"As a matter of right, Jelly Roll Morton would have assumed that any jazz starter collection would begin with him. After all, he once proudly proclaimed, ‘I myself invented jazz in the year of 1902’. Grandiosity was his lifelong style: pianist, composer, leader; pool-shark, pimp and hustler – there was something mythic about Jelly, right down – or up – to the glittering diamond in one of his front teeth. People resented his arrogance, but as one of his musicians put it, ‘Sure he bragged, but he could back up everything he said.’ And while he may not have invented jazz, he was arguably the first great jazz composer, the man who proved it was possible to realise both a compelling structure and spontaneous excitement. The key to his achievement was a many-sided and acute musical imagination, steeped in the cultural melting pot of New Orleans. Morton absorbed all the riches the Crescent City had to offer – blues, ragtime, marches, grand opera, quadrilles and the ‘Spanish tinge’ he maintained was essential to jazz. His piano style displays all these influences, at once refined and raffish, encompassing elegant turns and trills, barrelhouse chords and a strain of melancholy lyricism. The same qualities suffuse his orchestral works. Morton first formed the band he called Red Hot Peppers in Chicago in 1926, and their recordings will come as a revelation to anyone who thinks of early jazz as raucous and one-dimensional. Morton’s men were all masters of the vibrant New Orleans style, and gave his compositions just the right interpretative and improvisatory gusto."