Jelly Roll Morton

2 7.3

An American musician who plays piano, writes songs, and leads bands in early New Orleans jazz

proper noun
/ˈdʒɛli roʊl ˈmɔrtən/

: Jelly Roll Morton

Jelly Roll Morton played a key role in shaping the sound of early jazz music.

Examples

The influence of Jelly Roll Morton can still be heard in modern jazz performances.
Many musicians attribute the composition 'King Porter Stomp' to Jelly Roll Morton.
Jelly Roll Morton was a legendary musician.
Did you know that Jelly Roll Morton composed many famous jazz pieces?
The late jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton was born in Louisiana but made Chicago his home in 1923, where he started his band.
Noon, Jelly Roll Morton was a genius of jazz, a composer and pianist extraordinaire, a man given to sartorial splendor, all of which he'd be the first to tell you.
As it turns out, Jelly Roll Morton had much, much more to say—eight entire CDs' worth—released as a set for the first time by the Library of Congress: interviews conducted with the jazz great nearly 70 years ago.

Surface Forms

Jelly Roll Morton main

Morphology

Jelly + Roll + Morton

This is a proper name/stage name rather than a compositional phrase; knowing the words 'jelly', 'roll', and the surname 'Morton' does not let a B1 learner infer that the referent is an early jazz pianist and composer. Personal names and nicknames are essentially arbitrary and language-specific, so the meaning is not derivable from the constituents.

Etymology

Jelly Roll Morton used 'Jelly Roll' as his stage name. In early New Orleans 'jelly roll' was a name for a sweet cake and was also a slang word, so the catchy name helped people remember this lively jazz pianist.