New Orleans Cuisine

My Creole & Cajun Recipe Page

This is my blog dedicated to New Orleans & Louisiana cooking! I'll give links to great Creole & Cajun recipes and sites, as well as some of my own recipes. I love talkin' New Orleans, food and otherwise! Incidentally, I'm from Detroit. Go Figure. Lets just say I figured out "what it means, to miss New Orleans" and this site helps ease the pain.

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"Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins."
-Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces
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Sunday, February 13, 2005

Jelly Roll Morton

This post has nothing to do with New Orleans Cuisine, but a lot to do with New Orleans. Jelly Roll Morton came up as a musician in the brothels and clubs of "the district" on Basin Street, or Storyville. He is known to most people as a braggart, a pimp, a pool shark, and head cutter on the piano. He was a character, you can be sure of that, but first and foremost he was a musician.

Jelly Roll Morton
Originally uploaded by Danno1.
I just finished a book about Jelly Roll Morton called Jelly's Blues: The Life, Music, And Redemption Of Jelly Roll Morton. A very sad story. A very familiar, sad story, of an unbelievably talented black musician who gave everything to his music, trusted some white business men, got screwed in a big way, died penniless and unhappy. We all know this story. I get sick everytime I hear it. This one was really sad to me. One of the originators of Jazz, everyone was playing his songs during his lifetime! Screwed on his royalties; his due, and worse than that, no one wanted him. He had so much music to give. His career took, what the book rightly called a "Free Fall". He was no saint, for sure, but a pioneer, and all he really wanted was his due. Some recognition. He never even got a jazz funeral, his band mates weren't even allowed to blow at his graveside. I was reading this, getting sick, then I turned on MTV, Ashley Simpson's show was on. Talentless, over privileged girl, getting far more than she is worth, simply because she fits a mold. No contribution to the music world, ZERO. But getting paid, very, very, well. If you love music, read this book. I'm going to go now, so I can steal some of Jelly Roll's music, via MP3, back from the record companies.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jelly Roll was not black. He was French. His name was Ferdinand LaMothe.

5:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jelly Roll was American...born Creole in New Orleans...he may not have considered himself 'black' however, the Yanquis certainly did and so did the white business men who stole his music. He was an extraordinary American musician...

4:49 PM  

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