[78-L] Jelly Roll Morton on CBC!

[Steven C. Barr]

Copied from one of my blues lists...FWIW...
7pm on radio two...

Monday, September 20, 1010
concert 1: "Jelly Roll Morton: Making Vancouver"
recorded at Pat's Pub in Vancouver
The legendary New Orleans jazz composer and
pianist Jelly Roll Morton arrived in Vancouver in
1919 for a visit that turned into an
eighteen-month stay. The story goes that he
answered an invitation to play Bill Bowman's new
Vancouver nightspot, the Patricia Café, located
on the early Vancouver entertainment strip known
as East Hastings Street.  It's a minor miracle
that Jelly Roll made it up to Vancouver at all.
He slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow,
consorted with prostitutes and criminals, racked
up gambling debts and he even survived a voodoo
curse-at least for a while. And that all happened
while he was still a teenager. He was 29 when he
arrived in Vancouver and must have been quite a
sight. His favorite habit when rolling into a new
town was to don one of his many perfectly
tailored suits, stroll down the main drag, return
to his room, change suits, go for another stroll,
and repeat the whole ritual over again. It was
his way of making the scene. He definitely made
the scene in Vancouver. And it was only one long
life span ago that the incomparable Ferdinand
"Jelly Roll" Morton made Vancouver his home. This
concert, held in the actual location where he
lived and performed all those years ago,
commemorates the ninetieth anniversary of Jelly
Roll's stay in "Terminal City," and features
performances by Ndidi Onukwulu, The James
Danderfer Trio, C.R. Avery, and Henry Butler.

Steven C. Barr