Composer/pianist Jelly Roll Morton was the first significant jazz composer stemming from his travels in the early 1900s during which he integrate gospel, blues, ragtime, French, Hispanic and Caribbean influences into a distinct style. Morton was a colorful personality who brazenly claimed to have invented jazz -- often revising music history, always to his favor, through exaggerations and misinformation he related to music historian/biographer Alan Lomax. Nonetheless, early classics like "King Porter Stomp" and "Wolverine Blues" certainly validate that he played a major role in the development of jazz.

Born in New Orleans on Oct. 20, 1890, Morton began playing piano at age 10, later showing his prowess on the instrument by stringing together a variety of musical styles for bordello patrons. Only several years into the new century, he toured many major southern cities, often venturing as far north as Kansas City and St. Louis; and later branching out to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Though years earlier he had formed his distinct style of playing, it wasn't until 1923 that he was first recorded -- in a Richmond, Ind., Ku Klux Klan meeting place, where he presented himself as Spanish rather than black. Chicago soon replaced New Orleans as his home, during which time he toured with his group the Red Hot Peppers, featuring Kid Ory and Johnny and Baby Dodds as members. As jazz gained popularity, Morton moved to New York in 1928.

The '30s found Morton dismissed by younger jazz players and fans moving away from New Orleans-based jazz in favor of a new sound called swing. Just as Morton had loosened the constricted feel of the formal ragtime style, swing further freed the rhythms on which Morton had built his compositions. Ironically, though, "King Porter Stomp" and "Wolverine Blues" remained hits during the swing era.

Morton, who died in Los Angeles on July 10, 1941, is greatly responsible for creating jazz's balance between composition and improvisation.

In 1963, Morton was elected by the Critics into the Down Beat Hall of Fame.