YEAR
1998
INDUCTED BY
Ahmet Ertegun
CATEGORY
Early Influences
A true giant of jazz.
He did not, as he claimed, invent jazz, but there’s no denying that he was a major influence on the genre. Jelly Roll Morton was a master composer, arranger and pianist who blended genres in an early form of jazz.
Jelly Roll Morton
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By David McGee
Jelly Roll Morton in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
The man who invented jazz?
On the surface, it may seem a stretch; on closer inspection, it’s an entirely appropriate honor. A music that has always borrowed liberally from other streams in its ongoing evolution would and should embrace as one of its own an artist imbued with the sensibility that bespeaks great art in general, rock & roll in specific: a zeal for adventure, disdain of the status quo, an innate drive to push the boundaries of convention until the artist breaks on through to the other side with something so new and brazen it’s virtually indefinable -but talismanic to all the daring souls courageous enough to follow the same path.
