Jelly Roll Morton - Pretty Lil-1929

Jelly Roll Morton composed Pretty Lil and Jelly Roll and his orchestra recorded the music at the Trinity Baptist Church studios of Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey July 9,1929. Jelly Roll Morton had started his Red Hot Peppers band from Lil Hardin Armstrong's disbanded Dixieland Syncopaters in 1926. Lil Hardin was Louis Armstrong's second wife - they were married from 1926-1938. Lil and Louis had met about 1921 while both played in King Olivers Creole Jazz Band in Chicago. Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong had collaborated on Wildman Blues in 1926 and Morton recorded the song on the Bluebird label in Chicago in 1927 while Louis Armstrong and His Hot 7 recorded the music in May 1927 for Okeh in Chicago. The pianist for that Hot 7 session was Lil Hardin.
Lil was the most famous woman of early jazz who got her start at age 17 playing in the men's world of tough and seedy clubs in Chicago. Lil had met Jelly Roll as a teen while she was working at a Chicago music store where she demonstrated sheet music. Morton frequented the store and played his style for her which she came to adopt and for a while was known as the female Jelly Roll Morton. Lil and Morton remained friends while both worked in Chicago. She was hired as a jazz pianist for her first gig at age 17 and she not only held her own but had 8 different orchestras of her own from 1925-1950 and remained active as a jazz musician until her death in 1971. Lil appeared on Broadway in Hot Chocolates, cut 26 records as a vocalist, was a fashion designer in the 1940s, then returned to music where she had 4 successful years of engagements in Europe in the 1950s and held a post graduate degree in music fromNY College of Music