My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Hachette Books for an advance copy of this look at the history of blue music, censorship, bawdy lyrics and and life of one of America's greatest musicians.

Rock and roll music received its name for a popular term used in a lot of blues songs for what might follow after a night of dancing or drinking. Or for the feeling that people would get for being on the ocean. This is how a lot of music history is looked at. Some don't want to discuss the more bawdy stories, the dirty origins of many of their favorite songs, or even where their favorite musicians learned their craft. That supposed 10,000 hours that make a musician a star. A lot of those 10,000 hours would be played in houses of ill repute, where the songs might be about the customers around them, good and bad. Jelly Roll Morton was a composer and musician who played thousands of hours in his youth in places youth shouldn't really be. Learning the blues by both living them, and observing the people around him, and listening to their stories. And how they spoke and how they said it. Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories by musical historian and writer Elijah Wald is part biography of Morton, a look at songs that were rich and raw, and keep away from innocent ears, changing how we perceive and even hear blues music today.

Jelly Roll Morton was a man of mystery with different names, different birthdays and lots of stories about him. Morton grew up in the South in New Orleans, and worked as a pianist in many of the places that young men were warned to stay away from, and yet never did. Playing these kind of places introduced Morton to an underworld, where transactions for money were the norm, where many made fortunes, or lost fortunes and lives. Morton's songs were about these people, but as he grew famous he tended to shy away from his blues songs. In 1938 Morton played songs for famed ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax that were different than most traditional blue music. These songs were long, with many verses, almost operas with different voices, narratives, and a lot of bawdy talk. Only a bit more than thirty minutes of this recording still exists, and was not heard for over fifty years, because of the slang words used. And this caused our author, Elijah Ward to wonder what other great music was being ignored, because the language was too rough for sensitives souls.

A very different kind of music history book, that serves as both a biography on Morton, and about language, song, and a lot more. I have read histories about jazz and the blues before, but written in this kind of style, and with more of an emphasis on why so much music from this era is lost and why. Little warning there is a lot of rough language in this book, some that is kind of unnerving more than shocking. Wald discusses this in the beginning of the book in a very interesting essay about what should be told, and what shouldn't be. I found the information about Morton very interesting, but the history about the blues and language I thought was the best part of the book. A completely different approach to both studying and explaining the music and its times. Wald wrote a previous book Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas, which I enjoyed and was impressed with the amount of work and research. This book is even better, and the effort put into this both in writing, and explaining blues music is very rewarding.

Recommended for musical historians, and those that are interested in both jazz and the blues and their origins. Also for those who want to learn a bit about America, music, censorship, and how art can be hidden, but somehow always finds an audience. Elijah Wald is a very fine writer and I can't wait to read more by him.

This book is not for the feint of heart. It is for those who love New Orleans, old time blues and jazz. Who knew that the early lyrics to so many old songs were so obscene. The is one of the few books I’ve read that revolves around obscenity. What a great history of the singers and songwriters who originated in New Orleans who migrated out to change the face of American music. So many great details about Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey to name a few. I applaud the author, Elijah Wald, who did such great research and wrote such a compelling book. This book is not just about Jelly Roll Morton, but about the evolution of modern music.

I'm a huge fan of blues music and the history behind it, so I was looking forward to digging a little more deeply into the history behind it, but I struggled with this book which seemed to spin its wheels, and not really move with much pace.

Late in this scholarly, somewhat obsessive work, Elijah Wald describes what he’s written as a book more of questions than answers. That’s of necessity; the time he writes about is obscured not just by the century-plus that’s since taken place but by censorship, self- and otherwise.

Morton, now enshrined in musical history as jazz’s first arranger, took up music with “dirty” lyrics as a defense. Pianists were considered weak, so he decided to play strong stuff.

Part of this book’s appeal to readers will be in its reproduction of lyrics that are shocking even today, when songs of misogyny and murder are so common as to be unremarkable. It may surprise and even delight people to know that their great-grandparents could get grimy, too.

But Wald takes his real pleasure in tracing the roots of songs, pursuing them as they change names and lyrics. This music emerged from a culture more oral than written, which means that, often, there is no true or “correct” version, only variations on a theme.

Wald does the reader a service in highlighting the ways in which the interests of white archivists sometimes diverged with that of black musicians, and how those divergences shaped what remains of that old music.

At times, he fails to notice that the general reader is tapping her shoe or glancing at her watch, so deeply is he immersed in his research. Still, much of the book is more than compelling, resulting in a seance of sorts, one in which distant strains of music are called back to life.

Anybody who loves jazz music, especially the old days of it, will love this book. This was a fun read, especially if you would like to learn more about Jelly Roll Morton.