Cornetist Thomas Morris (August 30, 1897 – 1945) is a somewhat shadowy, yet prolific figure of the early New York Jazz scene. He led a pretty good band called Thomas Morris and his Seven Hot Babies in Harlem in the mid-1920s and appeared on around 150 recordings. He recorded with Fats Waller, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Orchestra and Clarence Williams as well as accompanying Blues singers like Margaret Johnson, Sara Martin and Eva Taylor. He appeared briefly in the Bessie Smith film, “St. Louis Blues” in 1929.Some time in the early 1930s he left the music business worked as a Red Cap at Grand Central Station in New York and then became a member of Father Divine’s Universal Peace Mission Movement. This was a predominately African American fundamentalist Christian cult that believed in the equality of all people and that the leader of the group, Father Divine was the second coming of Christ. Morris changed his name to Brother Pierre and became a follower of Divine. The Universal Peace Mission Movement demanded a life of celibacy, no smoking, drinking, obscenity, profanity, vulgarity, receiving of gifts, presents, and tips. Thomas Morris was the uncle of Jazz pianist Marlowe Morris.
| Thomas Morris and his Seven Hot Babies | Thomas Waller with Morris’ Hot Babies |
| Thomas Morris and his Orchestra | New Orleans Blue Five |
| Thomas Morris Past Jazz Masters | |
| Title | Director | Year |
| St. Louis Blues | Dudley Murphy | 1929 |
Redhotjazz.com was a pioneering website during the "Information wants to be Free" era of the 1990s. In that spirit we are recovering the lost data from the now defunct site and sharing it with you.
Most of the music in the archive is in the form of MP3s hosted on Archive.org or the French servers of Jazz-on-line.com where this music is all in the public domain.
Files unavailable from those sources we host ourselves. They were made from original 78 RPM records in the hands of private collectors in the 1990s who contributed to the original redhotjazz.com. They were hosted as .ra files originally and we have converted them into the more modern MP3 format. They are of inferior quality to what is available commercially and are intended for reference purposes only. In some cases a Real Audio (.ra) file from Archive.org will download. Don't be scared! Those files will play in many music programs, but not Windows Media Player.
