Written by Octavia, 2021 Cohort
Black History Month is an annual celebration for all the achievements and contributions brought by African Americans in U.S. history. To participate, I would like to introduce two of my favourite black jazz musicians.
Jelly Roll Morton
If you have ever watched the movie The legend of 1990, you’ll certainly be familiar with the classic plot, the piano battle. In the film, the director Tornatore portrayed a legacy pianist with his masterful cinematography. Unfortunately, in reality, the main character 1900 is only a fictional character. However, if we turn to the other jazz pianist who was battled with 1900, you will find the black jazz musician is a real presence, and his contribution to the history of jazz is irreplaceable.
Jelly Roll Morton showed an impressive talent for music at a very young age, he learned how to play piano from a priest in his church. But life couldn’t come easy for a black child in the 19th century, after he was caught by his grandma performing on the piano in a brothel, Morton was forced to live a wandering life at the age of 14. He travelled throughout the whole south area in America and tried different careers like gambling, comedy and even prostitution, but he never gave up music. His style continued to change and enrich as he progressed through his journey. Finally, in 1915, he wrote his famous hit, Jelly Roll Blues, and this song was later considered the first Jazz song in history, and Morton became one of the earliest jazz musicians that we know of.
Nat King Cole
As another jazz star who was enlightened by gospel, Nat King Cole was famous for his soft voice and fabulous jazz piano performance. The song he recorded was over a hundred, and he was also the first black man who was able to host an American television show. Differ from Morton, Cole was born in a musical family, his father was a priest in the church, in this environment, he was able to learn from his family and practise organ in the choir. Perhaps it is also because of the different upbringing, Cole’s songs are always very soft and full of gentle emotion. I remember the first time I listened to Nat King Cole was in the game Fallout 4. In the game, I was acting like a person who woke up in a world that was ruined with nuclear weapons after being frozen in a shelter for 210 years. When I was hanging around in the broken world, the radio from the game suddenly started to play the song Orange Coloured Sky. I was immediately attracted by the relaxing tone and decided to stop the game and did research on Nat King Cole. Today, Nat King Cole became one of my favourite singers. His songs are always the best choice for any time when I was doing homework and his gentle voice comforted me throughout many blue nights.