Nick LaRocca Vs. “Jelly Roll” Morton: Notions of Authorship in the “Tiger Rag” Controversy

ABSTRACT Pianist and composer Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton and Original Dixieland Jazz Band cornetist Dominic “Nick” LaRocca epitomize the intersection of some of the most hotly debated topics in jazz historiography and mainstream jazz culture: musical authorship and historical accuracy. The dispute between Morton and LaRocca over the provenance of the classic early jazz composition “Tiger Rag” and the related controversies surrounding claims made by Morton during his Library of Congress interviews with folklorist Alan Lomax are revealing case studies in this regard. While examining the “Tiger Rag” authorship debates, this article discusses evolving and competing notions of authorship in jazz culture and scholarship and seeks to illuminate both the difficulties involved in determining authorial attribution for disputed early jazz compositions and the ways in which traditional single-author paradigms are perhaps less suited to aspects of early jazz practice than distributed and communal authorship.