Buddy Bolden
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Charles "Buddy" Bolden (September 6, 1877 – November 4, 1931) was a cornetist and the first New Orleans jazz musician to come to prominence.
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[edit] Life
He was known as King Bolden (see Jazz royalty) and his band was a top draw in New Orleans from about 1895 until 1907, when he was incapacitated by schizophrenia, which was called dementia praecox at that time. He never recorded, but he was known for his open tone and very loud sound. Joe "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong were directly inspired by his playing.
While there is substantial first hand oral history about Buddy Bolden, facts about his life continue to be lost amongst colourful myth. Stories about him being a barber by trade or that he published a scandal-sheet called the Cricket have been repeated in print despite being debunked decades earlier.
Bolden suffered an episode of acute alcoholic psychosis in 1907. With the full diagnosis of dementia praecox, he was admitted to a mental institution where he spent the rest of his life.
Bolden was buried in an unmarked grave in Holt Cemetery, a pauper's graveyard in New Orleans. In 1998 a monument to Bolden was erected in Holt Cemetery, but his exact gravesite remains unknown.
[edit] Music
Many early jazz musicians credited Bolden and the members of his band with being the originators of what came to be known as "jazz", though the term was not yet in common musical use until during the era of Bolden's prominence. At least one writer has labelled him the father of jazz[1]. He is credited with creating a looser, more improvised version of ragtime and adding blues to it; Bolden's band was said to be the first to have brass instruments play the blues. He was also said to have taken ideas from gospel music heard in uptown African American Baptist churches.
Although Bolden was recalled as having made at least one phonograph cylinder, no known recordings of Bolden have survived.
Some of the songs first associated with his band such as traditional song Careless Love and My Bucket's Got a Hole in It, are still standards. Sounds foreshadowing funk and rap can be heard in one of Bolden's theme songs, known then as Funky Butt (a reference to flatulence) and later as Buddy Bolden's Blues:
I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say,
Funky-butt, funky-butt, take it away.
[edit] Bolden in fiction
Bolden has inspired a number of fictional characters with his name. Most famously, Canadian author Michael Ondaatje's novel Coming Through Slaughter features a Buddy Bolden character that in some ways resembles Bolden, but in other ways is deliberately contrary to what is known about him.
Bolden is also referenced in August Wilson's Seven Guitars. With a character (King Hedley) whose father, in the play, deliberately named him after King Buddy Bolden; with King Hedley constantly singing "I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say...;" and with King Hedley believing that Buddy Bolden will come down and bring him money to buy a plantation, Bolden is prominent in Wilson's drama.
Additionally, August Wilson's King Hedley II continues Seven Guitars, thus Bolden continues in the play as well.
Bolden is a prominent character in David Fulmer's murder mystery titled Chasing the Devil's Tail, being not only a bandleader but also a suspect in the murders.
Bolden is the titular character in the film Bolden!, which is currently in production. He is being portrayed by Anthony Mackie.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz, Oxford/New York 1997, p. 34
[edit] External links
- Buddy Bolden's gravesite on findagrave.com
- Bolden! on IMDb.com
- Photograph [1]
