{"id":1527,"date":"2016-06-26T07:00:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2022-11-05T12:46:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T16:46:35","slug":"sweet-substitute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gbrYjWdIgfo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As my year of college drew to a close, Dave Van Ronk likewise declared himself done with me as a guitar student. We&#8217;d gone through all the more complicated pieces he taught, and he thought it was time for me to come up with my own stuff. Before conceding the point, I had one last request: that he teach me his arrangement for &#8220;Sweet Substitute.&#8221;<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1297 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?resize=280%2C280&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"van ronk second folkways\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?w=280&amp;ssl=1 280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px\" \/> He demurred, saying, &#8220;That&#8217;s not an arrangement; I just play the chords.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;OK,&#8221; I said. &#8220;So what are the chords?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So he showed me, and I swear it&#8217;s an arrangement &#8212; albeit one that flowed pretty naturally out of the chords, once he&#8217;d settled on the key of G and decided on which inversions to use. The opening of the chorus, in particular, has one of those small, brilliant moves that separate the great arrangers (Dave, for example) from the rest of us: a G chord on the third fret, with the E string left open to make it a G6, descending to an F# fingered exactly the same way, with the open E now providing the flat 7th.<\/p>\n<p>The song was composed by Jelly Roll Morton at the very end of his career, with lyrics by Roy Carew, one of his later friends and supporters. As Dave used to explain, Morton was down on his luck at that point and, to make the situation more bitter, his &#8220;King Porter\u00a0 Stomp&#8221; was the theme song of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, one of the most popular bands in the world &#8212; but he&#8217;d sold all the rights, and wasn&#8217;t getting a nickel as it played on radio and jukeboxes across the country. So he decided, goddammit, he&#8217;d write a hit song in the modern swing style, and the result was &#8220;Sweet Substitute,&#8221; which he recorded at his final sessions, and which promptly vanished without a trace&#8230; until some West Coast dixieland bands picked it up in the mid 1950s, and Dave recorded it in 1961.<\/p>\n<p>Dave loved and admired Morton, and by the time I met him that story had acquired personal resonance, because he was acutely aware that most younger players and fans on the folk scene didn&#8217;t understand what he had contributed, or the skills he had that they lacked. He wasn&#8217;t bitter, exactly, and he didn&#8217;t put himself in Morton&#8217;s class &#8212; he rated himself as &#8220;first rate second-rate,&#8221; where people like Morton, Armstrong, and Ellington were straight-up first-rate &#8212; but he did feel a sense of camaraderie with other fine musicians who hadn&#8217;t been given their due.<\/p>\n<p>In which context it&#8217;s worth repeating a story from Billy Taylor, a fine pianist who came of age in the 1940s and recalled going with a couple of other young Turks to see Morton at his last venue, the Jungle Inn in Washington, D.C. They were modern jazzmen, fans of Art Tatum and Lester Young, familiar with Bartok and Hindemith, and to the extent they were aware of Morton at all, they regarded him as corny and pass\u00e9. Taylor wrote about that night many years later:<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1529 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/late-jelly-roll-morton.jpg?resize=230%2C285&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"late jelly roll morton\" width=\"230\" height=\"285\" \/><em>Jelly came on. He looked shockingly sick and feeble \u2013 old and a little mad. But he wore his old, southern-gentleman\u2019s suit with dignity, and when he smiled the diamond in his tooth still glittered hard. He played a new piece of his called <\/em>Sweet Substitute<em>, and then he looked straight over at our booth. His eyes had a very personal kind of pride which I had never seen before&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Then Jelly spoke only to us: \u201cYou punks can\u2019t play this.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I forget the tune. What I do remember is a big, full, two-handed piano player \u2013 a ragtimer modified and relaxed by way of New Orleans, and very swinging&#8230; and as I listened, suddenly I knew. \u201cGolly, he\u2019s right. I <\/em><strong>can\u2019t<\/strong><em> play what he\u2019s playing. Just purely technically I can\u2019t play two hands together and separately the way he does.\u201d I looked over at the other confident young men who had come with me: I saw that they knew they couldn\u2019t either. Ours was a very quiet booth for the next three hours.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A wry, pretty ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last official lesson with Dave and Billy Taylor&#8217;s story of Morton&#8217;s final days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A wry ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last lesson with Dave and one of Morton&#039;s final triumphs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A wry ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last lesson with Dave and one of Morton&#039;s final triumphs.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-26T11:00:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-05T16:46:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-26T11:00:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-05T16:46:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":708,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/05\\\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/\",\"name\":\"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/05\\\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-26T11:00:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-05T16:46:35+00:00\",\"description\":\"A wry ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last lesson with Dave and one of Morton's final triumphs.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/05\\\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?fit=280%2C280&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/05\\\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?fit=280%2C280&ssl=1\",\"width\":280,\"height\":280},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/sweet-substitute\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"description\":\"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\",\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"width\":70,\"height\":85,\"caption\":\"Elijah Wald\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"A wry ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last lesson with Dave and one of Morton's final triumphs.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","og_description":"A wry ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last lesson with Dave and one of Morton's final triumphs.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/","og_site_name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","article_published_time":"2016-06-26T11:00:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-11-05T16:46:35+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Elijah Wald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ElijahWald","twitter_site":"@ElijahWald","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Elijah Wald","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/"},"author":{"name":"Elijah Wald","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"headline":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)","datePublished":"2016-06-26T11:00:43+00:00","dateModified":"2022-11-05T16:46:35+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/"},"wordCount":708,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/","name":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg","datePublished":"2016-06-26T11:00:43+00:00","dateModified":"2022-11-05T16:46:35+00:00","description":"A wry ballad from Jelly Roll Morton, basically arranged by Dave Van Ronk, with the story of my last lesson with Dave and one of Morton's final triumphs.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?fit=280%2C280&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/van-ronk-second-folkways.jpg?fit=280%2C280&ssl=1","width":280,"height":280},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sweet-substitute\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sweet Substitute (Jelly Roll Morton)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/","name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9","name":"Elijah Wald","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","width":70,"height":85,"caption":"Elijah Wald"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3254,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wining-boy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1527,"position":0},"title":"Winin&#8217; Boy \/ Winding Ball (Jelly Roll Morton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I learned this from Dave Van Ronk, who got it from Jelly Roll Morton, and it's at this point in the Songobiography because my trip south in 1985 included a brief stint with a trad jazz band in Charleston, SC. I hitched down from Southport via Myrtle Beach and don't\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Michael-Tyzack.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1272,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/the-pearls\/","url_meta":{"origin":1527,"position":1},"title":"The Pearls (Jelly Roll Morton\/Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I arrived on Dave Van Ronk's doorstep just as he reached the high-water mark of his interest in ragtime guitar, so I emerged from my year of study with \"St. Louis Tickle,\" \"Maple Leaf Rag,\" \"The Entertainer\" (which was so overdone that I quickly forgot it), and Jelly Roll Morton's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Davis-Van-Ronk 11","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Davis-Van-Ronk-11.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1387,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/mamies-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":1527,"position":2},"title":"Mamie&#8217;s Blues (219 Blues)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In his notes to this song, Dave Van Ronk wrote, \"Jelly Roll Morton, certainly the greatest jazz composer before Ellington and a singer of incredible subtlety claimed to have invented jazz in 1902. There is little point in argument.\" This was one of Morton's most subtle efforts, and one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/BasinSt.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/buddy-boldens-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":1527,"position":3},"title":"Buddy Bolden&#8217;s Blues (Jelly Roll Morton)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dave Van Ronk had numerous musical heroes,\u00a0 but Jelly Roll Morton was number one. Over the years, I got used to the idea that if I stayed late enough at his place we would likely end up listening to Morton records (often back to back with Phillipe Koutev's Bulgarian ensemble),\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton-commodore-300x295.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5136,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/alabama-bound\/","url_meta":{"origin":1527,"position":4},"title":"Alabama Bound (Jelly Roll Morton, and many others)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 30, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I've known \"Alabama Bound\" forever, but never worked it up as a performance piece, and am posting it now because I used it as the theme of chapter one of my new book, Jelly Roll Blues, an exploration of Jelly Roll Morton's Library of Congress recordings, the world that nurtured\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Blind-Boones-Southern-Rag-Medley-No-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1220,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/bout-a-spoonful\/","url_meta":{"origin":1527,"position":5},"title":"Bout a Spoonful (Davis\/Lipscomb\/Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Judging by surviving evidence, \"Bout a Spoonful\" was a very popular song throughout the black South in the early twentieth century. In\u00a0Sweet Man, a racial protest novel from 1930, Gilmore Millen named it along with \"Pallet on the Floor,\" \"Stavin' Chain,\" and \"The Dozens\" as \u201cforerunners of the blues, at\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"sweet man","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/sweet-man-194x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4784,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions\/4784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}