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Ted Gioia returns to discuss “The History of Jazz,” and host Nate Wilcox takes him all the way back to the start of the book, to the prehistory of the music. There is general agreement that jazz came out of New Orleans; there was a period when people disputed it, and a time when the Soviet Union claimed it started in Siberia. Ted explains why that city, why that moment - and what we can and cannot know about who played it first.
Also: Jelly Roll Morton, reclaimed as a serious figure in American music rather than a bragging pimp with a revolver and a flashy wardrobe. And James Reese Europe — a major figure who probably should not be reduced to the jazz tradition at all, because so much of what he did sits outside and beyond it.
And Ted’s argument about what the music actually is: that jazz is the art of living in the moment, that spontaneity is its whole essence, and that this is inseparable from what it has cost the people who played it.
Which brings the episode to Louis Armstrong — the greatest living improviser of his era, the culmination of New Orleans jazz and the end point of it, because he laid the framework for everything that came after.
MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE
* Basile Barès, “Los Campanillas” — a 19th century New Orleans composer, born enslaved. This particular piece went unpublished, so almost nobody heard it in his lifetime. The Habanera rhythm of Cuba is already there in it, in the city’s music, before jazz.
* Charley Patton, “Pony Blues”
* James Reese Europe playing W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues”
* Jelly Roll Morton playing Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress This episode originally dropped in 2021. We’re relaunching Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter.
The Let It Roll From the Beginning… series is a relaunch of Let It Roll by reposting every episode in chronological order by subject matter for the first time.
