TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Music: Mister Jelly Roll

On the stage of the Chamber Music Auditorium of the Library of Congress the oldtime pianist sat at the keyboard, facing an open microphone. "Mister Morton," said Alan Lomax, assistant curator of the Library's American Folk Song Archive, "how about the beginning? Tell about where you were born and how you got started . . . and maybe keep playing piano while you talk."

Famed Creole Pianist-Composer Ferdinand ("Jelly Roll") Morton (King Porter Stomp, Jelly Roll Blues, Alabama Bound), "the father of hot piano," talked and played almost every day for a month. Folklorist...

Time.com on Digg

POWERED BY digg

Quotes of the Day »

ADELE, multi Grammy-award winning singer, in an interview given to Vogue before last Sunday's ceremony, on her plans to take a lengthy break. Her last album 21 was inspired by a failed relationship but the Londoner is now "madly in love"
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.