‘Jelly’s Last Jam’ Off Broadway Review: How Jazz Was Born, or Was it?

It’s easy to see why the musical “Jelly’s Last Jam” had a respectable but unprofitable run in its original engagement on Broadway in 1992-93. The show is about an unapologetic racist, who is a Black man. Under the auspices of Encores!, a riveting warts-and-nothing-else revival of that Jelly Roll Morton bio-musical opened Wednesday at the New York City Center.

George C. Wolfe wrote the book and directed the original production, and he never tries to pretty up his subject matter the way makers of musicals are prone to do. In fact, his book seems bent on sticking it to a great Black musician who identifies as Creole and says his family came to America directly “from the shores of France.”