piano – jazz, stride, and tango
Brief blog post this week as David and I are on tour with the Dime Notes in Ukraine! We kick off with the return of David’s 1924 bass clarinet for another of Morton’s blues tunes from the 1926 Red Hot Peppers sessions, “Cannon Ball Blues.” It’s a nice multi-key blues with some great double-time sections. […]
This week we have a tune bearing the name of Morton’s famous band the Red Hot Peppers. This one was not actually from the first sessions under that name but a bit later on after his move to New York when the band was enlarged slightly and played in a bit more of a New […]
Today we tackle one of the most interesting pieces in Morton’s output, the enigmatic “GanJam”, probably his last composition. Written between 1939-41, it was one of a number of big band pieces which Jelly wrote right at the end of his life as he was trying to revitalize his career by entering the world of […]
Unbelievably, we’re getting very near having posted 80 of Jelly’s tunes…woah! This week we kick it off with the dark and stompy “Wild Man Blues” which features a lot of trading and double time breaks on the original, which we’ve incorporated into our arrangement as well. Once again we’ve omitted the opening skit (fortunately for […]
This week we have two songs about towns, starting with “My Home is in a Southern Town”, another great late Morton tune recorded during his final band sessions in 1940. This is an unusual Morton tune as it’s one of the small number that’s in more of a popular song vein, and it has a […]
This week we have the companion to Hyena Stomp, the ridiculous and hilarious Billy Goat Stomp! This was on the other side of the original record, and once again represents a (fortunately) little remembered fad of early jazz relating to animal dances and noises. This actually goes way back to pre jazz days and dance […]
This week we kick it off with one of Morton’s iconic tunes, “Black Bottom Stomp.” The original is among his very best band recordings from the classic 1926 Red Hot Peppers sides, and was quite a challenge to reduce to the duo format, but here’s our best effort! It’s a multi strain tune with some […]
Today’s first selection in the Morton project is the immortal “Winin’ Boy Blues,” one of Morton’s most famous tunes. It’s named after his youthful nickname “Windin’ Ball” which was evidently a reference to his prowess in bed…no comment! Anyhow, it’s a great bluesy tune and has VERY dirty lyrics which we have not included. It […]
Today’s entry in the Complete Morton Project features two tunes from Jelly’s 1940 session for General Records, his last band recordings. “Sweet Substitute” is a great bluesy tune, which features one of Red Allen’s best trumpet solos on the original recording. There’s a great interview with Albert Nicholas, the clarinetist on the original, about the […]
We’re really making progress now on the Complete Morton Project – week 30 this week which means it’s our 60th tune! Only 40 more to go…phew! Anyway, this week we have a theme of “Joe” for no particular reason other than there are two tunes dedicated to various Joes. Firstly is “Mister Joe,” which Morton […]
Andrew Oliver 