Mamie Desdunes First Woman of Blues

Believed to be Mamie Desdunes New Orleans home

The Early Influences of Jelly Roll Morton

Though Jelly Roll Morton is the greatest legend of Storyville, he might never have come to prominence without the influence of a woman. Mamie Desdunes, a pianist who played in Storyville brothels, was one of Morton’s teachers. Morton gave credit to Desdunes in Mamie’s Blues and admitted it was Desdunes who taught him what he called “the Latin tinge.” “She played the blues like this,” he said on one recording before launching into a habanero rhythm.

Morton also described Desdunes in an oral history recording.

“Among the first blues that I’ve ever heard, happened to be a woman, that lived next door to my godmother’s in the Garden District,” Morton said. “Her name was Mamie Desdunes. … So she played a blues like this all day long, when she first would get up in the morning.”

Sadly, Desdunes died in 1911, at age 32, leaving behind not a single recording of her music. But her influence can still be heard in Morton’s many surviving records.