Continuing the new series of David Horniblow and I playing all of Jelly Roll Morton’s compositions (full info), here are this week’s selections, both of them from his 1940 band sessions, his last commercial recordings before hitching his Lincoln behind his Cadillac and driving to Los Angeles from New York in the dead of winter. These band sessions feature some of his old New Orleans compatriots such as Zutty Singleton on drums and Albert Nicholas on clarinet, and feature some late period Morton compositions, written in 1938-39.
“Good Old New York” is a rocking tune with some classic Morton chord progressions but at a much faster tempo than the majority of his tunes, especially for his late period when he tended to play more slowly. David bought an amazing vintage bass clarinet last year when we were on tour in the Netherlands and this seemed the ideal time to break it out!
The second tune this week is a beautiful one called “Why?” which has great lyrics too (check out Morton singing on the original recording). It has a really beautiful and unusual chord progression which is really fun to play.
Hope you enjoy these two! Here’s the YouTube channel if you wish to subscribe there, and stay tuned each week for two new Morton tunes throughout 2018 until we’ve played them all!
Andrew Oliver 