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U.S. Grant Hotel, 326 Broadway, San Diego, California

In November 1921 Jelly Roll Morton and a small orchestra, which included Dink Johnson, Wade Whaley and Willie Moorehead, were engaged to play at the prestigious U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, California. The engagement was set-up by Dink Johnson, who tells of the band being fired by the hotel management because Morton sat at the piano and played with his legs crossed. [OMJ 117] However, Morton gives a different version of this event. He discovered that a white band playing in the hotel was being paid double the fee that his band was receiving, so he pulled the band out of the hotel. [MJR 173]

courtesy of Dr. Robert Pinsker

© 2004 Monrovia Sound Studio

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