Music: Mister Jelly Roll

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"Membe of the Royalty." He was an irritatingly vain man whose boastful talk lost friends almost as fast as his piano-playing won them. He yielded no quarter of fame to any of his now-famous contemporaries. "People believe Louis Armstrong originated scat [singing]," he said. "I must take that credit away from him." His blast at W. C. (St. Louis Blues) Handy as "a liar" who "cannot prove anything in music that he has created" endeared him to no one. His own flamboyant claim was that "I personally originated jazz in New Orleans in 1902."

Old Jelly Roll did not originate it all. But his legacy—a barrelful of folk-flavored tunes and a riffling, hard-breaking piano style that has influenced long-hair and shorthair musicians alike for a generation—almost merits him his own accolade:

In foreign lands across the sea, They knight a man for bravery, Make him a duke or a count, you see, Must be a member of the royalty.

Mister Jelly struck a jazzy thing, In the temple by the queen and king, All at once he struck a harmonic chord. King said, "Make Mister Jelly a lord!"