Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West From: Current Musicology | Date: April 1, 2001| Author: | Copyright Columbia University, Department of Music Spring 2001/2002. Provided by ProQuest LLC.Copyright information

Phil Pastras. Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. XX, 246 pp.

Author Phil Pastras opens his biographical study of legendary pianist Jelly Roll Morton with an epigram from poet Dylan Thomas-"Oh make me a mask"-and with that signal, Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West takes us on the road with trickster Ferdinand Joseph LaMenthe, a.k.a. Jelly Roll. Pastras appreciates the facility with which Morton, like many African American jazz musicians, used performative masks to strategize resilient careers in a capricious music ...