Alan Lomax records Jelly Roll Morton at the Library of Congress
Over an extended series of sessions, Lomax records the New Orleans pianist and composer Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton playing and talking about the music of his youth. It is in these recordings that Morton sets out the "Spanish tinge" — the habanera and tresillo patterns he held to be indispensable to jazz — which is a practitioner's testimony that the Caribbean rhythmic strand was present in New Orleans music from the beginning rather than an imported later flavour.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Alan Lomax · person · United States · not located
- Jazz · cultural practice · United States, from New Orleans outward · not located
- New Orleans · city · United States
- American Folklife Center, Library of Congress · institution · United States · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent. This is the standing of the weakest source, not an average.
Music Rising — The Musical Cultures of the Gulf South
Morton drew Afro-Cuban rhythms including the tresillo and habanera into early jazz and called them collectively the "Spanish tinge", stating in his 1938 Library of Congress sessions that jazz required it; Cuban dance bands toured New Orleans and the danzón was a significant influence there. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to this Tulane resource together with related scholarship; no page was opened and no recording or transcript was consulted.
Tulane University · Partly verified
musicrising.tulane.edu, entries on Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton and on Latin American music in New Orleans
Lead Belly / Lomax chronology
The Lomaxes met and recorded Lead Belly at Angola around 16–20 July 1933; Alan Lomax's subsequent collecting spanned more than sixty years and several continents, and included extended 1938 Library of Congress sessions with Jelly Roll Morton. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to the Association for Cultural Equity chronology; the chronology was not opened and no session log was consulted.
Association for Cultural Equity · Partly verified
culturalequity.org, Lead Belly / Lomax chronology and biography of Alan Lomax
Recorded on Alan Lomax
- New Orleans confines Sunday gatherings to Congo Square
- The first jazz record is made
- The Lomaxes record Lead Belly at Angola
- Alan Lomax records Jelly Roll Morton at the Library of Congress
- Muddy Waters is recorded at Stovall Farm
- The American Folklife Center acquires the Alan Lomax Collection
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.