Apr 28 2008
Jelly Roll Morton: Hesitation Blues
Ferdinand Joseph Lamenthe, aka Jelly Roll Morton, born in New Orleans in 1890, claimed to the inventor of jazz. His “Jelly Roll Blues,” published in 1915 is certainly one of the first jazz compositions to make it to print.
This recording of “Hesitation Blues” is from a series of interviews Morton did with Alan Lomax at the Library of Congress in 1938. “Hesitation Blues” uses a traditional melody with lyrics written by various people over the years. Billy Smythe and Scott Middleton copyrighted the song in 1915, yet W. C. Handy also published “Hesitating Blues,” using the same tune and lyrics that are only slightly different, in the same year. Art Gillham recorded the song in 1925 and it was republished and copyrighted again in 1926 under his name along with Smythe and Middleton. As he states in the beginning of the recording Morton allowed people to believe that he had written the song for many years as well.
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