{"id":5462,"date":"2024-11-09T10:45:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-09T15:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=5462"},"modified":"2024-11-09T10:45:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T15:45:36","slug":"doctor-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/doctor-jazz\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Jazz (Jelly Roll Morton)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Doctor Jazz (Jelly Roll Morton)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/udSAaZEFn3c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know where or when I first heard this song, but I didn&#8217;t start playing it till I heard Paul Geremia&#8217;s version. Paul is generally known for playing and singing blues in the tradition of people like Willie McTell and Lemon Jefferson, but he liked to fool around with other stuff (he&#8217;s where I picked up the Bahamian &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/jones-oh-jones\/\">Jones, Oh Jones<\/a>&#8220;), including some early jazz songs, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5067\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Jellycover-e1710359243890.jpg?resize=200%2C302&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"302\" \/>and he often did this one and &#8220;Nobody&#8217;s Sweetheart.&#8221; I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s also where I got the idea that this was by Jelly Roll Morton, but I certainly thought it was, and started playing it again recently at events celebrating the publication of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/jellyrollbook.html\"><em>Jelly Roll Blues<\/em><\/a>. Then I went to do some background research for this post, and learned it was by King Oliver, with lyrics by Walter Melrose (or at least credited to Melrose).<\/p>\n<p>Walter and Lester Melrose were Morton&#8217;s publishers, and I assume that connection influenced him to record this in 1926 with his Red Hot Peppers; in any case, that was by far the most influential recording of the song, and Morton&#8217;s only major vocal recording of the 1920s, an exuberant record that presumably inspired Paul.<\/p>\n<p>As for my version, I&#8217;ve been fooling around with this for years in Bb, and it was ok but I never figured out anything interesting to do with it. Then I was doing the book tour and started playing it more often, and eventually came up with the idea of playing it in A, more like a blues, for the first chorus, before going into the upbeat ragtime style.<\/p>\n<p>The lyric is one of many telephone-centric songs of the ragtime\/jazz era: the most famous is probably &#8220;Hello, My Baby,&#8221; but there was also, &#8220;Hello Central, Give Me Heaven (for my mama&#8217;s there),&#8221; a bathetic Tin Pan Alley weeper recorded by the Carter Family, and &#8220;Hello Central, Give Me No Man&#8217;s Land&#8221; (from World War I), and the perky &#8220;Hello, Hawaii, How Are You?&#8221; (pronounced &#8220;Hah-wah-yah, hah-wah-yah&#8221;), and, later on, Lightnin&#8217; Hopkins&#8217;s &#8220;Hello Central <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5478 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/early-telephone-e1731091245551.jpg?resize=245%2C334&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"245\" height=\"334\" \/>(Please get me 209),&#8221; which inspired Chris Strachwitz to become a blues fan, collector, record producer, one of the most influential figures in the rise of what we now call &#8220;roots music,&#8221; and eventually a dear friend.<\/p>\n<p>For folks who don&#8217;t know, that &#8220;Hello, Central&#8221; business is how people used to make telephone calls: you didn&#8217;t dial a number; you picked up the ear part, then jiggled the receiver, an operator answered, and you asked to be connected to a number, person, or place. There are still a few telephone systems that function that way, though cell phones are killing off the last of them. When I was doing the research for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/corrido.html\"><em>Narcocorrido<\/em><\/a> and wanted to get in touch with Angel Gonz\u00e1lez, who composed the first huge drug corrido hit, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/contrabando-y-traicion\/\">Contrabando y Traici\u00f3n<\/a>,&#8221; I called the operator in Juarez and she connected me with the telephone office in Basuchil, Chihuaha; and the operator in Basuchil told me to call back in a half hour and sent a boy to get Angel and bring him there to get the call.<\/p>\n<p>So, that&#8217;s the background to this lyric, and I just listened to Morton&#8217;s version and found that I&#8217;ve messed up one line &#8212; I sing, &#8220;I think of Doctor Jazz in my dreams,&#8221; and it should be &#8220;I&#8217;m paging <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5466 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Doctor-Jazz-sheet-music-e1730902332782.jpg?resize=250%2C338&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"338\" \/>Doctor Jazz&#8230;,&#8221; which is much better. I also changed the next line, but that was conscious: the original has &#8220;When I&#8217;m trouble bound and mixed, he&#8217;s the cat [or guy] that gets me fixed,&#8221; and I used to sing it that way, but prefer &#8220;mixed up&#8221; and &#8220;fixed up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it&#8217;s a fun song, and right now I need a fun song and some musical physicianing. (And yes, there&#8217;s another layer of history in the sheet music cover, all too resonant in this moment: selling a song composed by one of the great Black bandleaders of the early twentieth century and popularized by the greatest Black jazz arranger of the 1920s, with a cover image of a white band and white dancers &#8212; because some people make great music, and other people tend to have more money.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know where or when I first heard this song, but I didn&#8217;t start playing it till I heard Paul Geremia&#8217;s version. Paul is generally known for playing and singing blues in the tradition of people like Willie McTell and Lemon Jefferson, but he liked to fool around with other stuff (he&#8217;s where I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/doctor-jazz\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Doctor Jazz (Jelly Roll Morton)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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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":5136,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/alabama-bound\/","url_meta":{"origin":5462,"position":1},"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":1331,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/buddy-boldens-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":5462,"position":2},"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":3254,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wining-boy\/","url_meta":{"origin":5462,"position":3},"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":2083,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/michigan-water\/","url_meta":{"origin":5462,"position":4},"title":"Michigan Water (ironies of the Great Migration)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This year's award for the most glaring irony in American folklore goes to the title line of this song: \"Michigan water tastes like sherry wine.\" Jelly Roll Morton's lyric metaphorically summed up the central dream of the \"great migration\" -- that black Americans could escape bad times down south for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"jelly roll morton commodore","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/jelly-roll-morton-commodore-300x295.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5684,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/give-nobody-jelly-roll\/","url_meta":{"origin":5462,"position":5},"title":"I Ain&#8217;t Gonna Give Nobody None of My Jelly Roll","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I have no idea where or when I learned this song, and research provides no clues, because it's been done by everyone from Mamie Smith to Willie Nelson--including Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Cliff Bruner, and a duet version by Johnny Mercer and Bobby Darin. So this post is all going\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\/2026\/02\/Jelly-Roll-sheet-music.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462","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=5462"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5482,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5462\/revisions\/5482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}