Howard Reich

Howard Reich is a Chicago journalist, music critic, filmmaker, and author whose nonfiction grows from decades of reporting on jazz, classical music, opera, and cultural memory. Jelly’s Blues, written with investigative reporter William M. Gaines, reexamines the life and legacy of pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. Da Capo first published the biography in 2003. Its 2004 trade paperback carries the complete title Jelly’s Blues: The Life, Music, and Redemption of Jelly Roll Morton. Reich and Gaines drew on an archive assembled by New Orleans collector William Russell, including correspondence, compositions, legal records, and copyright material. Those documents let them reconsider Morton’s later career, his efforts to recover royalties, and his insistence on his importance to early jazz. Reich brings a critic’s attention to the music, while Gaines contributes the habits of investigative reporting. The collaboration places Morton within the jazz worlds of New Orleans and Chicago and shows how documentary evidence can revise a public reputation shaped by caricature.