I play a bit of piano. Those of you who don't may think what he's playing looks really hard. Well, it is. The stride bass alone takes hundreds of hours to get right. Add to that the complex rhythms, keeping a steady tempo, and modulating like crazy all over the place and you've got yourself something almost impossible to do. This guy is really great at it. I envy him so much!
I see this was posted ten years ago. I'm sad I only discovered it today (2023-08-01) thank you TH-cam algorithm! And thank you for leaving this up here just waiting for me all this time.
This is wonderful!! My father and Morton were friends. My dad, Frank Melrose, learned a lot from Jelly and went on to play on his own, He became well known as a blues and boogie man in and around the Chicago area until his untimely death in 1941.
I just did a quick search by reading the wiki biographies of Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin. Scott Joplin moved to New York City from St. Louis in 1907. Jelly got to New York City in 1911 with a minstrel show where future stride greats James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith caught his act. Do I think that Jelly looked Scott Joplin "the King of Ragtime" up while in New York City? Yes I do. Jelly was 9 years old in 1899 when the Maple Leaf Rag was published and Jelly said that he knew all of Scott Joplin's rags by heart. He must have played them constantly in the bordellos in New Orleans as a youth. The only problem with my theory is that there is no evidence that I can find that they ever met. In the recordings made in 1938 for the Library of Congress Jelly plays the Maple Leaf Rag and then plays it again in his Jazz style, a wonderful feat. Joplin died in 1917 at 48 or 49 years of age since his exact date of birth is disputed, and Jelly died at 50 years of age in 1941. His birth date is also somewhat disputed. In 1912-14, Morton toured with his girlfriend Rosa Brown as a vaudeville act, and it was during this time he stayed for a while in St. Louis, Missouri and talks about the trip, Scott Joplin (who at this time was in New York City) and other ragtime greats in the recordings made in 1938 for the Library of Congress directed by Alan Lomax and released on an eight-CD boxed set in 2005, "The Complete Library of Congress Recordings".
Thanks for your nice piece about your father knowing Morton. It's nice to know that there is still a link to those great times. Great music. Great characters.
Walter Melrose, Franklin Melrose's brother, was Morton's first publisher and was hated by him for stealing millions in royalties. He told anybody who could hear what a crook he was. And I heard that Morton died in NYC by starvation, but this isn't true. Morton died in Los Angeles County Hospital, a victim of "cardiac decompensation" due to "hypertensive heart disorder" . I don't think that's in Wikipedia. It's in "Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton by Howard Reich & William Gaines.
That was an outstanding presentation, Terry! We need more musicologists like you to preserve this great, original music of ours! Many thanks. Keep up the excellent work!
It's so funny, it's taken me 30 years to finally understand Jelly Roll Morton. I spent most of the time studying piano music by Evans, Monk, Powell, Johnson and then jumped further back to Joplin, skipping over Morton. But now....?! I am amazed by what he was doing so I'll be studying him all of this year! Great presentation.
I’m a Brit and I've just commented on another video how my school music teacher introduced me to Jelly Roll Morton in 1971. Being a Catholic school a lot of his colourful history was left out, but he did instilled in me the love of good music. Your video is beyond fascinating. You have that great ability, too few people have, to go into the details of a subject and keep it interesting. Because of a health condition I spend too much time in bed watching TH-cam and I can honestly say this is one of the best videos I’ve seen in a very long while. You remind me of the music teacher that musically captivated that little boy nearly half a century ago. Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you ….I enjoyed this. I can see why he (Jelly Roll Morton) considered himself the inventor of jazz by playing all those off keys in his ragtime beat. It’s like I can see a drunken alley acapella group singin’ away.
This a splendid analysis of the Morton's genius. Waldo's interpretation of "The Pearls", a brilliant piece, swings in a way that I find very agreeable, and intimates the way in which ragtime can evolve.
A wonderful history lesson which demonstrates the sources of Jelly Roll's melodic creativity,the richness of his harmonies, and the excitement of the shifting rhythmic patterns.Jelly's sophistication is delightful, the music of a hundred years ago, far exceeding the popular,
Hi Terry... I just happened to stumble on to your Jelly Role Morton talk and demo and it was such a pleasure to see you again! I used to see you and your group as often as I could in Columbus at Engine House #5, You were awsome then abd still are!!
Since I had a piano player ("Jelly Roll" Martin) in my band who could not play only Stride and Boogie like many others, but also Jelly Roll Morton, I found this upload of Terry Waldo very instructive. Thank you Terry ! Tommy Schibli
Very nice video about our hero, who was born in 1890 in New Orleans. (not 1885) Thanks ! You bring the emotion in the Pearls! Wonderful! You're so right with the latin feel.
It's the other way round. Jazz started out as a blend of many cultures and rhythms, and some New Orleans style musicians still champion the original jazz music, but the afro-latin influence began to fade after the 1920s. Perhaps we can say that the dixieland jazz movement commercialised and sanitised jazz, removing much of the cultural and rhythmic complexity, often replacing those components with frenetic tempos. The swing movement didn't really bring them back either. More recently of course, afro-latin rhythms have been reintroduced into jazz, so that is nice.
@@Zoco101 Yeah, also didn't spanishified jazz become almost a fad for a while in the 50s? Everyone released a 'Spanish tinge' album, Coltrane, Miles. Dizzy was doing some sort of afro-cuban thing earlier than that. Cubana-be cubana-bop.. but to me it sounds kinda forced and not as natural to the music. Whereas Jelly Roll stuff like the crave it just sounds completely natural and right when he goes into the Latin rhythm
@@joeakajoe1 That's true. The self conscious fusions are not so good. It's better when it happens in a less obvious way. I'm particularly at odds with the recent jazz-flamenco fusion. For me, this does not work - two incompatible but highly rhythmic genres are forced together. The last time I saw this in a concert (in Spain) I quite liked the more flamenco interludes, particularly the dancing, but the jazz content was a waste of time and effort. Maybe the flamenco experts would say the opposite. Either way, why force these things? Maybe it's connected to Spain missing out on about 20 years of jazz development, what with the dictatorship starting in the late 1930s.
Latin American music was very popular in the first couple decades of the 20th century. Think the rhumba section in “St. Louis Blues.” Most of the music was for dancing, and the latest moves from Latin America were the hottest thing. I believe it was Jelly Roll Morton himself that came up with the “Spanish Tinge” descriptor.
Hopefully you will one day record “Doctor Jazz”. Jelly’s vocal on the old recording I have sounds like he was having a great time playing and singing, too!
This is an amazing presentation! I just recently learned about Jelly Roll Morton and I find the "instrumentation" of his music really interesting. For me it is a much cleaner introduction to New Orleans Jazz. It is also really funny to me to hear New Orleans Joys and compare it to Professor Longhairs Tipitina :)
6:28 , there you have it separate the mind right and left completely intelligent complete ..! And you will live longer when you do that .. trust me I know ..!
Hmm. Ok. So. That part from 10:10 to 10:30 where the adjustment for a latin feel is illustrated. I like it, I'm trying it. But I can't figure out what's going on with the right hand part. I hear the dat dar dat - dat dar description and hear that in the LH, and that I do fine and dandy. But what do you do with the RH part to 'fit' it to that? How does the RH 'line up' (or not) with the LH? I've tried guessing and it's not working. I've watched the video at 0.5 speed to try to hear or see it, but nope, not grasping it. Can anyone explain how the RH fits to the latinized LH (or can direct me to somewhere that goes into detail, text or video, or to a midi file - or record one! - or something so I can use synthesia to really see what's going on?) - I'd appreciate it. I'm stuck and not finding any answers from searching.
Morton has one of the really unique piano styles,and he is very hard to copy in his style,I can play when I care like jp Johnson,fats, Don Lambert even Hines ,and some Tatum,but not Morton..it's just really different ..I've heard Sutton,hyman,bunches if guys doing Morton,it always sounds more stride then Morton...terry does well,the absolute best at playing in mortons style was don ewell just great.
Having Military bases around I would not be surprised that one musician would like to play as a one man Band. Perhaps you could get invited to play insade base for Officers Club or NCO Clubs, Naval Clubs etc, and well money will fly on one direction only.
My computer leaps unbidden by me elsewhere. I WISH THAT OUR CURRENT YOUNG PEOPLE COULD BE SHOWN THIS VIDEO SO THEY COULD KNOW THAT THE REPETITIVE TRASH OF TODAY LACKS ALL THESE QUALITIES.
I play a bit of piano. Those of you who don't may think what he's playing looks really hard. Well, it is. The stride bass alone takes hundreds of hours to get right. Add to that the complex rhythms, keeping a steady tempo, and modulating like crazy all over the place and you've got yourself something almost impossible to do. This guy is really great at it. I envy him so much!
I see this was posted ten years ago. I'm sad I only discovered it today (2023-08-01) thank you TH-cam algorithm! And thank you for leaving this up here just waiting for me all this time.
This is wonderful!! My father and Morton were friends. My dad, Frank Melrose, learned a lot from Jelly and went on to play on his own, He became well known as a blues and boogie man in and around the Chicago area until his untimely death in 1941.
I just did a quick search by reading the wiki biographies of Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin. Scott Joplin moved to New York City from St. Louis in 1907. Jelly got to New York City in 1911 with a minstrel show where future stride greats James P. Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith caught his act. Do I think that Jelly looked Scott Joplin "the King of Ragtime" up while in New York City? Yes I do. Jelly was 9 years old in 1899 when the Maple Leaf Rag was published and Jelly said that he knew all of Scott Joplin's rags by heart. He must have played them constantly in the bordellos in New Orleans as a youth. The only problem with my theory is that there is no evidence that I can find that they ever met. In the recordings made in 1938 for the Library of Congress Jelly plays the Maple Leaf Rag and then plays it again in his Jazz style, a wonderful feat.
Joplin died in 1917 at 48 or 49 years of age since his exact date of birth is disputed, and Jelly died at 50 years of age in 1941. His birth date is also somewhat disputed. In 1912-14, Morton toured with his girlfriend Rosa Brown as a vaudeville act, and it was during this time he stayed for a while in St. Louis, Missouri and talks about the trip, Scott Joplin (who at this time was in New York City) and other ragtime greats in the recordings made in 1938 for the Library of Congress directed by Alan Lomax and released on an eight-CD boxed set in 2005, "The Complete Library of Congress Recordings".
Thanks for your nice piece about your father knowing Morton. It's nice to know that there is still a link to those great times. Great music. Great characters.
Lucky Father and lucky Daughter...
Walter Melrose, Franklin Melrose's brother, was Morton's first publisher and was hated by him for stealing millions in royalties. He told anybody who could hear what a crook he was. And I heard that Morton died in NYC by starvation, but this isn't true. Morton died in Los Angeles County Hospital, a victim of "cardiac decompensation" due to "hypertensive heart disorder" . I don't think that's in Wikipedia. It's in "Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton by Howard Reich & William Gaines.
@@cvtsboy You can actually still hear Mr. Melrose play in 1920s-1940s era recordings available here on TH-cam.
Awesome! Seems like Jelly Roll Morton could jam, vamp, and improvise endlessly. 😄
Thank God for youtube, it does good like persevering this! Terry Waldo is a gift.
That was an outstanding presentation, Terry! We need more musicologists like you to preserve this great, original music of ours! Many thanks. Keep up the excellent work!
Thank you for the historical review and lesson. Jelly Roll Morton is terribly overlooked.
I had the great pleasure of playing with Terry in Sacramento, at the jubilee, 1986. He was a wonderful player in this great tradition. Ah, memories...
It's so funny, it's taken me 30 years to finally understand Jelly Roll Morton. I spent most of the time studying piano music by Evans, Monk, Powell, Johnson and then jumped further back to Joplin, skipping over Morton. But now....?! I am amazed by what he was doing so I'll be studying him all of this year! Great presentation.
I learn something new each time I watch this!! Terry is a beautiful soul!
I’m a Brit and I've just commented on another video how my school music teacher introduced me to Jelly Roll Morton in 1971. Being a Catholic school a lot of his colourful history was left out, but he did instilled in me the love of good music.
Your video is beyond fascinating. You have that great ability, too few people have, to go into the details of a subject and keep it interesting. Because of a health condition I spend too much time in bed watching TH-cam and I can honestly say this is one of the best videos I’ve seen in a very long while. You remind me of the music teacher that musically captivated that little boy nearly half a century ago.
Thank you very much indeed.
This is a fantastic video! Thanks for the history and the music!
Thanks so much for explaining Jelly Roll Morton’s music. I knew I liked it but didn’t know exactly why. You did a super job playing and demonstrating.
Very interesting lecture accompanied by masterful playing
First class performance
Outstanding introduction to Jelly Roll style, and beautiful performance of it. Many congratulations Terry Waldo!
Fascinating. His knowledge of American music history is awesome - as is his playing.
Loved it! Great teacher; great performer. Shows that art comes from anywhere real artists exist.
Terry, thank you so much for this great tidbit of an American music history and wonderful gems from Jelly Roll Morton. My favorite is “the crave”
Good job to introduce Jelly roll Morton and understand his work.The playing of 'the pearls' and' New Orleans joys ' is outstanding..
That was great !
Very educational and entertaining at the same time. Thanks!
Fantastic playing! Great informative history too. A++
Thank you ….I enjoyed this.
I can see why he (Jelly Roll Morton) considered himself the inventor of jazz by playing all those off keys in his ragtime beat. It’s like I can see a drunken alley acapella group singin’ away.
Merci beaucoup.
This a splendid analysis of the Morton's genius. Waldo's interpretation of "The Pearls", a brilliant piece, swings in a way that I find very agreeable, and intimates the way in which ragtime can evolve.
Thank You, Professor, T-Waldo...I miss you dearly. This video is Brilliant!! Always ...Brian P .Glover (Trophy Wife.)❤🌄🌻🐝
Go on, Terry! You are great!
Sos el pianista que sueño ser , tal vez en tres o cuatro vidas. Sos un genio!!!!
A wonderful history lesson which demonstrates the sources of Jelly Roll's melodic creativity,the richness of his harmonies, and the excitement of the shifting rhythmic patterns.Jelly's sophistication is delightful, the music of a hundred years ago, far exceeding the popular,
Musicology at its finest! My ears want to hear more. Fabulous performer and a great talent. Thank you for keeping music alive!
Thank you. This is great.
Really enjoyable! Very interesting info and great piano performance! Thanks!
+Jeff Sorg exact, very enjoyable !
My thoughts precisely!
fantastic. your explanation was comprehensive, and your example was so fluent and beautiful. Im lucky to have come across this.
Thank you, Mr Waldo! Beautiful explanation!
Hi Terry... I just happened to stumble on to your Jelly Role Morton talk and demo and it was such a pleasure to see you again! I used to see you and your group as often as I could in Columbus at Engine House #5, You were awsome then abd still are!!
This musical history is really interesting.
Awesome video. This guy's a legend.
This is fascinating. thank you Terry...
Since I had a piano player ("Jelly Roll" Martin) in my band who could not play only Stride and Boogie like many others, but also Jelly Roll Morton, I found this upload of Terry Waldo very instructive.
Thank you Terry !
Tommy Schibli
Magic
Great Jazz History!! Thank you!
Great Terry, I really enjoyed your history lesson and piano playing
Brilliant brilliant ol'boy
Tears in my eyes. Thanks!
I like this guy. The Real Thing.
Very nice video about our hero, who was born in 1890 in New Orleans. (not 1885) Thanks ! You bring the emotion in the Pearls! Wonderful! You're so right with the latin feel.
Great playing.... Ragtime is a beautiful thing....
Had no idea that Afro-Latin music was influencing jazz that early on. Great info.
It's the other way round. Jazz started out as a blend of many cultures and rhythms, and some New Orleans style musicians still champion the original jazz music, but the afro-latin influence began to fade after the 1920s. Perhaps we can say that the dixieland jazz movement commercialised and sanitised jazz, removing much of the cultural and rhythmic complexity, often replacing those components with frenetic tempos. The swing movement didn't really bring them back either. More recently of course, afro-latin rhythms have been reintroduced into jazz, so that is nice.
@@Zoco101 Yeah, also didn't spanishified jazz become almost a fad for a while in the 50s? Everyone released a 'Spanish tinge' album, Coltrane, Miles. Dizzy was doing some sort of afro-cuban thing earlier than that. Cubana-be cubana-bop.. but to me it sounds kinda forced and not as natural to the music. Whereas Jelly Roll stuff like the crave it just sounds completely natural and right when he goes into the Latin rhythm
@@joeakajoe1
That's true. The self conscious fusions are not so good. It's better when it happens in a less obvious way. I'm particularly at odds with the recent jazz-flamenco fusion. For me, this does not work - two incompatible but highly rhythmic genres are forced together.
The last time I saw this in a concert (in Spain) I quite liked the more flamenco interludes, particularly the dancing, but the jazz content was a waste of time and effort. Maybe the flamenco experts would say the opposite. Either way, why force these things? Maybe it's connected to Spain missing out on about 20 years of jazz development, what with the dictatorship starting in the late 1930s.
Latin American music was very popular in the first couple decades of the 20th century. Think the rhumba section in “St. Louis Blues.” Most of the music was for dancing, and the latest moves from Latin America were the hottest thing. I believe it was Jelly Roll Morton himself that came up with the “Spanish Tinge” descriptor.
I am so lucky to make videos of your Shows in NYC! Love You and your Band!
Excellent representation of JRM! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Great indeed!
That is right!
Interesting and informative. And awesome!! Thanks!
outstanding and informative. thanks
Great ! Thank you for sharing this !
Enjoyed
excellent. thank you!
I WISH I MEET YOU JELLY.🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
Hopefully you will one day record “Doctor Jazz”. Jelly’s vocal on the old recording I have sounds like he was having a great time playing and singing, too!
Terry Waldo is awesome!
This is an amazing presentation! I just recently learned about Jelly Roll Morton and I find the "instrumentation" of his music really interesting. For me it is a much cleaner introduction to New Orleans Jazz. It is also really funny to me to hear New Orleans Joys and compare it to Professor Longhairs Tipitina :)
I thought George Morison of Denver. Invented jazz.
Wonderful to hear you and hear your stories with history
Are there any recordings of him?
@@andrewbarrett1537 not that I know of .it is possible that gunther made cassette Msybe. I’ll try george Schuller for info
Tak for en fin information, meget lærerig. Og tak fordi du kan servere varen i helt afslappet tilstand, uden overflødige kropsbevægelser.
I don't know whether Professor Longhair ever acknowledged him, but you can hear an echo of Jelly Roll in Fess's work.
Nice jammin! You've got skills!!
Man Terry is good!
At the last part of The Pearls I can just see old Postmaster Henry Lukas coming to check the mail box!
yes
Wow.
thank you for revealing the secret of the maple leaf rag
brilliant
WOW!
The best rag-time piano I've ever heard through 60 years of listening is Claude Bollings. Check him out!
Background-music of silent-aeraslapstick-films
Killing
6:28 , there you have it separate the mind right and left completely intelligent complete ..!
And you will live longer when you do that .. trust me I know ..!
Super, any piano score of this?
7:58 onwards is so sick
I wish you were my grandpa
YOU know what you are talking about
Kyoto senior high school band
❤
👏👏🏆
guy cant feel new orleans joys but sure can play the pearls
Anybody know the tune at 5:25 ? Or did he just make that up?
Hmm. Ok. So. That part from 10:10 to 10:30 where the adjustment for a latin feel is illustrated. I like it, I'm trying it. But I can't figure out what's going on with the right hand part. I hear the dat dar dat - dat dar description and hear that in the LH, and that I do fine and dandy. But what do you do with the RH part to 'fit' it to that? How does the RH 'line up' (or not) with the LH?
I've tried guessing and it's not working. I've watched the video at 0.5 speed to try to hear or see it, but nope, not grasping it. Can anyone explain how the RH fits to the latinized LH (or can direct me to somewhere that goes into detail, text or video, or to a midi file - or record one! - or something so I can use synthesia to really see what's going on?) - I'd appreciate it. I'm stuck and not finding any answers from searching.
Listen to Cuban horn players. They weave their melodies around that clave beat.
Fantastic history... But say how he got his name
New Video of Terry Waldo - th-cam.com/video/zhxxShs6rZM/w-d-xo.html
Charlie Kunz perfected this.
Roll Morton = 8:02 (his face)😆
Morton has one of the really unique piano styles,and he is very hard to copy in his style,I can play when I care like jp Johnson,fats, Don Lambert even Hines ,and some Tatum,but not Morton..it's just really different ..I've heard Sutton,hyman,bunches if guys doing Morton,it always sounds more stride then Morton...terry does well,the absolute best at playing in mortons style was don ewell just great.
Having Military bases around I would not be surprised that one musician would like to play as a one man Band. Perhaps you could get invited to play insade base for Officers Club or NCO Clubs, Naval Clubs etc, and well money will fly on one direction only.
oh you're good.
Cant stop seeing Creed Bratton. Sorry.
JellyRoll may not have invented jazz but he definitely invented Jazz piano.
イットーニットー！
正剛ちゃんだ！
You don't know what the feel was on Ragtime. Total fiction.
😮😮😮😢😮
My computer leaps unbidden by me elsewhere. I WISH THAT OUR CURRENT YOUNG PEOPLE COULD BE SHOWN THIS VIDEO SO THEY COULD KNOW THAT THE REPETITIVE TRASH OF TODAY LACKS ALL THESE QUALITIES.
;