In the fall of 1925, Okeh Records began a program of recording black musicians in Chicago, particularly Louis Armstrong's Hot Five. Early in 1926, Vocalion released its recordings by King Oliver's Syncopators, and by July of the same year, Columbia Records was putting out sides by Lil Armstrong's group under the name "New Orleans Wanderers." The trend clearly pointed to the commercial possibilities of recording New Orleans music by native musicians who had migrated to Chicago. The principal audience for these recordings were blacks from New Orleans and nearby who had also moved North and now populated Chicago in large numbers, but the music was also catching on with white audiences. King Oliver made a splash in Chicago with his band that included Louis and Lil Armstrong, and now Louis was releasing significant recordings under his own name that were selling to black and white audiences alike.

Walter Melrose's idea of recording Jelly Roll Morton was of interest to Victor Records, who had recently hired one Ralph Peer to assist them in finding suitable "race" and "hillbilly" performers to record for these specialty markets. Music publishers and record companies often collaborated to ensure that artists and songs received the most exposure possible via both records and published sheet music, so there was nothing unusual about this arrangement. This was Morton's big chance to connect with a wide audience and provide ensemble recordings of some of his best material for posterity. Jelly was up to the challenge: he created arrangements so skilled and complex that they are really more like whole new compositions when compared to the original solo piano versions. To play them, he assembled musicians who were both very familiar with the New Orleans style of playing and able to read music with facility. Although Morton was meticulous about the playing of ensemble passages, intros, and endings, he was open to the suggestions of his fellow musicians as well as willing to allow them freedom in their solo passages. The results are a unique balance of composed ensemble work and free ranging solo expression generally not found in jazz music. Only the compositions/arrangements of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus come anywhere near the balancing act between soloist and ensemble demonstrated on the Red Hot Peppers recordings.

There were rehearsals at Morton's South Side apartment where he ran the group through the ensemble passages, transitions, and other sections of his meticulous arrangements. The first recording session was held on September 15th in the Webster Hotel on the city's north side. This location was used because Victor did not yet have its own studio in Chicago. Three takes of three seperate tunes were recorded during the four hour session: "Black Bottom Stomp", "The Chant", and "Smokehouse Blues". "Black Bottom Stomp" and "The Chant" immediately mark these recordings as something special. The ensemble passage that begins "Black Bottom Stomp" is clean and crisp, followed by a bridge that features nice contrapuntnal work between clarinet and trumpet, followed by Omer Simeon's jaunty clarinet solo and Morton's own very hot piano statement. Many of the Red Hot Peppers sides equal this performance, but none surpass it. "The Chant" was composed by Mel Stitzel, a Melrose Publishing staff writer, but Morton's arrangement provides a sense of utter modernity that was most likely missing from the original version of this Charleston-sounding number. Simeon again sparkles, and the spiraling swoops of some of the ensemble passages will make you catch your breat like a rollercoaster.

Three more tracks were recorded a week later: "Sidewalk Blues", "Dead Man's Blues", and "Steamboat Stomp." All contained dialogue or sound effects that have usually been dismissed as hokey, and they have even been deleted from reissues of the recordings from time to time. Such detractors fail to take into account two things. First, Morton had a long and extensive background playing minstrel shows and the vaudeville circuit, which meant that he was perfectly capable of using slapstick humor even in a "serious" muscial number. He had been exposed to so much music of various types that he likely never distinguished between "high" and "low" music or humor--ragtime, showtunes, marches, opera--it was all one in the gumbo that was New Orleans early in the twentieth century. Second, in the case of a song like "Dead Man's Blues", which is meant to evoke the joyous sounds of a New Orleans jazz funeral, it was intended to help audiences with no familiarity with New Orleans and its culture (meaning most of the rest of the country) understand the intent of the song and its arrangement. "Sidewalk Blues" and "Dead Man's Blues" are noteworthy because Morton brought in two more clarinet players to realize his vision of a clarinet trio, a hitherto unknown device that works to great effect.

On December 16th, the group reconvened to record five more tunes. These include "Someday Sweetheart" (generally despised as "syrupy", but interesting for its use of bass clarinet), "Grandpa's Spells" (one of Morton's more difficult-to-play piano pieces given an energetic arrangement), "Original Jelly-Roll Blues", "Cannon Ball Blues", and "Doctor Jazz". "Doctor Jazz" is interesting because it features Morton's singing which was seldom heard on recordings. On the Library of Congress recordings Morton apologizes for his voice at one point, saying he could sing better when he was younger. This raises an interesting question: why didn't Morton record more vocal numbers, a move that would almost certainly have increased his popularity. Only on the Library of Congress recordings and some very late record dates does he vocalize despite his clear ability to do so. In any case, no further recordings were done by the group until June of 1947, this time taking place in the new Victor Talking Machine Recording Laboratory. Here we get two novelty sound-effects numbers "Hyena Stomp" and "Billy Goat Stomp" that feature the vocal "talents" of one "Laughing Lew" Lamar; it is possible that Lamar, an old vaudevillian, comissioned Morton to write these tunes. There is also "Wild Man Blues", a song credited to Morton and Louis Armstrong and which had been recorded by Armstrong. The track went unreleased by Victor until 1939. "Jungle Blues" is a direct challenge to Duke Ellington, who had been crowned "King of Jungle Music", a title that Morton felt he deserved.

From 1927 to 1930 Morton recorded around 58 more tunes for Victor in their New York studios, many of them with a larger band using three saxophones and sometimes three brass as well. Morton was continuing to explore new musical concepts, but he never had a group that was able to execute his arrangements as sympathetically as the Red Hot Peppers. In 1930, Victor failed to renew Morton's contract, and he literally fell off the map for a time, even though his Victor catalog of recordings stayed in release throughout the 30s. Morton himself turned up in Washington D.C. and New York City, destitute and dishevelled. Until recently this was a mystery--how could a performer as popular as Morton simply drop out of public sight so quickly, and how could he be broke when his music continued to sell so well and be recorded by popular swing artists like Benny Goodman? As recently as 1998, Gary Giddins wrote in Visions of Jazz: The First Century:

"The 30s were years in which Armstrong, Ellington, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Ethel Waters enjoyed unprecedented success. A man with the performing abilities of Morton as a bandleader, pianist, and singer should have been able to negotiate his way through that crest in black entertainment. The success of 'King Porter Stomp' alone ought to have revived his fortunes to the point where he could at least finance a band and get decent work. By all accounts, the problem seems to have been one of character--his and that of onlookers wh enjoyed seeing him brought low. The stubborn, loudmouthed dandy with diamond tooth and stickpin was due for a comeuppance. Jelly was temperamentally unsuited to the era, and no one helped him turn the corner."

But recent evidence uncovered by Chicago Tribune writers Howard Reich and William Gaines show that sadly, not only did no one help Morton, many were actively seeking to do him harm an helping themselves to money that was due him. And no one helped himself to more than Walter Melrose.

>>Down and Out

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