ledgend of 1900

[ponecorleone]

it was on the other day and whats the piece that 1900 copies the black bloke called? i would like to learn is it hard? thanks

[bernhard]

"The Crave" by Jerry Roll Morton.

[ted]

All of Morton is vital, highly individual piano music and well worth serious study. You must play the notes he did to get the effect though, and the only definitive and complete transcriptions are those of Dapogny, now published by Schirmer. It's about an inch and a half thick and is rich with notation and insights of every kind. I have to admit that I personally find Morton extremely difficult. The notes are easily learned but to play his works with life and energy demands a very special technique and musicianship and, I must say, I'm not close to mastering it yet. It isn't really stride and it certainly isn't ragtime. It's simply Morton. David Thomas Roberts plays him very well indeed.

It is a curious fact that many modern jazz exponents, with one or two notable exceptions, seem to look down on Morton as being technically simple. How on earth they come to that conclusion beats me. There are sections of works like Fat Frances which resemble Liszt studies with the added complication of syncopation.

[aquariuswb]

It is a curious fact that many modern jazz exponents, with one or two notable exceptions, seem to look down on Morton as being technically simple. How on earth they come to that conclusion beats me. There are sections of works like Fat Frances which resemble Liszt studies with the added complication of syncopation.

Yes, that is odd indeed. I've never looked down on him because his music is simple -- I look down on him because he was a lying a$$hole!  ... that happens to have written some fine, fine music