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CHARLES "BUDDY" BOLDEN

(1877? - 1931)

Charles "Buddy" Bolden, cornetist, a barber by day who, in his spare time, published a scandal sheet.  He was, however, a musician who sent Storyville rocking with his ragtime and blues.

Buddy Bolden was truly a king in New Orleans after he organized his own band in the mid-1890s.  According to Louis Armstrong he was "a one man genius ahead of 'em all."

Bolden's was one of the most powerful cornets in New Orleans.  "He'd turn his big trumpet toward the city and blow his blues," recalled the New Orleans pianist, "Jelly Roll" Morton, "calling his children home as he used to say.  The whole town would know that Buddy Bolden was in the Park, ten or twelve miles from the center of town.  He was the blowingest man ever lived since Gabriel."

Bolden set and established the organization of the hot-jazz ensemble that became more or less the tradition in New Orleans, comprised of six or seven men, with one or two cornets (the spine of the ensemble), clarinet, trombone, double bass, guitar and drums.

In or about 1907 Bolden became ill while playing his cornet in a street parade.  He was committed to an asylum where he remained until his death in 1931.

David Ewen - All the years of American Popular Music.

1900s

1910s

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s