Greetings from Chicago (I'm still here following a conference of lawyer geeks), where some of those roots may be found, but for Tom Morgan and many others, the deepest roots are of course found in New Orleans. Some of those roots were transplanted to the Windy City when King Oliver, Louis Armstrong and others came up here from NOLA. Morgan has produced sites that focus on the early years of jazz music, from 1895 to the 1920s and the foundation of this music in the culture and history of African-Americans. Morgan is a writer and radio producer, who hosts (at least at the time he did the site) the New Orleans Music Show on the legendary WWOZ-FM in New Orleans.

Morgan's Jass.com (yes, with "s", it's the spelling found in the earliest jazz history) is clearly a labor of love, providing links and explanation of the early days of jazz music, which he describes thusly:

As a musical language of communication, jazz is the first indigenous American style to affect music in the rest of the World. Brass Band From the beat of ragtime syncopation and driving brass bands to soaring gospel choirs mixed with field hollers and the deep down growl of the blues, jazz's many roots are celebrated almost everywhere in the United States.

While my tastes run to jazz recorded in the last 50 years, I can't help loving the music from this early era of jazz. Its bubbling sense of joy belies the prejudice and struggle that many who played it found in their lives. It's powerful in that way, not nostalgic. All music should be considered within its own context and time. It may not be on my turntable all the time, but from time to time, I just need that sound of jasssssss. It is the first site added to my "Jazz History" category.