Buddy Bolden
| Buddy Bolden | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Charles Joseph Bolden |
| Born |
September 6, 1877 New Orleans |
| Died | November 4, 1931 (aged 54) Jackson, Louisiana |
| Genres | Jazz, blues |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Cornet |
Charles Joseph "Buddy" Bolden (September 6, 1877 – November 4, 1931) was an African-American cornetist and is regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of rag-time music, or Jass, which later came to be known as jazz.
Buddy Bolden's father, Westmore Bolden, was working as a "driver" for the family of his grandfather's (Gustavus Bolden, died 1866) former master or boss, one William Walker, when Buddy Bolden was born, and his mother was Alice née Harris, who was aged 18 when they married on August 14, 1873 (and his father, at the time, must have been around 25 years old, as he was recorded as being 19 years old in August 1866). Buddy Bolden's father died when he was six, and young Bolden continued to live with his mother and family members afterwards. In documents of the period the family name is spelled at different times as "Bolen", "Bolding", "Boldan", and "Bolden", thus hampering research. He likely went to Fisk School in New Orleans, but evidence for this is circumstantial, as, in the area where he lived, early records of this school and other schools are missing.
While there is substantial first hand oral history about Buddy Bolden, facts about his life continue to be lost amidst colorful myth. Stories about his 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.
He was known as King Bolden (see Jazz royalty), and his band was popular in New Orleans (the city of his birth) from about 1900 until 1907, when he was incapacitated by schizophrenia (then called dementia praecox). Bolden was known for his loud sound and improvisation. He made a big impression on younger musicians. While Bolden's trombonist Willie Cornish among others recalled making phonograph cylinder recordings with the Bolden band, but no surviving copy has ever been found.
Bolden suffered an episode of acute alcoholic psychosis in 1907 at the age of 30. With the full diagnosis of dementia praecox, he was admitted to the Louisiana State Insane Asylum at Jackson, a mental institution, where he spent the rest of his life.
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