Over the last decade, Anthony Coleman has evolved into one of New York’s premiere keyboardists. He is a virtual fount of modes, pulling riffs from his bag and executing them flawlessly (and tastily). He plays in a number of downtown groups, most visibly Marc Ribot’s Los Cubanos Postizos, a band that performs in the “son” style of pre-Castro Cuba. In almost any given week, he can be caught as a bandleader or an ensemble member in an improvisation or composition-based set.

On this particular night, Coleman favored his audience with solo piano selections by one of his musical influences, Jelly Roll Morton. He performed "London Blues," "Wolverine Blues," "Bert Williams," "Mamanita," "Mr. Jelly Lord," "Pep," "Frog-I-More," "Midnight Mama," "Jelly Roll Blues," "Pretty Lil," "Buffalo Blues," "Fickle Fay Creep," "Mama’s Got a Baby" and "The King Porter Stomp": a wide cross section of Jelly Roll’s creations requiring a great deal of technical prowess. Coleman (as few can) stepped up to the plate with the required knuckle-busting technique, only occasionally seeming to strain at his skill level. He added to the evening’s intimate feel by pausing between tunes to share bits and pieces of the Jelly Roll legacy with the audience.

As a young man in New Orleans, Morton single-handedly (according to himself, at least) brought piano and syncopation to a new fever pitch, “inventing” hot jazz in the 1910s and '20s. For many years he exemplified “the sporting life.” He made money not just as an ace key slinger but as a card shark, pool hustler, gambler and pimp.

When he left New Orleans to be part of the northeastern jazz scene of the '30s he was, according to Nat Shaprio and Nat Hentoff's Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It "dressed like an old fashioned pimp” as one musician remembered him. “St. Louis Flats that came up over his ankles, a Stetson hat, and diamonds, all the way from his gold sock-supporters to the diamond in his front tooth.” Unfortunately for Morton, new musical styles were displacing the hot jazz he helped invent, and a younger generation of players held little regard for his accomplishments. Many northern musicians (including those who would be involved in the revolutionary bebop style), dismissed him as an arrogant bragger who had failed to keep up with the times and was never as great as he had imagined. To rub salt in the wound, he had a bad habit of telling players who were not from New Orleans that their music was inferior, thus further solidifying a growing dislike for the man. Add to the mix the fact that like almost all black musicians, ASCAP denied him membership, keeping him from his royalties. His publisher, Chicago-based Melrose brothers, also cheated him out of royalties. Later in life these economic factors would catch up with him, precipitating a fall from musical grace and to financial hard times. Morton, drawing on his New Orleans roots, concluded that enemies had placed a voodoo curse on him. He claimed to have found magic dust under the front mat to his office, preventing lucrative business transactions. On one occasion he went so far as to burn all his clothes in an effort to drive away the evil voodoo curse. His obsession with the curse eventually took over his life. His poor financial state and position far from the cutting edge of jazz drove him somewhat mad. He died penniless and alone in 1941 at the age of 50. Still, Morton helped to push the evolution of jazz forward and in the process created a large body of beautiful and technically challenging compositions, earning himself a place as one of the true icons of early jazz innovation.

Coleman very nearly hit the mark in interpreting Morton's work. This is not to say he did anything but a fantastic job. The material is difficult and it was performed almost as well as I’ve ever heard it done live. The only caveat being that even during the most raucous selections, while he executed the intricate syncopated melodies without flaw, Coleman failed to capture the underlying visceral-ness that I always hear in Morton’s playing. There’s an almost unperceivable sneer, a bit of nastiness deeply seated in the music. After all, he didn’t call himself “Friendly Uncle Jelly,” he called himself “Mr. Jelly Lord.” This attitude is heard not in the notes themselves but somehow in the way he hit the keys. Anthony’s playing was superb, but it was lacking (for my ears) that nasty background hue. This was true till the last selection, "King Porter Stomp," and the encore, an unnamed Ellington-esque “jungle” piece in which, Coleman (knowingly or not) turned a darker hand and seemed to capture the true spirit of the work. Regardless of the edge (or lack thereof), I think Mr. Jelly Lord would be pleased to know his music is still being performed live in the 21st century, and would be pleased with Coleman’s execution - if only Coleman were from New Orleans.