The Pearls

Morton wrote The Pearls for a woman. He never said which one, and given that his romantic life makes Casanova look like a shut-in, the candidates are numerous. What we know is that he composed it in the early 1920s, most likely in Los Angeles during a period when he was running a nightclub, managing a stable of musicians, and — according to several accounts — operating a side business that polite histories describe as 'entertainment promotion' and less polite ones describe accurately.

The piece itself is Morton's most elegant composition. Where Black Bottom Stomp struts and Dead Man Blues mourns, The Pearls simply glows. The melody in the first strain has a classical purity that betrays Morton's training — his grandmother insisted he study music formally, and he did, even as he was sneaking off to play in the District. That tension between refinement and the street runs through everything Morton ever wrote, but nowhere more beautifully than here.

The 1923 Gennett recording captures Morton alone at the piano, and you can hear him breathing between phrases. Not from exertion — from feeling. The man who bragged louder than anyone in jazz, who plastered his business cards with 'Originator of Jazz and Stomps,' who once pulled a knife during an argument about tempo, plays The Pearls with the tenderness of someone remembering a face they'll never see again.

Whoever she was, she inspired three minutes of music that has outlasted every building Morton ever walked into, every car he ever drove, and every dollar he ever lost at cards. That's a remarkable legacy for a woman whose name we don't even know.