestrator (and, inci-
dentally, like Monk's). We can say that despite his exemplary
handling of single-theme compositions, Morton's conception
represents an extension of the form established by the great
ragtime composers, but it also incorporates rhythmic, har-
monic, and variational elements of the jazz movement and the
blues. Morton's conception was later than Scott Joplin's or
perhaps Bolden's, earlier but more sophisticated than Ol-
iver's. In effect, Morton's music represents a summary of all
that jazz had achieved before Armstrong's innovations rein-
terpreted its basic language.
There are some curious likenesses among these leaders of
form: Morton, Ellington, Lewis, Monk. All are pianists (or at
least they all play piano) and all have been called poor pianists
which in some, usually irrelevant, senses, several are. All are
major composers, of course—among the major composers in
jazz. All may show, at least part of the time, an orchestral
(rather than horn-like) conception of the piano, which can
make them all sometimes unorthodox but extremely effective
accompanists. All have taken strikingly similar approaches to
the problem of improvisation vs. form, freedom vs. discipline,
individuality vs. total effect. And for Morton and Ellington at
least, as their messages of form began to take effect, revolu-
tionary improvisers arrived. The maturing of Ellington's
sense of form was followed by Parker's innovations, but
Ellington had a lot to do with planting the seeds. There were
signs of another revolution as Monk's sense of form began to
be recognized, and Monk planted the seeds. Morton was the
unluckiest of the four, for he had hardly begun recording
JELLY ROLL MORTON 19

and regular publication before Armstrong's revolution had

already taken effect. He began almost as an anachronism, a
leader of a style already becoming unstylish. But perhaps
hints of Armstrong's innovations are to be heard in his music.
And obviously it is not against Armstrong that Morton should
be judged artistically.
One other thing that all these men (Morton, Ellington,
Lewis, and Monk) share is a crucially important movement—
ragtime. Ellington was steeped in its Eastern, later "stride"
branch. Monk got it indirectly from Ellington and somewhat
more directly from James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Lewis
got it indirectly and largely from Ellington, but he has pro-
fessed an admiration for James P. Johnson, whose relation-
ship to ragtime was direct, and was based on the Midwestern-
Sedalia-St. Louis version.
In itself, ragtime proved to be a kind of blind alley, but its
contribution to jazz, and to form in jazz, is probably immea-
surable. From one viewpoint, it was the most formal, most
"European," even most "highbrow" movement associated
with jazz. It is incredible that in so short a time its folk themes,
ring shouts, church themes, European dances, and military
strains could be so transformed and formalized as to create a
unique, identifiable body of pianistic music. Within a decade
after the emergence of ragtime (beginning in about 1899)
exploitation, excess, popularization, decadence, and its own
implicit limitations had overtaken it. Meanwhile, for the
greater jazz movement, its work had been done and would
abide for fifty years.
Although Morton respected the best ragtime men and said
so, he apparently saw what was happening and what was miss-
ing. The music had become, in the hands of pseudoragmen, a
kind of showman's piano for vapid displays of fingering; and
in the hands of publishing-house hacks, it was a style in which
to compose banalities. Joplin's work aside, by about 1905 the
style had become rigid, and even some of the more legitimate
2O THE JAZZ T R A D I T I O N

rag composers simply decorated or reworked ragtime com-

monplaces. Morton was part of a movement which saved
things from decadence. Ragtime was structurally, rhyth-
mically, and emotionally limited, and Morton seems to have
known it.
The printed scores of Morton's typical multithematic
pieces—Wolverines, King Porter Stomp, The Pearls, Kansas City
Stomps, Grandpa's Spells, etc.—show three themes, a develop-
ing or contrasting melodic and tonal relationship among
them (often as ABC or ABAC), plus one or two choruses of
variation on the third theme. A very few ragtime scores sur-
vive which include written variations. In performance, spon-
taneous variations, or at least decorative embellishments and
fills, were sometimes made, but variation is not essential to
this music. Written variation is obviously essential to Morton's
music, and we know that in performance, improvised melodic
variation is a part of its substance.
There are other differences: in rhythm, harmony, and
emotional range.
One could describe Morton's smoothing out of ragtime
rhythms as the result of the addition, to the clipped 2/4 and
simple syncopations of ragtime, of more complex tango-
derived syncopations and of polyphonic bass melodies bor-
rowed and transformed from certain marches and European
dance music. One could also describe his harmonic progress
as based on his knowledge of European music and the intu-
itive freedom with which he could relate tonalities and arrive
at simple substitute chords—something which neither King
Oliver nor James Scott knew as much about. And his emo-
tional range was perhaps the result of his feeling for the blues.
But these categories make very arbitrary separations, they
overlap in practice, and they do not give a complete picture
even of Morton's "sources."
Many of the ragtime composers were well-schooled, some
undoubtedly better schooled than Morton. Most of the re-
JELLY ROLL MORTON 21

sources that Morton used were there in the European music

to which he was exposed—ready and waiting to be used, as it
were, for a long time. But, as the history of jazz has shown
repeatedly, the Promethean task is always a matter of showing
that such European-derived techniques will work as jazz, how
they will work, and assimilating them into the jazz idiom.
Making a musical resource work into jazz is never easy, never
the result of only formal musical knowledge nor of will. It
takes what we can only describe as an intuitive genius and
insight into the nature of jazz.
A fundamental aspect of Morton's music came from the
way that his bass lines and his other melodic phrases inter-
acted to produce polyphonic and polyrhythmic patterns, an-
ticipated downbeats, delayed accents, syncopated Spanish
rhythms, and trombone-like melodies.
In Mr. Jelly Roll, Alan Lomax invited us to see Morton's
music as an ingenious combination of "Downtown" and "Up-
town" New Orleans elements: the largely European (but
"folk" and therefore rhythmic) music of the colored Creoles,
plus the earthier music—blues, work songs, spirituals—of the
uptown Negroes and ex-slaves, some of whom had migrated
from nearby plantations.
Similarly, one might see it as an alliance between ragtime
and the blues, with importations from French and Spanish
folk musics, Baptist hymns, and martial music—the last at
least analogous to rags.
Unfortunately, most discussions of the constant flirting of
jazz with "Latin" music soon bog down into a listing of compo-
sitions, beginning with Joplin's Solace and including Horace
Silver's Senor Blues or Ornette Coleman's Una Muy Bonita.
The source of the syncopated 2/4 (which led towards 4/4) of
jazz may well be the tango. The source of the behind-the-beat
delays and "around-the-beat" accents which are so important
to Morton's New Orleans Blues, New Orleans Joys, The Crave, or
Mamanita could also be the tango. The very placement of the
22 THE JAZZ T R A D I T I O N

melodic phrases in, for example, the third theme of Morton's

Wolverine Blues corresponds with the placement of the heavy
beats in a tango—but Wolverines is not a jazz tango. Clearly,
"the Spanish tinge" (Morton's name for this Latin influence)
goes deeper than certain compositions, than an occasionally
brilliant effect which one hears not only in Morton's but in
Oliver's rhythm section, and than Morton's own comments
might lead one to believe.
And from the blues the music gained further rhythmic
character and variety, depth, honest passion, and sponta-
neous variation and improvisation.
Between the waning of ragtime and the ascendancy of New
Orleans jazz music, there was an overlapping popular move-
ment in American music called "the blues craze," which was
announced by the song publications of W. C. Handy, pieces
like St. Louis Blues and Beale Street Blues. In some ways,
Handy's approach was more formal even than ragtime's. It
was also perhaps a bit arty. He took indigenous blues melo-
dies, made them regular, harmonized them, and evolved a
system in which the "bent" tones of the blues "scale"—notes
found in every music in the world except Western concert
music, by the way—could be imitated by putting the third and
seventh notes of the scale in minor. He built several of these
melodies into often splendidly organized multithematic com-
positions on the model of rags. Even in Handy's somewhat
fussy approach, rhythmic variety, "breaks" (suspensions of a
stated pulse), and passion were captured.
As is evident from Morton's re-creations on his Library of
Congress recordings of the kinds of blues that were played in
the lowest dives in New Orleans, there was a lot of structural
and, more important for the moment, rhythmic diversity in
this music. There were blues in the clipped 2/4 of ragtime, in
the smoother and syncopated 2/4 of Creole jazz, in a 4/4 swing
suggesting the rhythm of Armstrong, and even in the eight-
to-the-bar of boogie woogie (which, by the way, suggests the
JELLY ROLL MORTON 23

rhythmic patterns of modern jazz). Handy's records of his

own blues used a mechanical version of rag rhythm and a
rather arty dance band approach. When others played
Handy's blues, a rhythm almost like New Orleans Creole jazz
often emerged.
Even in the most formally compositional blues, there can be
emotion unknown to ragtime. There would be no jazz without
the blues or, to put it a bit differently, without the blues jazz
would be a sterile music. But without ragtime, what a melod-
ically limited kind of rhythm-making jazz might be! The Eu-
ropean tradition of form, discipline, and order probably af-
fects jazz more directly today than before, but these ideals
crucially affected it indirectly through ragtime long ago.
The blues had rhythmic variety, passion, and, chiefly be-
cause of Handy's work, a certain public respectability. Like
most folk music, the blues were performed with improvisa-
tion. Combining the melodic-compositional emphasis of rags
and the improvisational-variational emphasis of blues, we
have the basis for Morton's principle of thematic variation.
Inevitable or not, simple or not, it was an almost brilliant
stroke, for it combined and developed the virtues of both
forms but the dangers of neither. It made variation meaning-
ful, but channeled and controlled it. It kept the music fresh
and alive, but gave it order and purpose. It also opened up
many possibilities for future developments. Later conceptions
might have allowed more freedom, but at this stage, and with
polyphonic structures, it was precisely this discipline of Mor-
ton's that helped immeasurably to transform emotional im-
pulse and musical craft into art.
Morton's "theory of jazz" which he gave to Alan Lomax is
not so much a theory as it is a specific response to the defini-
tion of jazz which used to be in certain American dictionaries
(something about loud, fast, blatant, cacophonous noises) and
similar "Aunt Sallies." But it does give certain principles that
were important to him and, perhaps more to the point, does
24 THE J A Z Z TRADITION

affirm that his mind was the kind which thought about prac-
tice and arrived at principles. The fact that he acknowledges
that he worked out his style at medium tempos (which permit-
ted him to work on note-doublings, embellishment, and ac-
centual displacements) not only indicates a fundamentally
rhythmic approach to jazz but coincidentally indicates the
basis on which most subsequent innovations were also worked
out. Hear the recordings made at Minton's in the early 1940s;
hear the Armstrong of the late igaos and early 1930s. Much
has been made of Morton's remark, "Always keep the melody
going some way." It does acknowledge that thematic variation
is Morton's way, but it is actually an afterthought to his insis-
tence on proper and interesting harmonization.
Much has been made of Morton's insistence that riffs (sim-
ple, rhythmically pronounced melodic phrases repeated over
and over) are for background, not for themes. No one could
doubt that the great effectiveness of riff melodies is often
bought cheap, but Morton himself wrote some riff melodies,
and the very riff he used to demonstrate his point was the
final theme of his rewriting of Santo Pecora's She's Crying for
Me into Georgia Swing. Many of his other themes, like many
rag themes, are simple and brief enough in their basic ideas to
amount to riffs. At any rate, one could hardly doubt the effec-
tiveness of riffs behind soloists. Nor could one question that
his principle that a jazz pianist should imitate an orchestra has
the confirmation of time; from Morton through Bud Powell,
Earl Hines through Erroll Garner, pianists follow either band
or horn styles.
As Morton put it, using "breaks"—brief two-bar, suspen-
sions of a stated rhythmic pulse—is "one of the most effective
things you can do in jazz." In a sense they are a culmination of
the rhythmic resources of the music (unless "stop time," two-
bar breaks in series, carries things a step further) but Morton
is probably the only man, musician or critic, who made them a
principle. They continue to be used today (often at the begin-
JELLY ROLL MORTON 25

ning of choruses instead of as a climactic device), and the

subtle sense of time and suspense they require is the bane of
many a "revivalist" dixielander and an excellent test of a musi-
cian's swing.
Morton's assertion that jazz can be played soft, sweet, slow,
with plenty of rhythm (or, as Andre Hodeir later put the same
principle, "swing is not the same as getting hot") is, of course,
crucial. The problem of swing at slow tempos plagues jazz-
men periodically.
Morton was, as I say, something of a modernist. That is why
he so frequently ridiculed "ragtime men." He was part of a
movement which saved Afro-American music from degener-
ation at the hands of pseudo and second-rate ragtimers and
continued its development. He obviously respected the best
ragtime and its composers, however. And that is also why
he frequently scorned blues instrumentalists ("one tune
piano players"). His work was more sophisticated, formal,
knowledgeable, resourceful, and varied than theirs. It was a
product of intelligence and theory as well as emotion and
intuition.

Morton's real reputation depends on a brilliant series

of orchestral recordings he made for the Victor company
between September 15, 1926, and June 11, 1928—a short
enough period, but greater reputations in jazz have been
made on less finished work.
These recordings are the real successors to the striking se-
ries of piano solos he made for Gennett, Paramount, Rialto,
and Vocalion between 1924 and 1926. He had made other
orchestral records before the Victors, none of them really
worthy of him as a pianist nor anticipating the orchestrator
and leader he was to become. But in those early band records
he did try out some of the devices and effects he was later to
perfect.
The exception among the early band recordings, and a real
26 THE JAZZ TRADITION

success, are the simplest in scoring, the pair of titles on Para-

mount, Big Fat Ham and Muddy Water—polyphony plus solos.
Jasper Taylor's excellent (if overrecorded) woodblock drum-
ming falls into just the right rhythmic role for Morton's
music. There is fine group swing, the right balance between
discipline and expressiveness in the playing, with the Kep-
pard-Oliver-like trumpet and the clarinet understanding and
displaying this relationship excellently. But Morton's attempt
to use a saxophone as an extra polyphonic voice is a failure; it
was something he would try again and something he seldom
made much of, partly because few of these saxophonists ever
got any swing.
Otherwise, an inept clarinetist, an amateurish trumpeter,
or a rhythmically awkward ensemble usually spoils these early
recordings. The Morton-directed version of London Blues by
the New Orleans Rhythm Kings ably alternates passages in
harmony, counterpoint, solos, and breaks, along the lines he
later perfected. The later Okeh London Blues, reorchestrated
in polyphony and spoiled only by bad clarinet, shows for the
first time on records the effective variety and thoughtfulness
of Morton as an accompanist. Among the remaining records,
the Gennett version of Mr. Jelly Lord (1926) features a three-
man reed section which plays, and swings, in harmony.
As I have said, Morton's achievement, before the Victor
orchestral recordings were made, was his piano, and we
should take a closer look at that style.
In 1944 William Russell wrote an analytical review of Mor-
ton's rediscovered Frog-i-More Rag solo for the magazine The
Needle, which, I think, offers a definitive statement of Mor-
ton's style:
Jelly Roll's piano style and musical greatness are nowhere better
demonstrated. . . . All the most typical features . . . are
abundantly evident: his wealth of melodic invention and skill in
variation; the tremendous swing . . . his feeling for formal
design and attention to detail; his effective use of pianistic re-
JELLY ROLL MORTON 27

sources; the contrasts of subtle elegance with hard hitting drive;

the variety of harmony, and yet freedom from complication
and superficial display. . . .
Jelly Roll had a more formal musical training and background
than many New Orleans musicians. ... At times the close-
knit design is marked by an economy of means that amounts to
understatement. Frog-i-More follows the usual form of Mor-
ton's stomps—introduction, a short three-part song form, and a
trio section. A definite musical idea is used for each new part.
Since the opening idea for the first strain, an ascending succes-
sion of 7th chords, does not immediately establish the tonality, a
curious effect of an extension of the introduction is created.
The contrasting second strain is unusually forceful, employing
a repeated-note motive and powerful left hand bass figures in
Jelly's full two-handed style. After a modified return of the first
strain a characteristic Morton trill bridges over to the trio. . . .
Jelly took great pride in his "improvisations" (on theme) . . .
listen to the trio section to discover Jelly's phenomenal skill in
variation. And if one were to study the four different versions
of The Pearls or the half-dozen recordings of Mr. Jelly Lord, and
perhaps also take time to compare some of these variations with
the published versions, he would begin to get an idea of Jelly's
unlimited imagination and mastery of motival variation. . . .
The beautiful chorale-like melody of the Frog-i-More trio is first
played very simply, in a style reminiscent of the sustained trio of
Wolverine Blues. . . . On paper the tune, with its constantly
repeated motive, presents a singularly four-square appearance,
but Jelly's performance is a revelation of rhythmic variety by
means of such devices as shifted accents, slight delays, and an-
ticipations. ..... As raggy as Jelly's performance of this cho-
rale is, it nevertheless is in perfect time; the regular pulse can
be felt throughout with no loss at all in momentum. . . .
The melodic invention of this finale is as notable as its im-
mense rhythmic vitality. . . . Jelly's rhythmic impetus and
melodic embellishment give the effect of a fantastic and fren-
zied variation. Actually, each bar is directly related to its
counterpart in the first simple statement and all of Jelly's
28 THE JAZZ TRADITION

characteristic and fanciful "figurations" are fused with the hasic

idea as though they belonged there originally . . . with Jelly
Roll, no matter how exuberant rhythmically or varied melod-
ically the final choruses become, there is never any doubt of
their musical logic and each note grows out of the original mo-
tive. Nor is the typical flavor of the unique Morton style
ever , . . lost.
When Morton recorded his music, reminiscences, and fab-
rications for the Library of Congress, beginning May 21,
1938, he gave us documents that are revealing, exasperating,
and delightful. His piano invention is extended, unhampered
by such things as the time limits of recording for a ten-inch 78
r.p.m. There are unique revelations of his resources and fine
inventiveness on the extended versions of Wolverines, The
Pearls, Creepy Feeling. But this man, aging, sick, inwardly dis-
couraged behind the pride and bravado, sometimes faltered
in fingering and time.
One of his most revealing performances is of Joplin's Maple
Leaf Rag, first in St. Louis-ragtime style, then in his own. The
performance speaks for itself of his innovations in rhythm,
tempo, polyphonic effect, improvised variation. Guy Water-
man has said of Morton's reorganization of Joplin's Original
Rags:
The most obvious indications of Jelly's jazz approach stem, in
the right hand, from the improvisation and, in the left hand,
from the anticipated downbeats and the octave runs of four
sixteenth-notes, Jelly's trademark. Actually, however, these de-
vices do not explain the full transformation which Jelly brings
about. There is a gulf which separates ragtime, as the early
rag composers understood it, from jazz as Jelly epitomized it.
This gulf has more to do with the type of beat which the two
develop and the nature of the momentum which builds up. The
difference is reflected in the entire organization of the perfor-
mance. 3

3. The Jazz Review, December 1958.

JELLY ROLL MORTON 29

Two other performances on the Library of Congress series

are worth examining for what they show us about Morton's
ideas of structure. The first is an extended version of Kansas
City Stomps. As published, Kansas City Stomps consists of an
introduction (a "tune-up" motif) and three themes: A (e flat),
A (an exact repeat), B (e flat), B (an exact repeat), C (a flat), C'
(a melodic variation). Both A and B are sixteen-bar themes
(out of ragtime, polkas, and marches) and C is an unusual
twelve-bar melody with a double break at bar one and at bar
seven, making two six-bar units.
In this performance Morton plays: introduction, A, A' (a
variation), B, B' (a variation), A" (another variation), C, C'
(a variation), introduction (a modulational interlude), A'" (a
third variation). Thus an implicit rondo is completed, with
each return to each theme a variation on that theme.
Then there is the challenge of a single theme. Hyena Stomp
is a simple sixteen-bar melody of pronounced rhythmic
character—an extended two-bar riff, if you will, on one of
Morton's favorite chord structures. As a comparison of the
shortened printed score and the orchestral version he did for
Victor records will show, the basic outlines of the way Morton
handled variations on it were compositionally preset—but
that is true of much jazz. As is also true in jazz, the way the
outlines are used in performance can be another matter.
The basic motive of the theme is stated in the first two
measures, then moved through a chorus of sixteen bars which
serves as an introduction. There follows a second sixteen-bar
chorus in which the melody is again stated in bare form. In
these first two statements the harmony is deliberately rung
clear so that an almost lyric mood is set with that riff, but there
are hints of the kind of rhythmic variation to come. There
follows a series of six variations. Each is based on a musical
idea which Morton works out; each is related to what imme-
diately precedes and follows it, either as contrast or comple-
ment; each is also part of the total pattern of the perfor-
mance; and each is orchestrally or instrumentally conceived.
30 THE J A Z Z TRADITION

Chorus three is primarily rhythmic, an appropriate con-

trast to the careful harrnonic-lyric emphasis of the first two.
Morton simplified the melody and harmony drastically in a
kind of "barrelhouse" destruction of the piece, in which the
swinging momentum and a partly polyphonic bass line are
first introduced. From this simplification, Morton rebuilds
Hyena Stomp in various ways. The fourth chorus is an elabo-
rate lyric transformation—melodically the most complex—of
the theme, dancing lightly after the heavier motion of what
has preceded it. From this point on, as we gradually return to
and build on the pronounced rhythmic momentum intro-
duced in the third chorus, we hear a melodic simplification
from this peak, and dynamic building. The fifth chorus is an
excellent stroke. It still refers to the melody but it also trans-
forms (by simplification) the fourth, forming a kind of two-
chorus unit with it. The sixth chorus is a contrast, but one
which had been subtly prepared for. It is a variation in the
bass (a rather complicated one for the time) under a simple
treble statement, and in the preceding chorus there has been
much activity in his left hand, readying our ears for this one.
In the seventh chorus we are reminded of trumpet figures,
and these gradually build into an ensemble variation in the
eighth. Morton leads into and makes his climax. The dy-
namic-rhythmic ideas continue to build excitement and the
rhythm swings freely and simply.
Assigning the styles of the variations to instruments, we
would have:
Chorus 1 ensemble in harmony
Chorus 2 ensemble, hints of polyphony
Chorus 3 polyphony
Chorus 4 clarinet solo, lower register
Chorus 5 clarinet, upper register, trombone in polyphony
Chorus 6 trombone solo, broken poly rhythms behind
Chorus 7 trumpet into riffs, hints of polyphony
Chorus 8 unison brass-like riffs, still on theme
J E L L Y ROLL MORTON 31

On the basis of the various ways that Morton handles his

simple theme, we have heard some remarkable things, but
there is even more in some of the details.
As we have seen, our chorus unit is sixteen measures. But
Morton used variations which joined two groups of choruses
(four and five, seven and eight). At the same time, each
chorus, by the nature of the theme, may fall into two eight-bar
units. These, in turn, may fall into units of four bars. Then
there is the fact we began with: the basic melodic motive can
be stated in two bars. To some, such a thing is evidence of
melodic crudeness. Morton, apparently aware of these limita-
tions, took interesting advantage of them and made them
principles of his structures. The final chorus, for example,
consists of an unbroken eight-bar line followed by two four-
bar units, held together emotionally. Also, the first melodic
fragment in chorus one is not exact; an improvised shift of
meter is then corrected in bars three and four. And in the two
clarinet choruses Morton handles bar lines with further inge-
nuity: the first is based on a parallel repetition of two-bar
units; the second begins with contrasting two-bar units. Thus
Morton builds variations in continuity within choruses, com-
bines some of these into double choruses and, within this,
works out small structures of two, four, and eight bars, all of
which contribute by contrast, parallel, and echo to a total
development and unity.
Any such an attempt at scrutiny as the foregoing is bound
to make a music that is warm, passionate, and spontaneous
seem a contrived and pat set of devices. The point of it, of
course, is to illustrate general and subtle principles of style. In
any given performance, the application of Morton's ideas will
be different. But once one grasps the nature of these ideas
and their relationships, the excitement, beauty, and unique-
ness of Morton's work will, I think, possess him even more
strongly and lastingly.
Behind the success of the Victor recordings are a maturity
32 THE J A Z Z TRADITION

in Morton's conception, the availability of a group of musi-

cians equipped both to play well and to follow Morton's exact-
ing instructions and leadership, careful rehearsal, and a series
of exceptional orchestrations.
Like the question of how many of his compositions Morton
borrowed or otherwise got from others (a question hardly
confined to him—it might be raised about many major jazz-
men), the question of how much musical knowledge he actu-
ally had and how much help he had with scoring is perpetu-
ally unresolved. One can get testimony, often from excellent
jazzmen, that Morton knew little about music and played
badly. One can get just as much reputable testimony that he
was an excellent musician, ahead of his time in several re-
spects, and could play extremely well. The only answer, of
course, is his playing—with its faults and with its evident evo-
lution and refinement. The answer to the complaint that Mor-
ton did not make his own orchestrations is the obvious fact
that a single musical intelligence and taste is behind them.
Doc Cook, Tiny Parham, Mel Stizel, and others have been
mentioned as helpers with scoring. The answer undoubtedly
is that, even if Morton needed help, the conception was nev-
ertheless his.
The ensembles for the Victor recordings were sometimes
written—always at least sketched—in advance. Obviously
those with harmonized parts were written or at least carefully
rehearsed, but so were some of the polyphonic ensembles.
They are the disciplined perfection of integrated, inter-
woven, early New Orleans polyphonic improvising, surpass-
ing all others we have on records. The release of alternate
"takes" of the recordings confirms that in ensemble nearly
everyone except Morton played ad lib upon a presketched
outline of his part.
The solos, more often than not, were improvised. There
are exceptions: Johnny Dodds obviously plays (or plays from)
two written choruses on Hyena Stomp, and Omer Simeon obvi-
JELLY ROLL MORTON 33

ously allows himself little freedom on Shreveport Stomp. On

the other hand, the release of a very different and superior
take of the excellent trio recording of Wolverine Blues con-
firms that, for that performance, Johnny Dodds improvised
entirely, using the chord structure alone, while Morton varied
the trio theme behind him. And, as several of Omer Simeon's
and George Mitchell's solos on the alternate takes demon-
strate, Morton would often work out with the instrumentalist
a sketch or plan which the latter, in turn, was free to fill in or
ad lib. Surely the similarities between Morton's way of work-
ing with his musicians and that of both Ellington and the
Modern Jazz Quartet confirm that there has been only one
really successful, variously arrived at solution to the problem
of improvisation and total form, of spontaneity and group
discipline, in jazz.

One thing that immediately strikes one about the Victor

recordings is the extraordinary way in which the players in
the various groups work together. Such unity (and it is beau-
tifully recorded) would be rare even for a group that had
been playing together for many months, regardless of the
stylistic sympathy of its members with one another. For pick-
up groups, even ones so carefully selected and rehearsed as
these were, it is almost unthinkable. And one should remem-
ber that such discipline as Morton exacted may easily produce
negative results in the playing of jazzmen of any school.
Smokehouse Blues, from the first recording date, is excep-
tional if only for the polyphony of its last chorus and because
it is so movingly and passionately played. One must wait
almost until Morton's last years for so moving a blues.4 The
orchestration is largely soloistic, however, and the soloists
were equipped for it. They were equipped not only to play
4. Charles Luke's Smokehouse is not a twelve-bar blues, of course, but a sixteen-
bar piece in the slow blues mood. However, Morton's Wolverine Blues is not a
blues but is in post-ragtime "stomp" style.
34 THE JAZZ TRADITION

expressively but also to let emotional subjectivity contribute to

the performance as a whole rather than detract from its
development—a task few jazzmen have been able to fulfill
unless they were willing to submit their talents to the direction
of a Morton or an Ellington. One brief break in the clarinet
chorus has Simeon double-timing while Morton's piano and
Johnny St. Cyr's banjo quadruple-time beneath him! Yet the
effect of this sudden contrast is to enhance the mood of the
piece, not to interrupt, it. Morton's own unaccompanied solo
does not seem to fit rhythmically with the rest of the record-
ing, but before one decides that his sense of rhythm was fail-
ing him (as it sometimes did), one should be aware of the
deliberate rhythmic variety that is a part of so many of these
recordings, and be aware that the successful use of it is a
crucial part of Morton's achievement. Black Bottom Stomp, an
excellent case in point, was also made at this first Victor date.
Black Bottom, one of Morton's best compositions, is built on
two themes: one of sixteen measures, and a second of twenty.
The version by the Red Hot Peppers is easily one of Morton's
best recordings.
The ensemble included cornet, George Mitchell; trom-
bone, Kid Ory; clarinet, Omer Simeon; piano, Morton; banjo,
Johnny St. Cyr; bass, John Lindsay; and drums, Andrew
Hilaire. In the brief performance, these men interpret the
themes of Black Bottom and make solo variations on them.
Some of their variations are thematic and some are fresh
inventions on their chord patterns. They offer passages in
harmony, polyphony, and patterns broken four bars at a time
between soloist and group. Morton's piano solo is unaccom-
panied, but the other soloists play with the rhythm section,
sometimes with banjo, sometimes without, and one clarinet
solo is accompanied only by the banjo. Sometimes the beat is a
pronounced heavy/light/heavy/light; at other times it is an
even 4 and there is one climactic chorus with a pronounced
back beat. There is the "black bottom" variant of the Charles-
JELLY ROLL MORTON 35

ton rhythm: there are two-bar breaks, sometimes by one in-

strument, but once split between two of them. There is a wide
variety of combinations of instruments and textures. Morton
had the audacity to try something which is still highly un-
usual: his strongest climaxes are made, not simply by increas-
ing dynamics or by accumulating masses of instruments, but
by holding back Lindsay's string bass and Hilaire's tom-tom
and bass drum until key moments.
My brief description makes the performance sound ab-
surdly cluttered and pretentious. But it is neither. Black Bot-
tom Stomp flows with such apparent simplicity and almost
fated logic that one barely notices its astonishing variety. One
thing that holds it together is its patterns of echo as various
effects appear and reappear: this polyphonic passage is bal-
anced by that one later on; this rhythmic pattern is echoed in
a later one; the clarinet lead here is balanced by the clarinet
solo there—the very variety is given in an orderly manner.
To be a bit more detailed, Black Bottom begins with an eight-
bar, written introduction for the ensemble given as four bars
plus an exact repeat. The first chorus of the first A theme is
offered in written harmony, but at a couple of points the
clarinet and the trombone momentarily break away into a
kind of polyphony. In A 1, we are given four bars ad lib by
cornet in solo, followed by four bars written for ensemble,
four more for cornet, four more for ensemble. Mitchell's sec-
ond four bars are a sprightly variant of his first. In A2, the
third appearance of the first theme, the clarinet plays a para-
phrase over a lightly sketched "black bottom" rhythm by the
banjo alone.
A four-bar interlude introduces the stomping B theme
which we hear in improvised polyphony, and in this opening
chorus a two-bar break is shared by cornet and trombone.
Also evident in this chorus is the important role that bassist
John Lindsay plays, and is to play, in the arrangement. B1,
the second appearance of the second theme, is a nonthematic
36 THE J A Z Z T R A D I T I O N

clarinet invention of eighteen bars, and an ensemble figure of

two bars. B2 is an unaccompanied piano solo by Morton, also
nonthematic and followed by the same two-bar ensemble fig-
ure that ended the previous chorus. B3 is a cornet solo, a
thematic paraphrase over a stop-time variant of the black bot-
tom rhythm. B4 is a nonthematic banjo solo, under which
Lindsay varies his pattern ingeniously between 2/4 and 4/4.
Some of the banjo's figures may be familiar, but the playing is
wonderfully spirited. B5, due to be an all-out ensemble cli-
max, has the cornet, clarinet, and trombone delicately inter-
weaving in polyphony over a very lightly played, understated
rhythm, with a superbly placed break by Hilaire's cymbal. B6,
the final ensemble, is the true "stomp" chorus, with Lindsay
and Hilaire in strong, the latter with emphatic bass drum plus
the aforementioned tom-tom back-beat, with an unexpected
trombone break.
Morton's music reflects a deep understanding of the value
and purpose behind a device or an effect, and all parts of
Black Bottom Stomp are intrinsic to a knowingly paced whole.
Could anyone else in jazz history—even Ellington—put so
much into a brief performance with such success? The Red
Nichols-Miff Mole version of Black Bottom, made a few
months after this one and apparently using the same orches-
tration as its point of departure, is a rhythmically unsure,
superficial, ineptly played sequence of lumbering effects.
The strongest contrast to the complexity of stomps like
Black Bottom is a recording like Jungle Blues. It is a deliberately
archaic piece, whose basic ingredients are a primitive blues
bass line and a simple riff. Before he has finished, Morton has
in effect formed the riff into three themes (and they are good
ones), handled the heavy "four" of the bass with some varia-
tion, occasionally relieved it briefly and, as he usually could,
spun the performance to the brink of monotony, ending it at
exactly the moment-too-soon.
Between the complexity of Black Bottom Stomp or Grandpa's
JELLY ROLL M O R I O N 37

Spells and the comparative simplicity of Jungle Blues or Hyena

Stomp lies the range of an artist.
Dead Man Blues is probably the masterpiece of the Victor
series for its superior themes, its orchestration, and its perfor-
mance.5 There are wonderful details in Dead Man Blues: the
easy swing of Mitchell's never-obvious lead, the strength of
Omer Simeon in both his ensemble and solo melodies, the
beautiful outward simplicity of the two trio choruses. The
opening and closing ensembles seem the fruition of the years
of New Orleans ensemble playing, of its simultaneous im-
provisation. They are choruses which in themselves might
make reputations for an orchestrator and his players and
which, as part of a whole performance, are among the most
effective understatements in jazz recording.
Dead Man redeems Sidewalk Blues wherein Morton was per-
haps a bit too preoccupied with the excellence of his ensem-
ble's swing and a bit careless with the quality of his melodies in
the introduction and trio, and with some of his trombone
lines.
Some kinds of failure are necessary to an artist, particularly
if they show him by contrast just what he does best. To have
followed Dead Man by the excessively corny and banal added
parts for two violins on Someday Sweetheart is perhaps a bit like
John Lewis's having followed Sait-on Jamais with European
Windows; because if Morton's intentions were more "dance
band" and Lewis's more "concert hall," both tended, perhaps
equally, toward "acceptability." Morton's other "experiment"
in the Chicago recordings—that of again adding the extra
voice of an alto saxophone—cannot be called a failure. Stump
Evans swings more than the saxophonists on Morton's earlier

5. I have not mentioned the verbal exchanges between Morton and Johnny St.
Cyr, the lame jokes, that begin the record. Such things are apt to seem either
pointless or annoying to us in Morton's records even when they are used sparsely
and intended humorously. Perhaps more important, they indicate an approach
to one's audience that is more real than arty.
38 THE JAZZ TRADITION

records and, for all the modified slap-toriguing in his solos,

his part interferes far less in the polyphonic sections. Indeed,
particularly on the trio of The Pearls he seerns to contribute to
an interesting texture and ensemble swing.
If Black Bottom Stomp has a serious rival among the fast
stomps, it is the marvelously titled Grandpa's Spells. Grandpa's
is better written. Its orchestration is exceptional, lacking only
the touches of brilliance one hears in Black Bottom, and it is
very well played. Its plan is ingenious but, again, an outline is
only an introduction. There is the same variety among po-
lyphony, harmony and solo, rhythmic emphasis, breaks, etc.
There is also an ingenious use of rhythm instruments, this
time an apparently innovative conversation of breaks among
string bass, trombone, and ensemble. Is there anything com-
parable in jazz recording until Ellington's Jack the Bear?
Grandpa's Spells illustrates a further point about Morton's
instrumental music. New Orleans jazz, like all jazz, retains
highly "vocal" elements, but in it we hear a relatively devel-
oped instrumental style, not simply a vocal style transferred to
instrument. Morton was a pianist, and his piano imitated a
jazz orchestra, but he knew that some of his ideas were too
directly pianistic to be simply transferred to the horns and
rhythm. When working with the Peppers he did not simply
rescore his conception back to its orchestral source; some-
times he needed to recompose and he knew it. Grandpa's
Spells in the Hot Peppers version opens with a recomposed
first theme played on St. Cyr's banjo.
The more one hears Chicago-made Hot Peppers record-
ings, the more one is impressed with Morton's remarkable
ability in choosing and rehearsing his musicians, particularly
George Mitchell and Omer Simeon. Both men understood
Morton rhythmically. Simeon's strength was his ability to im-
provise from a sketch or outline, and particularly to make
responsive countermelodies in ensemble passages. Mitchell's
elusive rhythmic sense was perfectly suited to Morton's, lying
JELLY ROLL MORTON 39

between the staccato 2/4 accents of an earlier day and the even
4/4 accents to come. Most important, Mitchell's cornet melo-
dies were probably as complex as they could be and still re-
main an integrated lead voice in the polyphonic ensembles. A
little more of the virtuoso cornet soloist and the ensemble
begins to collapse, as Louis Armstrong's work of this period
made increasingly evident.
To single out moments from these recordings is obviously
unfair since I am claiming such unity of conception for the
best of them. But, with that in mind, there are some things
that could be mentioned: the chorus on the trio of Cannonball
Blues when the banjo carries the theme against the double-
time piano comments of the leader; the conversation in
"twos" on Wild Man between clarinet and piano, then clarinet
and alto, in which one will intermittently egg the other in-
to double-time; the announcement which Steamboat Stomp
makes that Morton's orchestral style has dealt with the prob-
lem of faster tempos; and the entirely infectious movement
and swing of Doctor Jazz, a jazz composer's version of a single-
theme pop tune.
On June 11, 1928, Morton held his first Hot Peppers re-
cording session in New York. I think that the location proba-
bly accounts for the final fulfillment of Morton's rhythmic
conception which we hear on Georgia Swing, Kansas City
Stomps, Shoe Shiner's Drag, and Boogaboo. Some Northeastern
players were using, and continued to use, an older rhythm
that was rather closer to ragtime, and Morton could take di-
rect advantage of that fact. It was easier to get these players to
swing his way than it would be for Red Allen or J. C. Higgin-
botham on later records. Shoe Shiner's Drag (London Blues)
was apparently impressive enough to be remembered and
recorded by Lionel Hampton and it is a blues on a sophisti-
cated, substitute chord structure. But the best work from this
recording date is Kansas City Stomps. At a medium tempo, it
features excellent polyphonic writing and playing on several
4O THE J A Z Z TRADITION

themes, and it sustains throughout, the swing of some of the

Chicago recordings which have stower tempos, with their
same easy understatements in climaxes. Georgia Swing is
almost as good. Ward Pinkett is a fine trumpeter for Morton
to have chosen: his sense of time and accent is almost equal to
George Mitchell's, and Morton knew how to use the variety of
effects he could produce with mutes.

The last of the great Victors—in 1928—is a quartet based

on Oliver's Chimes Blues, which Morton called Mournful Ser-
enade. None of his subsequent recordings is supposed to be as
good as the earlier ones. But the point is that he had too much
taste and insight merely to repeat and decorate, to reiterate
and complicate what he had already done. Twenty-five sides
had displayed his music, as complete and close to perfection
as an artist can ask. It was time to try other things, and among
those other things are some real successes.
The first date announced the things he would work on. Red
Hot Pepper successfully modifies the earlier manner towards
big-band scoring. The blues, Deep Creek, is a string of solos on
more than one theme with opening and closing ensembles.
Certainly many of Morton's big-band arrangements suffer by
comparison with what Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson,
and Ellington did, but Morton's best were done in 1928 and
1929, and their best a bit later. New Orleans Bump is a success-
ful example of the same kind of thing his successors were to
do, and it is another excellent example of pushing simplicity
to the brink of monotony, then saving it by a hint of variety
and by knowing exactly when to stop.
In others of these later records there are fine moments: the
clean swing and passion of the last chorus of Pontchartrain;
the well-paced and varied textures of Burning the Iceberg (the
familiar integration of section harmony, polyphony, and solo
now being used in the new conception for a larger group)
despite its rather anachronistic basic rhythm; and the han-
JELLY ROLL MORTON N 41

dling of the first theme in its various appearances on Pretty Lil

(by an immediate reduction in the second chorus, later by solo
variation, etc.). If the scoring or the handling of elements on a
later record is not quite on that level, there may well be other
things: the superb interplay of piano and guitar on Little Law-
rence or the very effective piano breaks and solo on Tank
Town Bump. When one of these records fails, it does not fail
because the music on it is pedestrian or banal. Even when the
arrangements are based on familiar chord structures or me-
lodic patterns, Morton may handle them with a freshness that
will discover in them something alive and unhackneyed, if not
always artistically satisfying.
Finally, a performance like Blue Blood Blues shows that
Morton knew exactly what the theme/string-of-solos/theme
approach might achieve, and that recording is still one of the
best of its genre—possibly the best before some of the small-
group recordings of the late 1930s.

A decidedly minor artist (or minor craftsman) may be a

major influence—even on a major artist. But it is also quite
possible for a major artist to have little influence on his imme-
diate successors. The kind of after-the-fact argument which
elevates a man on the basis of influence often avoids a crucial
evaluation.
I would like to present Morton on his own terms. If one
cannot quite see his achievement on those terms, if one needs
comparisons with the work of those around him to help, there
is the evidence of: the inept, unswinging, monotonous re-
cordings of his own pieces made by Red Nichols and Miff
Mole, The Original Memphis Five, or the California Ram-
blers; King Oliver's pedestrian Dead Man Blues; the Fletcher
Henderson version of The Chant; or the more recent versions
of Morton's compositions made by Turk Murphy and Pee
Wee Erwin. One can also learn much by comparing the hesi-
tant versions which some of the Southwestern bands made of
42 THE JAZZ TRADITION

his things in the 1920s—the Benny Moten version of Midnight

Mama, for example.
It is among Southwest musicians that one can gather the
verbal evidence of Morton's influence. Interviews bring testi-
mony that Morton, his compositions, his musical training, or
his scores were an inspiration. Andy Kirk, Jimmy Rushing,
Don Redman, and Ben Smith have all attested to it.
In King Porter, we can see one specific and clearly identifia-
ble influence of Morton's work on jazz. In the variations on
the trio, we hear figures which are typical of Morton, which
Henderson's arrangement used and passed on to Benny
Goodman—a kind of scoring for brass (and Morton clearly
had brass in mind in such sections) which set a pattern used by
almost everyone during the swing period, even Ellington.
Hear Bojangles for the clearest instance. One can hear it still in
everyone who writes big-band jazz scores.
But the real challenge of Morton's work is not a simple
result of Morton the composer, the orchestrator, the theorist,
the master of form; it is the more complex challenge that in
him jazz, by the mid-1920s, had produced an artist.
One can find a lot of reasons for finding this man with the
clown's nickname still important in the jazzman's heritage. In
him jazz did produce one of its best composers, best leaders,
and one of its first theorists. More important, he first demon-
strated the only way jazz has ever found to free its larger
structures and groups from the tyranny and subjectivity of
the moment.