Jelly-Roll Morton: ¿padre del jazz o tataranieto de la contradanza?

Abstract

This article suggests looking at Jelly-Roll Morton not as the first jazz pianist, but as a descendant of the 19th-century Cuban contradanza/danza piano tradition. His compositions merging such genre with ragtime and blues are discussed in comparison with Ignacio Cervantes’s Danzas Cubanas, in order to underline their shared formal and cultural traits.