King Features Weekly Service - March 1993

Birnbaum said, "Jelly was part Creole (descendant of French settlers in Louisiana) and part black. He never tried to pass as white. He never even worked with white musicians. We must remember that in his time, the south was still largely segregated. There have been a lot of things written about Jelly Roll Morton, some of it by people who didn’t like him. But I would say, don’t believe too much of what you may read, except for one thing: Jelly was a musical genius. That is undoubted. Everything else is up to question.”

By Evelyn Ludvigson
King Features Weekly Service