Jelly Roll Morton New Orleans Quotations

In the year of 1902, when I was about seventeen years old, I happened to invade one of the sections [in New Orleans] where the birth of Jazz originated from.

Rejoice at the death and cry at the birth: New Orleans sticks close to the Scriptures.

The sporting houses needed professors, and we had so many different styles that... it wouldn't make any difference that you just came from . . . whatever your tunes were over there, we played them in New Orleans.

I have been robbed of three million dollars all told. Everyone today is playing my stuff and I don't even get credit. Kansas City style, Chicago style, New Orleans style hell, they're all Jelly Roll style.

It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of Jazz and I, myself, happened to be the creator in the year 1902.