Worst. Movie. Ever.
I heard good things about this movie from a friend and the reviews on this site. Then I saw it, and what can I say, but it's utter schlock. The plot is contrived, the writing is clichéd and the characters are so one-dimensional, I could barely stand to watch the entire film. Roth's performance and the art direction/cinematography are superb, but it can't save a plot that makes Forrest Gump look like a documentary.
A piano duel? Am I supposed to be really excited about that? The winner wasn't clear to me except for the utter predictability that 1900 was supposed to win, because his buddy was sure he wouldn't. On a musical level, all he did was play faster than Jelly Roll Morton. Faster does not equal better.
This is a personal bias, but I prefer to see movies that are all fiction or all history. Mixing a historical figure like Jelly Roll Morton into a fictional world just seems like a cop-out to me.