Who Invented Jazz?

Charles “Buddy” Bolden’s story is haunting and captivating, marked by extreme highs and terrifying lows. Few people are familiar with his influence on the music culture, yet his musical ingenuity touches us fundamentally and socially.

He invented one of America’s few homegrown art forms, including its first and most important cultural export: jazz.

Growing up in New Orleans toward the end of the 19th century, he developed a new music style. Some describe it as fusing blues, gospel, and ragtime, calling for rapid improvisational rhythm. He played his cornet’s warmth and arousal sound like no other.

“Very little is known about musician Buddy Bolden:

He was born on September 6, 1877.

He was committed to an insane asylum in 1907, where he died in 1931.

Very few pictures of him exist….But Buddy Bolden invented jazz.”

American-Made

Jazz is as American-made as apple pie. The art form emerged about 120 years ago, when musicians gathered in inspiration, devotion, angst, and revelation. The splendor of jazz is between the musical notes, and its origins are veiled in an alchemy of mystery and allure.

Origins of Jazz

Quite possibly, the mystery of jazz’s origins stems from one of the first gifted musicians in this genre. Charles “Buddy” Bolden remains virtually unknown. Born in New Orleans in 1877, he became a bandleader spectacle before Louis Armstrong.

He was the first cornet player to surface from ragtime and blues, playing a fresh, new form. “Buddy Bolden’s Blues” (“I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say”) by Jelly Roll Morton is one of the first and rare acknowledgments to the shadowy artist called “King” Bolden. Director and writer Dan Pritzker decided to change that and shed light on Bolden’s life and times.

Using the screenplay Pritzker wrote with David Rothschild, he innovated the musician’s life and chose to be creative with Bolden’s story. The movie immerses the audience through images of his lively and tragic life.

Each frame comprises the social framework in which Bolden grew up and developed revolutionary music. Pritzker focuses on inspiration from artists like Louis Armstrong and the musical style of the period.

Bolden engages the audience, starting with the early 1900s in New Orleans. Buddy Boden, played by Gary Carr, was broadly known as the “King” of New Orleans jazz. He took an innovative approach to music by merging ragtime, gospel, and blues with distinct improvisational riffs.

A clip from the movie shows a young Bolden sheltered under his mother’s sewing machine at the sweatshop. He fantasizes about the beat and sounds of the shop, with women workers ballet dancing to the equipment’s sounds: the movie trailer and other clips from the movie show Bolden at different points in his life. Most clips are triumphant and tragic, but the story is sad.

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje, who wrote The English Patient, tells Bolden’s story in poetic passages of his life. Ondaatje writes about how Bolden drank heavily as a barber by day and a musician by night. One night, he went crazy and was locked up in a pre-Civil War asylum.

On the contrary, the movie introduces us to his wife, Nora, played by Yaya DaCosta. She profoundly loved him and endured emotional pain because his personal life was not stable. His manager, Buddy Bartley, played by Erik LaRay Harvey, managed him through jubilant highs and precarious lows.

The film jumps to 1931, showing the incredibly trendy trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong, played by Reno Wilson. He returns to New Orleans and becomes one of the first African-American entertainers broadcast on the radio. Ironically, Bolden was experiencing his last days in the Louisiana insane asylum at the same time.

Pritzker’s passion for telling Bolden’s story goes back decades. A guitarist for the Chicago-based rock/soul/R&B band, Sonia Dad, introduced Bolden’s story to Pritzker by recommending the nonfiction book “In Search of Buddy Bolden” by Donald M. Marquis.

Marquis is from Indiana but lives in New Orleans. He works at the New Orleans Public Library, spending most of his time researching jazz history and writing for jazz publications. Compared to Ondaatje’s book, he is well-researched with documentation and acknowledges a team of researchers who helped him uncover the life of Bolden.

“Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world.”— Ahmad Alaadeen

Pritzker recalls reading Marquis’ book for the first time while touring with Sonia Dada. A friend introduced him to a book about Bolden, the creator of jazz. It got his attention, but it was a ridiculous concept, like saying this guy invented water or lightning. The truth is, Bolden set the stage for jazz. Pritzker says it is a tragedy because Bolden’s music impacted his life, even though he had never heard of him until now.

Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis composed the film score and served as an executive producer. He hopes the film shines a positive light on the cornet player so people respect our musical history and culture.

Marsalis is from New Orleans and plays the trumpet; he has won multiple Grammys and was the only entertainer to win Grammys for jazz and classical recordings in the same year, the inaugural musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.

All the music that came after Bolden and Marsalis was associated with cornet solos and the style of variations. But he was surprised people didn’t talk about him as a cultural influence. He played loud music, had many women, and he drank too much.

Legendary jazz musicians recall Bolden’s work and life as if it were a myth. There are no recordings of his music or documents of his life. His career began as the famous King Bolden, but ended in a Louisiana insane asylum, where he spent the last 25 years of his life.

More About Jazz

• Exporting America – Businesses Can Learn From Jazz | ASP American Security Project
  The world still seems to love all things American, even those who find so little else to admire or respect our democratic way of life.
• Jazz: A Great American Export | Meridian Blog
  Jazz is one of those rare phenomena that resonate across cultures. Meridian couldn’t help but notice the recent American Security Project article by Chad Tragakis about the United States government’s mass export of this American music genre.