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[edit] What Bolden Played
Being that Buddy Bolden never recorded, it is most likely that he played ragtime. I have read that several jazz musicians who played with him or heard him play said that he played different music from early jazz, even though there was a tendency for these early jazz musician to refer to jazz and ragtime interchangeably. Pitchka 16:44, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
- No doubt arguments could be made as to where exactly to draw the line between "ragtime" and early "jazz". The style wasn't commonly known as "jazz" until years after Bolden was off the music scene. The point that some of the old generation sometimes used "ragtime" to refer to early jazz is valid. However the counter argument to yours notes that a large number of New Orleans musicians old enough to have remembered Bolden credited him with starting the style, such as Bill Johnson, all the surviving members of the Original Creole Orchestra when tracked down (separated around the country) in 1939, Freddie Keppard's older brother Louis, and second hand via Louis Armstrong, Joe Oliver also credited Bolden. Ory said something to the effect that Bolden started jazz, but didn't know what to do with it. Many more less famous musicians also credit him in oral history, black, creole of color, and white. As far as I know, Morton is very unusual if not unique in having extensive memory of Bolden but insisting he played ragtime but not jazz. Of course Morton wished to claim that development for himself. (Nick LaRocca, who also made such a claim, said Bolden was a myth.) I've gone through a fair amount of Bolden related oral history for radio shows and other projects, including a show with Bolden biographer Don Marquis. I'd like to know more about any musicians who played with Bolden who said he hadn't played jazz. -- Infrogmation 22:55, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- According to Max Jones and John Chilton's book Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, on page 43 Louis himself says that, "When ever, there was a dance or a lawn party the band of six men would stand in front of the place on the side walk and play a half hour of good ragtime music.... That was the only way us kids could get the chance to hear those great musicians such as Buddy Bolden, Joe Cornet Oliver, my idol, Bunk Cornet Johnson, Freddy Cornet Keppard..." On page 209, Louis also said that Joe Oliver was his main influence, "In my days he was top man, Buddy Bolden was the great man when Joe was a kid'" I am not saying that Bolden wasn't a great player and didn't influence all these musicians. But even after the jazz recordings of 1918 by 1923 the music had totally changed. It was like Elvis in 1957 compared to the Beatles in 1967. The music had changed drastically, yet Elvis was an influence. Also, the 1987 book Sidney Bechet the Wizard of Jazz states on page 4, "the early music improvised by black pioneers such as Charles "Buddy" Bolden was classified as ragtime, even by the musicians themselves." Sideny Bechet saw Bolden's last public performance in 1906. I think that is too early a date for anyone to be playing what is considered trad jazz. But I can't find all info that I've read. But I can say that it can't be proved. Even in the teens Sideny Bechet was playing ragtime in bands abroad. It's interesting to speculate and it's a shame that the legendary wax cylinder of Buddy Bolden that has been reported to exist in this archive or that has never materialized. Pitchka
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- The cylinder was recalled by members of Bolden's band, but seems to have already been gone when Bill Russell and the jazzmen writers started looking in the late '30s (there are some notes about it in the external link site). Certainly, exactly how Bolden and other hot New Orleans bands were playing in the dozen years before the ODJB first got to the recording studio remains speculative in absence of actual recordings, and the importance and accuracy of testimonly decades later and other circumstantial evidence can and is debated. From best testimony from multiple sources the playing of Bolden's band included improvisation (or at least "variating the melody" as the old timers called it) and elements of the blues, so in retrospect it seems to have been different from the common ragtime in other parts of the USA at the time. Would we recognize it as jazz if we heard it now? Who knows? If we could hear it, people might well still be disagreeing. The music of the ODJB is distinctly jazz to my ears, but I've known other people to whom it sounds mostly like ragtime. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 21:10, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Commenting on the ODJB's first recording, although some parts of the pieces do have some traces of what I think as ragtime, they most certainly sound like jazz to me also. The CD where I got the wrong info from about the supposed earlier recordings in Jan. of 1917 by Columbia has the two sides they recorded next and they are both out and out ragtime tunes played rather poorly I might add. I don't understand why their second recording session would be ragtime. Makes no sense to me. I have an album of James Reese Europe's recordings from abt 1919 and despite the fact that some of the tunes are named Jazzola and Jazz Baby, they are esentially still ragtime. Pitchka 23:04, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
