Buddy Bolden 'invents' jazz

[H. POPECK]

Interesting piece from The Guardian (UK). Whether or not the cornetist Buddy Bolden invented jazz (Jelly Roll Morton is one of the best known other claimants to the title), he certainly created the enduring archetype of the jazz musician as doomed romantic hero when he suffered a mental breakdown in 1907, at the age of 30, and spent his remaining years in a Louisiana asylum. The tantalisingly poignant twist to the tale of the idiom's first celebrated individual musician is that no one knows what he sounded like, since he ceased musical activity 10 years before the first jazz recording was made – although some contemporaries alleged that his playing was in fact captured on a wax cylinder but never unearthed.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/17/buddy-bolden-invents-jazz

 

[cubdog]

I would argue that no one invented jazz. To say any one musician was responsible is too simplistic a view.

cubdog

 

[slippers-on]

I'm well aware of Bolden as well as Jelly Rolls remarks that he invented Jazz. No known comments about Bolden inventing it tho. While Bolden was a very important figure in Jazz/American Music with his bravado and was the first to add brass instruments ...adapting classical, gospel and blues to brass instruments and Jelly Roll with his improvising of notated music, neither "invented" jazz....It sorta evolved through time. All American music sorta evolved out of the black slaves music> negro spirituals > county blues> Jazz> and so forth and so on....it all evolved. One must understand...this country way back then...men wore those white wigs in public and listened to classical music they borrowed from Europe. Blacks where slaves with the rhythms they brought over from Africa. It ...American Music as we know it started to evolve from there.

In my studies, the single most important person who did more for Music was Armstrong. He took an already syncopated music and made his band members keep time. They had to come in on time. He is truly recognized as the single person that taught the world how to swing.

 

[BlindBoyGrnt]

I would argue that no one invented jazz. To say any one musician was responsible is too simplistic a view.

cubdog

Along with the internet, Al Gore invented jazz in his spare time.

 

[chicks]

Along with the internet, Al Gore invented jazz in his spare time.

Thanks, Al! :thmbsp:

 

[fdrennen]

I would argue that no one invented jazz. To say any one musician was responsible is too simplistic a view.

cubdog

I agree but...http://jazzhotbigstep.com/179.html

BOLDEN WAS THE FIRST

Turn-of-the-century trumpet player Buddy Bolden was the first to play blues for dancing, the first to lead a real jazz band, the first to live a flamboyant larger-than-life existence as “King” of the jazz tribe in New Orleans.

“Imagining Buddy Bolden” is a radio documentary about this first band-leading “King” of New Orleans jazz, c. 1900-06. He never recorded and to this day remains an enigmatic legend. Its my hope that listeners can imagine Bolden’s music through the words of those who actually heard or knew him and recordings of the trumpet players most likely representative of his rough, unschooled but inspiring sound.