The good news is that
Gregory Hines, playing the part of
Jelly Roll Morton in this successful Broadway musical, creates a full-bodied character and performs it with conviction and gusto. His Jelly is proud, impressive, and ultimately tragic. The bad news is that he is also fictional: Writer-director George C. Wolfe has distorted
Jelly Roll Morton's true story to tell a fable about African-American assimilation and the evolution of jazz. Unfortunately,
Luther Henderson's musical adaptation does to
Morton's music what Wolfe does to his life, and the result will be frowned upon by jazz fans, even though it conforms to Broadway conventions. ~ William Ruhlmann