Jim Turner

Jim Turner's Jelly Roll Blues

Arbors ARCD 19392

Jim Turner (piano), Topsy Chapman (vocal on last track)

Tiger Rag / Jelly Roll Blues / Fingerbreaker / Pearls/King Porter Stomp / Buddy Bolden's Blues / Crave / Grandpa's Spells / Perfect Rag / Wolverine Blues / Winin' Boy Blues / Frog-i-more Rag / Mister Joe / Shreveport Stomp / Mr. Jelly Lord

For those of you unfamiliar with Jim Turner's work, he has been the pianist and arranger for Jim Cullum's Jazz Band since 2003. This disc is his second solo for Arbors (the first was a tribute to James P. Johnson) and the latest in what is a fairly slender discography.

A glance at the tune list here reveals no particular surprises : Tiger Rag is the only tune not composed by Morton and such standards as Wolverine Blues, King Porter Stomp and Original Jelly Roll Blues take their place beside less common fare as The Crave and Perfect Rag. Turner has crafted arrangements for each selection and I would assume that they are set pieces in his repertoire. Not content simply to reproduce Morton's own recordings of these tunes, he applies a scholar's rigor to assimiLating all possible versions and introducing elements from several different versions as well as the sheet music into each arrangement. As his liner notes show, he took much inspiration from the Library of Congress recordings of the late 1930s, including the inspiration for Mr. Jelly Lord - the single vocal appearance by Topsy Chapman. …