Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe was born in Louisiana in 1890 and loved music as a child. He tried his hand at guitar and trombone but settled on piano as his instrument of choice when he was 10. By the time he was 14 he was playing piano in a brothel in the New Orleans red light district known as Storyville. He used the name Jelly Roll Morton to in hopes that his family would not find out about his activities. It didn’t work, though, and his family disowned him. He went on to become the first significant composer in jazz and one of its most controversial figures. Morton claimed to have “invented jazz in 1902,” and while that assertion seems a bit silly, there is no doubt that he was one of the most innovative musicians in the early years of the genre.

Fast forward to September of 1926. Morton was at his peak in popularity and creativity. He and his group the Red Hot Peppers were in Chicago doing a series of recordings at the Webster Hotel for Victor Records. On the 21st one of the tunes they cut was Dead Man Blues, a Morton composition that was actually first recorded less than a week earlier by King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators. The record simulates a New Orleans funeral and is complete with a scripted conversation between Morton and banjo player Johnny St. Cyr over the strains of Chopin’s Marche Funebre. The performance is carefully arranged by Morton with a few opportunities for brief improvised breaks and fills. Perhaps the most notable feature of the performance is the composed clarinet trio played by Omer Simeon, Darnell Howard and Barney Bigard. At the time of its release in January 1927 Dead Man Blues provided listeners with a glimpse into the traditions of a New Orleans funeral procession that were not widely known at the time outside of the southern United States.
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Here is a link to the recording made that day 100 years ago:

"DEAD MAN BLUES"