THE COMPLETE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RECORDINGS comes packaged in a piano-shaped box and includes two soft-bound books; a biography by Alan Lomax, and an 80-page book with rare photographs.
Personnel: Jelly Roll Morton (vocals, piano); Leonard Bechet, Paul Dominguez, Jr., Albert Glenny (spoken vocals); Johnny St. Cyr (guitar); Alphonse Picou (clarinet).
Liner Note Authors: Alan Lomax; John F. Szwed.
Jelly Roll Morton liked to claim he invented jazz, and while the claim is clearly a self-aggrandizing overstatement, there is plenty of evidence that his innovations defined the genre in essential ways. THE COMPLETE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RECORDINGS, a mammoth, lavishly packaged 8-disc box set, contains heaps of evidence to that effect.
Supervised by Alan Lomax, these recordings were made in 1938, well after Morton's reign as a jazz giant. Still, the sessions amount to nothing less than an anthropological study--not only of Morton and his music--but of the dawn of jazz itself. Morton's Dixieland piano playing is still in fine form here, and his superb songs, the structures and sound of which shaped the genre, are as smart as ever. But the real treat here is Morton's spoken word segments: the artist recounts his heyday with a vividness and charm that is priceless. Add to these qualities excellent sound and impeccable packaging, and the set becomes one of the most valuable oral and aural documents concerning the history of American pop music available. minimize