Black Bottom Stomping Today

Randomly encountered a modern group, Swamp City Six, performing a masterpiece of 1920s jazz by Jelly Roll Morton. "Black Bottom Stomp" has long been a personal favorite due to its complex structure and amazing banjo playing. This group does not disappoint, giving one a sense of what the group may have sounded like if they had not been restricted to the 3 minute recording format of their era. 

"White" Black Bottom Stomp

Sometimes the contrast between white and black jazz bands in the 1920s in their interpretations of the same material is quite stark. While interesting and "cool" in its restrained approach to the Jelly Roll Morton composition, Red Nichols and his band do not capture any of the "hot" quality of Jelly Roll Morton or 1920s New Orleans jazz artists. Nor does their take come close to the matching the multi-sectioned structure encompassing everything in the New Orleans style. Nevertheless, it is always interesting to hear different interpretations of "Black Bottom Stomp."

Black Bottom Stomp

While randomly listening to Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp" today, I noticed a similarity with "Castle House Rag" by James Reese Europe, recorded in 1914. The 1926 recording by Jelly Roll Morton demonstrates the clear link to ragtime in "Black Bottom Stomp," particularly in a brief banjo solo that nearly echoes the "hot section" around 3 minutes into "Castle House Rag." Alternatively, the inspiration for Jelly Roll Morton's ragtime-inspired segment could hail from "12th Street Rag," but the banjoist's rollicking style brings to mind the banjo and mandolin players of Europe's Society Orchestra.  While Reese Europe's Society Orchestra in 1914 was still not quite jazz, it's interesting to note how Jelly Roll Morton was deeply aware of ragtime black music and incorporated elements of it into his own compositions, which were complex arrangements showing Morton's skills as what Gunther Schuller called the first great composer of jazz