Jelly Roll Morton: Why Did the Stride Pianists "Diss" Him? (+Bonus book)

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It’s well known that the East Coast “stride” pianists did not consider Jelly Roll Morton to be a good pianist. They consistently “dissed” (disrespected) his piano skills. But I’ve never seen anyone explain why. In fact, most people, when they listen to Morton’s solo piano recordings, are drawn in by his strong drive, interactive left hand, and creative variety of textures. As an example, here’s the end of “Tiger Rag” for the Library of Congress in 1938:

That sounds great to me—and, I imagine, to you as well. But the stride players, including Duke Ellington, always put him down. In fact, I previously posted a conversation between Ellington and Leonard Feather from 1955, where Ellington says most high school teachers played better jazz than Morton! Here’s the relevant excerpt. It’s clear that Feather, with his leading question, is hoping that Duke will confirm his low opinion of Morton. And Duke does so, indeed:

Here’s the above conversation transcribed:

Feather: Was Jelly Roll as much of a pioneer as he’s reputed to be?

Ellington: Jelly Roll was a writer. He had more published music than anybody else [at that time]. Other than that, I don’t know anything about him [meaning I don’t know what to say about him] as a performer, you know, he couldn't play no piano.

Feather: He couldn’t?

Ellington: Never for me—I heard him play piano but he was, he played piano like one of those high school teachers in Washington [D.C.]. (Feather laughs quietly.) Matter of fact, high school teachers played better jazz. The rhythm’s unsteady—[that’s] another thing.

A very strong dismissal of Morton! But Morton certainly sounds good to us—and, though he rushes a little at the very end of the above excerpt, “unsteady” hardly seems like the right word. So what was the problem? People seem to generally assume that it was due to some kind of personality clash between Morton and the stride pianists. But, even though there was apparently a disconnect personally, that does not account for their disrespect toward his piano style. Nobody has explained this—until now:

The problem was that the stride players had a very specific, and totally rigid, idea of how the piano should be played. Here, Willie “The Lion” Smith explains this on his Memoirs album, recorded in 1967. He plays something quite like Morton, without naming him, and says that’s “the corn” (meaning corny). He says that when someone plays that way “It means ‘I don’t know how to play’”! (The producer, stride pianist Mike Lipskin, laughs here.) Then Smith demonstrates the same “strain”—the same chord sequence— played in stride, which he says, “means ‘real good’”!:

What is the difference between Smith’s two demonstrations, without getting very technical? In the first one, the left hand stays within a fairly small range, not that far from the right hand. In the second one, the left “strides” back and forth between chords that are close to the right hand and bass notes that are as much as two octaves down. Even if you don’t play piano, you can understand that it is many times harder to accurately hit notes when they are far apart than when they are close together. And you can really see it on film and TV performances. For example, here is an excerpt of “The Lion” striding on James P. Johnson’s “Carolina Shout,” on French television, November 29, 1965. Watch the left hand—and listen for the bass notes that he hits with his little “pinky” finger!:

Now, Morton lived in Chicago from about 1923 to 1930, and visited at other times, and he had a big impact there. But it’s important to note that the non-stride approach to piano, with the hands closer together, was practiced all over the country, not only by Morton. For example, Russian-Jewish pianist Art Hodes, in his own memoirs recorded in 1971, recalls learning the simpler left hand from another pianist in Chicago, not from Morton. Hodes begins the passage below with a stride rendition of “Ain’t She Sweet.” Then he explains that he learned another method which he explicitly describes as “easier” and requiring less “accuracy.” He calls this an “octave bass”—it employs a lot of octaves, and fifths—and, more recently, I’ve seen it also called “modified stride” or “simplified stride.” Please listen closely:

Now, Lil Hardin Armstrong, whose work I have previously discussed, explicitly said that seeing Morton play in Chicago changed her musical life. In fact, for a television special in 1961 about Chicago jazz, she performed Morton’s “The Pearls.” She is quite an entertainer, singing and laughing while she plays. (That’s Mae Barnes, the famous dancer and singer, playing snare drum behind her.) Hardin is using another approach to a simpler left hand—it’s mostly repeated chords, and as you can see, the main feature is that it does not move around very far from the right hand. (There’s a slight glitch in the video at 0:10.):

The stride pianists, who prided themselves on their technical abilities, considered the octave bass or repeated chords methods to be cheating, nothing more. After all, Hodes acknowledged that it was indeed a simplified version, or if you will, a corruption of stride. So the stride players would never respect anyone who played that way. They were just not able to look at it as a different, but equally valid way of playing. They could not “get past,” as we say, their judgement that Morton and other non-stride players were “cheaters” who could not play piano “properly.” As Smith explained, their style said quite clearly to the stride musicians, “I don’t know how to play.”

My friend Ethan Iverson, the pianist, has noted that Morton did play passages of stride on his first recordings of 1923. But there are a few key points to keep in mind: Nobody, not even Morton himself, would have said that he was primarily a stride pianist. Second, the comments by stride players indicate that they based their judgements on hearing him in person in Harlem, which would have been mainly in the 1930s. And finally, as I hope I have made clear, I do not think they were justified in dismissing him as a pianist! I am simply explaining why they did so.

So now you know why Morton could never have been accepted by the stride pianists. Should we today agree with them? Of course not. It may be true, in some ways, that James P. Johnson, for example, had a level of virtuosity that was far beyond Morton’s technical ability. But I think we all believe that it’s the music that counts, not the technique in itself. James P. sounds great—and Morton does too!

While you’re here, here’s a stride technique that isn’t well known. When they were playing and singing at the same time, it was simply too much to stride while singing the melody and remembering all the words. So the standard technique in that case was to divide the stride between two hands. The left plays the bass notes and the right plays the chords. That’s what Fats Waller did on the many recordings where he sings, and here is a short clip, from the feature film King of Burlesque (filmed 1935, released January 1936), where you can actually see him doing it. Of course his singing is delightful as well:

And here’s our friend Willie “the Lion,” from the same 1965 Paris concert as the clip above. The song, “Shine,” is considered very politically incorrect today, but musicians of Smith’s generation—notably Louis Armstrong—regularly performed it. Anyway, for our purpose, please focus on what his hands are doing:

See you next time!

All the best,
Lewis

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