By Barbara White
Every jazz aficianado knows that a key ingredient in the jazz music is improvisation. When a tune really starts to cook musicians and fans alike get caught up in the fever. That is the power of jazz improv. And that improvisation was the invention of one man, Buddy Bolden.
Charles "Buddy" Bolden played the cornet. He played notes loud and clear as the church bells in Jackson Square. And when he played, he was the king of New Orleans. Creole, white,black, it made no difference; they all loved to hear him.
It was a new sound that didn't fit into any of the old molds. It didn't even have a name. The music had roots in the sad laments and work songs of the slves. But it wasn't slave music. It had the beat and rhythm of the African music you heard in Congo Square, but it wasn't the same. It even took some of its flavor from the Creole songs, but it didn't fit there either. It would later be called jazz.
Buddy was born in New Orleans in 1877 at the end of Reconstruction. He went to the Fiske School for Boys. This was a sort of technical training school. There Buddy trained to be a barber.
Those day in New Orleans, Yellow Fever was a regular summer visitor. Every year citizens died of it. One summer when Buddy was still a boy, Yellow Fever reached epidemic proportions. Buddy's five-year-old sister and his father perished along with thousands of others. The story goes, Buddy's mother about lost her mind after her husband and little girl died. She lost interest in everything and everyone around her.
With his mother in such a condition, Buddy could come and go as he pleased. He spent much of his free time in dance halls listening to the music they played. somewhere along the line, he started to play himself.
As with many of the other details of Buddy's life no one knows for sure when he began to play the cornet. This much is clear; he played with a proficiency second to none. Sitting in with other musicians, Buddy learned new techiques and improved his skills. By 1895, he formed The Bolden Band. They played at the dance halls along Rampart and Canal. Places with names like The Big Easy, Come CLean, and The Funky Butt.
For Buddy, life was the proverbial combination of wine, women and song. He indulged in all three of these passions to excess. Every ounce of the life he lived ended up in his music. Every emotion, good or bad, Buddy brought to his playing.
Of all the music he wrote only one song remains with us today. The song is titled "Buddy Bolden's Blues' or "The Funky Butt Blues' or "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Shout."
Many of Bolden's songs had lyrics. He sang them in his fine, rich voice. Audiences couldn't get enough.
In New Orleans, Buddy had fame and wealth, but he never seemed to find happiness in any of it. He drank more and more and was arrested for fighting. Even his music became a burden as he plunged into it ever deeper, searching for perfection.
By 1905, Buddy was in the prime of his musical life. The Bolden Band was playing regularl, but not exclusively at The Funky Butt. Many nights a young boy sat and listened to Buddy play cornet. The youngster was Louis Armstrong. Though Armstrong never played with Bolden, other musicians of note did. Sidney Bechet, one of jazz' premier figures,often sat in with the Bolden Band.
But in 1907 it all came crashing down. While marching in a parade, Buddy suddenly screamed and fell to the ground frothing at the mouth. He was taken home, but remained in a state of complete distraction. After several weeks, he was committed to the state mental hospital at Jackson, Louisiana. It was there that he spent the rest of his life. He never touched the cornet again. On November 4, 1931, at the age of fifty-one, Buddy Bolden died.
There has been a lot of speculation about the cause of Buddy's mental collapse. Could his mother's insanity have been passed on to him? Was it alcohol? Was it venereal disease or something else? We will never know. Like so many other parts of his life,the reasons for Buddy's insanity will always be a mystery.
The only proof we have of Buddy's genius is the testimony of the musicians who played with him and listened to him. He made no recordings.
On one hand, it is our loss that there are no records of Buddy playing. But on the other, maybe it is fitting that music based in the soul and the heart should have a founder who is the perfect blend of myth and reality. Like jazz itself, Buddy Bolden is what each one of us choses him to be.
