Customer Reviews
Collecting Jelly Roll - By: Les Drewitt, 28 Dec 2005 
I have collected Jelly Roll Morton for many years &in several formats, from vinyl to cassette to CD, & this is the best album & the most comprehensive I have found to date.Many of the tracksin the album are alreadyin my collection, but some of them were recorded at different sessions, or are different takes, & give a fresh perspective on a familiar theme.
Wild Man Bluesin particular is a very clear recording, & has obviously been cleaned up & digitally enhanced to a sparkling quality, as have most of the tracks.
There are also a few tracks featuring a trio comprising J.R. Morton, Johnny Dodds & Baby Dodds that are surprisingly fresh & crisp.
The unusual sound of a violinin a jazz band,(played by Darnell Howard?) & the cornet of George Mitchell also make this a very collectable set of CDs.
great jazz collection - By: william palmer, 05 Oct 2005 i recently bought the the 5 cd set of jelly roll morton & enjoyed them.Have always been keen on morton's great jazz recordings.
A collection from the triumphal days of traditional jazz - By: D. Elliott, 19 Feb 2001 This boxed set of 5 CDs has to be "5-star" value. To collect all the numbers individually would, even if possible, be ridiculously expensive as the CDs include every surviving recording made by Jelly Roll Morton over the years 1926-1930. The CDs embrace alternate takes for many of the numbers & so allow listeners to compare different versions & to trace their development.
Jelly Roll Morton proclaimed himself to be the "inventor" of jazz & these CDs provide insight to his disciplined approach to recording sessions. Others have claimed to originate jazz, but the qualities demonstrated on these CDs suggest Jelly Roll Morton's self-representation may be correct. He was a great composer & the vast majority of the numbers on the CDs are his own - he was an inventive arranger as indicated by both ensemble playing & solo interjections, & different treatments with alternates on the CDs - & above all, he was clearly an inspirational bandleader as he surrounded himself with many of the best musicians of the day as describedin the discographies.
The CD insert notes have a reasonable amount of background material, but about the various recordings there are detailed & informative comments. It is fascinating to listen to the numbers & read up the explanatory notes - though there is at least one error (Original Jelly Roll Blues), & some remarks are flagrantly subjective - but relevant.
If there is a problem it is that there is just too much, & many collectors & jazz lovers are likely to already have tracks on "compilation" recordings or "best of" selections. Some of the recordings appear elsewhere with other names (example : Johnny Dodds) though most are Jelly Roll Morton with his Red Hot Peppers, or his Orchestra, or various Trios & other offshoots of his main groups. The real value of jazz is notin documentation butin personal experience - just as well as there are 99 tracks to comment on - but too much is hardly a criticism. As well as a "5-star" value this boxed set is a "5-star" collectors item from Jelly Roll Morton's triumphal days of traditional jazz.
