"Buddy" Bolden

Often referred to as the first man of jazz, Charles Bolden began his musical career in string bands before switching to cornet and forming his own band in 1895. Known for playing hot and loud, he opened performances with a blast on the cornet that he called calling his children home. By 1905 he was widely known as King Bolden, but the following year he began drinking heavily, missed engagements, and collapsed in the street while playing in a Labor Day parade with a brass band. In 1907 he was confined to the state sanitarium in Jackson, Louisiana, where he remained for the rest of his life. Though his reign as the first King of Jazz lasted barely a decade, it had lasting effects in New Orleans, where musicians responded to his popularity and to the changing market he helped create by relying more on ear training than sight-reading. Whether his band actually played what would later be called jazz remains debated, since many older New Orleans musicians said it did but no recordings survive. His legacy was one of creativity and passion, qualities fundamental to jazz, and of inspiring New Orleans cornetists to explore what the instrument could do. His band was composed primarily of ear musicians, and it became known for stealing audiences from the classically trained John Robichaux Orchestra at places such as Lincoln Park in Carrollton because of the excitement it generated. Its strong appeal to young people reflected the way older, polite nineteenth-century dance styles were giving way to more suggestive and expressive forms at the turn of the century. At Odd Fellows Hall, the band played quadrilles, schottisches, and waltzes for older dancers, but at midnight the atmosphere shifted as night people took over and favored dances such as the slow drag, shag, and belly rub. Bolden also centered the blues in his repertoire to satisfy public demand for more exciting and sensual dance music, pleasing rougher crowds at Kenna's Hall, better known as Funky Butt, while also bringing this music to the upper levels of the black community, as when he performed for the Grand Soiree held by the Knights of Pleasure at Ladies Providence Hall in 1903.

New Orleans, Louisiana · United States