Mister Jelly Roll

A classic in the field of jazz and African-American studies, this is a collaborative biography, with a strong folkloric element (Jelly Roll having mastered the role of trickster), by two of the greats in American popular music: Alan Lomax and (Ferdinand) Jelly Roll Morton, the great New Orleans musician and originator of jazz.

Alan Lomax, with his father John A. Lomax, created the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress and published many anthologies, including American Ballads and Folk Songs (1994) and Folk Songs of North America (1960). He produced the first albums of American folk song in 1939 and has edited more than a hundred recordings from all parts of the world. Lomax received the National Medal of Arts in 1986 Lawrence Gushee is Professor Emeritus at the School of Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign