Jelly's Last Jam
by Susan Birkenhead, Jelly Roll Morton, George C Wolfe, Luther Henderson

"Filled with exuberance and haunting imagery... highlights both pathos and wit... Jelly's evokes sheer joy... by turns poignant, palpable and gratifying."

— Star Tribune (Minnesota)

"Dazzling... this Jam jams with infectious style."

— Washington Post

"The show is not merely an impressionistic biography of the man who helped ignite the 20th-century jazz revolution, but it is also a sophisticated attempt to tell the story of the birth of jazz in general and, through that story, the edgy drama of being Black in the tumultuous modern America that percolated to jazz's beat. And that's not all: Jelly's Last Jam, a show in part about what it means to be African American, is itself an attempt to remake the Broadway musical in a mythic, African American image."

— The New York Times

"Sizzling... at once rollicking and excessive, roof-raising and overstuffed... a series of musical numbers in which biographical flashbacks, daring theatrical stylization, boisterous entertainment and tragic inferences all mesh in repeated crescendos. The songs have been ingeniously crafted, mostly from Morton's own compositions, by the arranger and composer, Luther Henderson, and the lyricist, Susan Birkenhead, who have tailored this instrumental music to meet the demands of the theater and of singers without sacrificing its integrity."

— Frank Rich, The New York Times

"An original, exuberant and sometimes outrageous new American musical... brash, vivacious... a big, splashy, tuneful crowd-pleaser... Polished to a dazzling finish, Jelly’s Last Jam is almost sinfully pleasurable... Susan Birkenhead’s lyrics... are bawdy and ironic, managing to avoid caricature. Propelled by Luther Henderson’s muscular orchestrations, the music also seems non-stop. That’s great, because the dancing in Jelly’s Last Jam is wonderful."

— Variety