13 Quotes by Jelly Roll Morton

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    My contributions were many: First clown director, with witty sayings and flashily dressed, now called master of ceremonies.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    In the year of 1902, when I was about seventeen years old, I happened to invade one of the sections [in New Orleans] where the birth of Jazz originated from.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    I do not claim any of the creation of the blues, although I have written many of them even before Mr. Handy had any blues published. I heard them when I was knee-high to a duck.

  • Tags
  • Share


  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    The sporting houses needed professors, and we had so many different styles that... it wouldn't make any difference that you just came from . . . whatever your tunes were over there, we played them in New Orleans.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    In 1908 Handy didn't know anything about the blues and he doesn't know anything about jazz and stomps to this day. I myself figured out the peculiar form of mathematics and harmonies that was strange to all the world but me.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    I have been robbed of three million dollars all told. Everyone today is playing my stuff and I don't even get credit. Kansas City style, Chicago style, New Orleans style hell, they're all Jelly Roll style.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Jelly Roll Morton
  • Quote

    It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.

  • Tags
  • Share