Jim Turner's Jelly Roll Blues

Jim Turner-piano
Topsy Chapman-vocal on Track 15

Since 2003, Jim Turner has been the pianist in the Jim Cullum Jazz Band based in San Antonio, Texas, the only full-time professional traditional jazz band in the United States. In his album notes Jim writes: "Exactly what IS it about Jelly Roll Morton? As a 21st century musician, am I completely crazy to invest endless hours (wait a minute -- make that years) playing and studying Morton's nearly forgotten art? After all, his New Orleans jazz is about 100 years old and, to most listeners, his records sound like curious antiques—slightly misshapen oddities best left on the back shelves of music. For me, what is so enthralling is this: no other pianist has ever sounded remotely like Morton. If you listen closely enough, Jelly Roll Morton's scratchy old piano records are actually little miracles of exciting and inventive music making! They radiate propelling rhythmic force. They shimmer with lovely melodies and technical brilliance. And if you listen really closely, you can almost hear the echo of an entire New Orleans jazz band.....So, I'm happy to be one of those "modern" musicians who is spellbound by Jelly Roll Morton's "antique" music. I'll dust his records off and listen to them, look beyond their superficial layers of scratchiness, balance them carefully on their pedestals and rearrange them in the front of my display cabinet. Then, while contemplating them, I imagine I can hear the very birth of jazz. —Jim Turner

Selections:
Tiger Rag; Jelly Roll Blues; The Fingerbreaker; The Pearls; King Porter Stomp; Buddy Bolden's Blues; The Crave; Grandpa's Spells; Perfect Rag; Wolverine Blues; Winin' Boy Blues; Frog-I-More Rag; Mister Joe; Shreveport Stomp; Mr. Jelly Lord