Brother Matthew

When I was a high school kid trying to learn all I could about jazz, I found a book in my school's library that fascinated me; I checked it out over and over again. It was the first (1955) edition of Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer's A Pictorial History of Jazz. Even though that book was pretty outdated (it was nearly 20 years old by the time I discovered it), it was the first book that helped me get a handle on the complex, sometimes baffling history of the music. I spent hours poring over the rather poorly-reproduced photographs and captions, trying to understand how all of these musicians fit together, and wondering what they sounded like, since I had only heard recordings by a few of them. In retrospect, the Pictorial History presents a pretty flawed and incomplete view of jazz history, but it was very helpful to me at the time, and I was glad to find a battered copy in a used book store as an adult.

One picture particularly intrigued me, for some reason, and I'm still not entirely sure why. It's a picture of group that only existed for one day, and only for the purpose of making a 78 RPM record for the Collector's Item label. The only one of the five musicians who could be considered to be a fairly big name in the jazz world was cornetist Wild Bill Davidson, although pianist Mel Henke did a good bit of recording later, both in the jazz and pop worlds. But the most interesting figure in the photograph was the small-boned, wispy man with the thinning hair who was playing the alto saxophone. Boyce Brown was described in the text as "obscure," but I somehow knew right away that he was someone I wanted to hear.


Boyce Matthew Brown (1910-1959) was not your typical rough-and-tumble Chicago jazzman; he was introspective, temperate, and lived with his mother. He wrote poetry, read philosophy, and listened to the music of impressionist composers like Debussy and Delius. He was musically literate, but his extremely poor eyesight made sight-reading difficult for him, so he did most of his playing in small Chicago jazz bands. Brown's playing is striking and unusual, even after the passage of many years. He improvised with great drive, but at the same time, his phrasing was often asymmetrical and off-center, and his note choices were unusual.

Boyce Brown recorded fewer than a dozen times in his career. His recording debut was with Paul Mares and His Friars Society Orchestra in 1935; this session is currently available on a Retrieval CD called New Orleans Rhythm Kings: The Complete Set. He is a racehorse out of the gate on the first tune, "Nagasaki;" it's clear that a special talent has been turned loose.

Perhaps his most well-known recordings are the four 1939 sides which Jimmy McPartland's band made for the Decca Chicago Jazz album. This album (a set of six 78 RPM records) attracted a good bit of attention at the time. George Avakian's orginal liner notes are worth quoting:

To most, this record ("China Boy") will serve as an introduction to Boyce Brown's alto sax. He shares a chorus with Bud Jacobson and gives us a typical solo: perfectly executed, fast, full of notes, but completely logical and amazingly conceived. Boyce's personality is expressed in his music - a statement which has worn thin, but here it is the cold truth. Boyce is unlike any musician you have ever met, and his is a completely individual and unorthodox style. Take warning that Boyce will need a lot of listening. His complexity makes a casual hearing worthless. Careful attention will be rewarded by an understanding of the subtleties of Boyce's ideas, which are distinctively his own.

Somewhat amazingly, the publicity the Decca album generated led to Brown winning the "Best Alto Sax" category in the 1940 Down Beat magazine readers' poll - above Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter! Unfortunately, this was "little more than a prelude to obscurity," as writer Richard Sudhalter has said. Boyce had one more record date on which he was prominently featured: the aforementioned Collector's Item session. It's not entirely clear who the leader of the session was; there is no band name on the labels, although they do have all the musicians' names. The sides are often listed in discographies under Wild Bill Davidson's name, and the band is sometimes called the Collector's Item Cats. The matrix numbers in the run-off groove area of the record start with the letters "BB," however, which leads me to believe that it was Boyce's date.

The two issued sides, "On a Blues Kick" and "I Surrender Dear," have never been reissued, as far as I can tell - although "On a Blues Kick" is scheduled for issue on a future volume of Allen Lowe's mammoth blues history set, Really the Blues? (dubbed from my copy of the original record, by the way). These two sides perhaps represent Brown's greatest recorded solos - thoughtful, interesting, and somehow logical and odd at the same time. And for me, they are the reason that I started collecting 78s - I wanted to hear these legendary recordings, and there was no way to do so except to find the original issue.

Because of the rarity of these recordings, I have posted them in mp3 form for listeners to hear or download. Click the links below to hear this rare record. It's unclear who the copyright holder is; if contacted by such a party, I will remove these recordings upon request.

Boyce Brown's story took an unusual turn, at least for a jazz musician. This quiet, thoughtful man converted to Catholicism in 1952, and became a monk in the Servite order the next year. He played the saxophone only occasionally after that, once for a 1956 ABC-Paramount album called Brother Matthew With Eddie Condon's Jazz Band. He agreed to make the album, in part, to raise money for the monastery. These days the record is almost universally panned, but it's not so bad, in my opinion. Brother Matthew is rusty, but his ideas are interesting, and Condon's guys sound like they're having a alcohol-fueled good time. Brown died in the Servite monastery three years later.

The best source for information about Boyce Brown is probably Richard Sudhalter's book Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz. It contains a quote from George Avakian, made over 50 years after his notes for the Chicago Jazz album:

People hearing him for the first time were just flabbergasted. I know I was. Where did this guy get this odd way of playing? Where did it come from? I guess there was a rather mysterious quality in all that.

On a Blues Kick

I Surrender Dear

Love Letter

It's been a few weeks since I've posted here. I've written parts of several posts, and ended up rejecting them all - none of them were turning out right. Part of my problem is that it's been a strange, stressful month or so, personally and professionally speaking - more about that later, perhaps.

So I'm going to write something short and simple: a love letter.

A couple of weeks ago I visited New Orleans for the 27th time. (Yes, I have kept track.) I've never lived there, but it feels almost like home to me. I've considered moving to the City That Care Forgot at several points in my life, but there was always something that prevented me from taking that step: family, friends, a job, a band. Perhaps that's a good thing. I sometimes think that if I had moved to New Orleans 15 years ago, there's a good chance I would be dead by now - my early demise brought on by excessive intake of food and alcohol, coupled with lack of sleep brought on by fear of missing some music.

I won't give a detailed report on my latest visit, except to say the Tim Laughlin has the most beautiful clarinet sound I've ever heard, Matt Perrine is still the most amazing tuba player on the planet, and Ben Schenck and the Panorama Jazz Band just get better and better. This visit, like most of them, was a mixture of the familiar and the unexpected. I always learn something new in New Orleans - something about the city, something about music, something about myself. And damn - the music! People ask me if I visit during Jazz Fest. Due to my work schedule, I've never made it to the Jazz and Heritage Festival, but incredible music can be heard in New Orleans every night of the year. A night spent exploring the clubs on Frenchmen Street will provide enough musical inspiration to sustain body and soul for months.

But one can't eat, drink, and listen to music 24 hours a day (although some New Orleanians seem to be trying). What else do I do in the city? Well, I wander, I walk, I explore. The architecture, the history, and just the feel of the city are extraordinary - like nowhere else. You never now when you'll come across something amazing - and in New Orleans the ordinary is amazing enough. I love wandering through the Lower Quarter (the quiet, mostly residential side of the French Quarter, near Esplanade). Such a walk is usually the first thing I do when I hit the city and the last thing I do before I have to leave.

And leaving New Orleans is always hard. Even if I miss my wife; even if my body is rebelling from the quantity and richness of the food; even if I have worn myself out and crave the routine and peace of home, it's hard to leave. I feel a pang in my heart as soon as I hit the entrance ramp for I-10 East. I know it will be months before I see my favorite city again, and it always hurts.

New Orleans is definitely a city that doesn't live in the past; it lives for today. But the past is never forgotten; as William Faulkner might say, it's not even past. Tradition, memory, possibilities, and the present moment all exist at the same time. The city keeps its traditions, even as it changes them to fit the moment. No matter how many times I vist, I never quite know what to expect. I love New Orleans.

The Way of the World

It only seems right, since this blog is named after a Mose Allison song, that I take note of the fact that Mr. Allison's first new album since 2002 (and first studio album since 1998!) was released last week. I've spun The Way of the World several times in the past seven days, and, for what it's worth, Jeffery approves.

The Way of the World was produced by Joe Henry, and it has a somewhat different sound from anything Mose has issued before, with plenty of slide guitars, loose snares, and an overall vibe that is less "jazzy" that usual for Mose. The album is short - just over 35 minutes - but it seems "complete." There is one instrumental, "Crush," and if you have heard any live Mose you'll have an idea of what that track sounds like. In addition to new material, there are two standards, one sung as a duet with daughter Amy, and a couple of older Mose songs. Luckily these are not songs that he has performed to death, and they're two I've always liked: "Let It Come Down" and "Ask Me Nice." There's one song written by Amy (sung by Mose) - "Everybody Thinks You're an Angel," which I didn't much like at first, but which has grown on me. Mose also sings a couple of blues written by others - I really like this version of Roosevelt Sykes' "Some Right, Some Wrong" - its minimalist lyrics could have been written by Allison himself. The best of the new songs, in my opinion, is "Modest Proposal." Maybe I like it so much because it seems to indicate that Mr. Allison and I have similar ideas about how the universe works; those who are more traditionally devout might not like it very much.

Mose's voice is that of an 82-year-old, but it was always an unusual, personal singing voice anyway. I'll have to live with this album a while before I have a feel for where it stands in the Mose Allison canon, but it's certainly a worthy addition. I hope there are more to come.

Carl LeBlanc

I thought this might a good time to write about New Orleans guitarist/banjoist/singer Carl LeBlanc, since I've been listening to lots of Sun Ra and New Orleans music lately. LeBlanc is neither a genius nor an innovator - just a journeyman musician with a variety of performing experiences. But he intrigues me: what other musician has toured and recorded with both the Sun Ra Arkestra and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band?

LeBlanc grew up in New Orleans' Seventh Ward and heard the city's brass bands on parade when he was a kid. But it was the Beatles' famous Ed Sullivan appearance which inspired him to take up the guitar; a few years later his inspirations were James Brown and Jimi Hendrix. During his apprenticeship years of playing with R & B and jazz bands in New Orleans, he got a call to sub on banjo at Preservation Hall. His dreadlocks, attitude, and lack of knowledge of the traditional jazz repertoire did not endear him to his fellow musicians; he was not called back for 20 years.

LeBlanc came to the attention of the larger jazz world when he joined Sun Ra's Arkestra in the mid 1980s. He has called Ra one of the two great teachers he has had; the other was Narvin Kimball - more about that later. Ra apparently took a liking to the young man and taught him many of the standards LeBlanc didn't know. He appears on several Arkestra recordings from this period; he is most prominently featured on Blue Delight, on which he contributes several excellent solos.

At some point LeBlanc moved back to the Crescent City with, among other things, a stack of Sun Ra compositions Sunny had let him copy. He became something of a protege of Narvin Kimball, an outstanding banjoist who had recorded with Oscar Celestin's band back in the 1920s. In more recent years, Kimball had gained widespread recognition as the banjo player with the main Preservation Hall touring band. Kimball eventually gave LeBanc his beautiful gold-trimmed banjo, and Carl took over as the banjoist with the number one Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

As it did with many New Orleans residents, Katrina dealt a serious blow to LeBlanc. He lost his home, instruments, and Sun Ra manuscripts in the flood; he did manage to save one instrument, though - Kimball's banjo. He has spoken of the connections between his very different mentors - in concert he often sings one of Narvin Kimball's signature songs, "You Can Depend on Me," while playing the older man's banjo. Ironically, though, LeBlanc says that it was Sun Ra who taught him the song.

In addition to his fine playing on several Preservation Hall Jazz Band albums, LeBlanc has issued a solo album on Preservation Hall Records, New Orleans' Seventh Ward Griot. It must confuse a lot of people who buy it at the Hall or at concerts, because traditional jazz makes up only a small part of the record. Most of it is genial R & B - either classic or original - with LeBlanc playing all the instruments. Speaking for myself, I don't find most of these songs very memorable, but there is also LeBlanc's version of "You Can Depend on Me," a striking vocalese rendition of Louis Armstong's opening trumpet solo from "West End Blues," and a strange solo guitar/voice performance of "Madman Across the Water." That last one just confused me at first, then I realized it was more of a tribute to Jimi Hendrix than to Elton John.

But the track that, in my opinion, makes the whole album worthwhile is "On Super Sunday," LeBlanc's version of a New Oleans Mardi Gras Indian chant. I won't go into too much detail about the city's Mardi Gras Indian culture or the practice of parading Uptown in full Indian costume on Super Sunday (St. Joseph's Day). But most of the New Orleans Indian songs ("Indian Red," "Corrine Died on the Battlefield," "Iko Iko," etc.) are about how brave and pretty the Indians are, or about having a good time. LeBlanc's "Super Sunday" starts out typically:

On Super Sunday
On Super Sunday
Hunter's Field
Keepin' it real
Just one deal
Do what you feel

But about 45 seconds in, he sounds a more menacing note:

You get what you give
And you die like you live

From there the song turns into an account of the quick, casual violence that can change things so quickly in New Orleans.

Just havin' fun
Then pop when the gun

Tambourine ringin'
But ain't nobody singin'
Pick up the baby
Look for your lady
You gotta move fast
Cause it might be your last

Layin' in the grass
Like year before last
One more dead
Indian Red.

LeBlanc's anger and helplessness in the face of this violence is palatable on this track. Carl LeBlanc has accomplished a lot in his musical career; "On Super Sunday," perhaps the only Mardi Gras Indian song that will bring a lump to your throat, is not the least of those accomplishments.

A Member of the Angel Race

Well, I seem to have started one of my periodic Sun Ra jags - digging out album after album and reminding myself of how incredible this music is. The first Sun Ra album I bought was the Impulse reissue of The Magic City, from 1965. I don't know exactly how old I was, but I think that I was still a teenager. It got to me right away. I knew I was listening to another way of making music than I had experienced before - the music was based on a different aesthetic.

There are plenty of reason why a discerning listener might not like the music of Sun Ra. His music often has a campy, showbiz flavor - albeit from a pretty bizarre angle. His rhythm (and that of his ensembles) is sometimes lumpy/clunky. At times the sections of his large bands played with poor intonation and blend, making the listener wonder what went on at those legendary hours-long rehearsals. And his keyboard style, although it revealed formidable technique, was often offbeat and skittery.

But the impact of Sun Ra's music defies rational criticism. It's more than the sum of it's parts, and that's due to Ra's vision. The music is unusual, deep, accomplished, amateurish, serious, and campy - sometimes all at the same time.

The scope of Ra's recorded output is vast and somewhat baffling. Although he made albums for others, most of his records came out on his own label, Saturn (with its Thoth Intergalactic and Repeto subsidiaries). The release strategy and documentation Ra employed were unusual, to say the least. As I write this, Sound Sun Pleasure!! is playing in the CD player. This album of mostly standards was recorded in 1958, but not released until 1970, when the Sun Ra Arkestra (as he called his band) was playing a completely different style. It must have thoroughly confused those who bought the album at his concerts - the main distribution method for Saturn releases. Furthermore, the personnel list on the back of the album is bogus - Ra just listed a bunch of musicians that were in his band at the time the record was released, most of whom weren't playing with him in 1958. And the version of "Enlightenment" on this album had already been released (in a slightly different mix) on Jazz in Silhouette. This kind of discographical chaos is par for the course for Ra and Saturn - some pressings even paired side one of an album with side two of another.

The almost 850 pages of Robert Campbell and Christopher Trent's The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra (2nd edition) make sense of this mess. It's a remarkable book, given the daunting task of sorting out Ra's recordings. I wish it had been around during that brief period in the early 1980s when Rounder Records distributed the Saturn label. One evening I walked into a suburban Atlanta record store and found that the jazz section had a dozen or so Saturn releases with hand-decorated covers. I didn't know much about the Saturn catalog at the time and was confused and uncertain about which records to get, so I walked out without buying anything. I wish I had just grabbed a few at random - they are all rare collector's items today.

What accounts for the impact of Sun Ra's music? Well, for one thing, it is often probing and forward-looking - music "on the edge," as Steve Lacy put it. Ra was a musical explorer who continually tried to push his musicians and himself into unknown territories. As early as 1955, an obscure piece called "Piano Interlude" (eventually released on Deep Purple and on the Evidence reissue of Sound Sun Pleasure!!) reveals a searching, advanced musical imagination, unlike any other in jazz. The piece is built on quartal harmony (chords built on fourths rather than thirds) at first, but flirts more and more with pantonality and atonality as it progresses. Not many jazz musicians were exploring this territory in 1955 - Lennie Tristano and Cecil Taylor come to mind, but Ra has his own voice and doesn't sound like either of them.

Sun Ra frequently wrote modal pieces in the 1950s - several years before Kind of Blue brought modalism to the forefront of jazz development. By the middle of the 1960s, Ra was creating music completely devoid of tonal center and metered rhythm. Others were doing the same (Cecil Taylor again comes to mind, as does Albert Ayler), but Ra's music is once again very different. Most so-called "free jazz" is still recognizable as jazz because it retains the intensity and forward motion of jazz. But The Magic City and Heliocentric Worlds are different - sounds drift in and out of focus; instruments combine and diverge; the speed and intensity of the music changes frequently. Much of the music from this period can be seen more as the presentation of a kaleidoscopic series of events than of a linear narrative. In that sense it has more in common with Stockhausen or Varese than with conventional jazz.

Ra was also "on the edge" with his use of electronics. He experimented with the Solovox, an early, monophonic electric keyboard, before 1950. He was an early adopter of the Wurlitzer electric piano - hear his 1956 solo piece "Advice to Medics," about which his longtime tenor saxophonist John Gilmore said, "There was a period when, if I was not practicing, I would be listening to that song. There's so much beauty and thought in there." In the mid 1960s he was using instruments like the Rocksicord and Clavioline, and by the end of the decade he had somehow gotten hold of one of the first Moog synthesizers. He seems to have instantly grasped the latter instrument's strengths and limitations; the five solo Moog pieces on My Brother the Wind, Volume II are a beautiful summary of the Moog's possiblities.

But at the same time, Ra kept one foot firmly planted in the music's heritage. Even during his most extreme period, much of his music was intended to swing in a conventional jazz sense, and he never totally abandoned standards as source material. Beginning in the 1970s, he revisited the repertoire of Fletcher Henderson, for whom he did some arranging in Chicago 30 years earlier. For the rest of his career, "Big John's Special," "Queer Notions," and "Can You Take It" frequently showed up in his concerts.

I haven't heard all of Sun Ra's recorded output, and I doubt that few, if any folks have heard it all. But I've heard a lot of it, including most of what are considered his "major" works. One of the striking things about this body of work is that no two albums, even no two pieces, sound alike. Music of great complexity, music of utter simplicity, carefully composed pieces, totally improvised pieces, large bands, small ensembles - they all exist side by side in Ra's world. Of the vast omniverse of Sun Ra's recordings, here are half a dozen of my favorites:

Interstellar Low Ways (also known as Rocket Number Nine Take Off For the Planet Venus (1959/1960) - My favorite early Sun Ra, with gorgeous pieces like "Interstellar Low Ways" and "Space Loneliness" alongside the cool/campy "Interplanetary Music" and "Rocket Number Nine Take Off For the Planet Venus." The latter tune has a tenor solo by John Gilmore that was ahead of its time and which justifies Coltrane's interest in Gilmore during this period.

The Magic City (1965) - The title cut takes up all of side one of the vinyl album - it's monumental and mysterious. The other side contains an early version of the intense "The Shadow World," a piece Ra recorded several times and played from the early sixties to the end of his career. Atlantis and Heliocentric Worlds (Volumes 1 & 2) cover similar ground and are equally fine.

My Brother the Wind, Volume II (1969/1970) - Half prescient synthesizer etudes; half swinging organ-based jazz.

Disco 3000 (1978) - From an Italian tour with a quartet - John Gilmore, Michael Ray on trumpet, and Luqman Ali on drums. Ra was using a Crumar keyboard with a built-in drum machine and programmable bass lines; he used it to create incredible swirls of sound over intense rhythms.

A Fireside Chat With Lucifer (1982) - This album contains the first appearance of the swing/funk anthem "Nuclear War," as well as some free improvisations that can only be described as eloquent. Good luck finding this one - it's never been reissued, although "Nuclear War" has appeared on other albums.

Mayan Temples (1990) - An excellent latter-day recital from Ra, with atonal improvisations, pop standards, modal exotica, and Ra classics like "El is a Sound of Joy."

There's so much more to write/talk about with Sun Ra - the incredible musicians like John Gilmore and Marshall Allen who played with him for years, his poetry, his apprenticeship years, his adoption of Disney songs into his repertoire late in life. But what about the whole outer space thing - did he really believe that he was sent to earth from outer space to save the planet through music, or was it just a showbiz act? He sang, "I know that I'm a member of the angel race; my home is somewhere there out in outer space." My feeling is that it was an act that became more and more real to him as the years passed.

In any case, exploring Ra's music is like traveling through a spiral galaxy. The deeper you get into it, the more you learn. You "see" the music from different angles and grasp more and more of it, although you realize that you'll never totally have a handle on it. But it's a great journey.

A Legend in Concert

The second performance by a major jazz artist that I remember attending was by McCoy Tyner. (Not to keep you in suspense, the first was by the Gary Burton Quartet.) I don't remember any of the tunes Tyner's group played, but I remember the intensity of the music - I was sitting just a few feet away from Eric Gravatt's ride cymbal. And I remember all the members of the band - Joe Ford and Ron Bridgewater on saxophones, Charles Fambrough on bass, Tyner and Gravatt, of course, and percussionist Guilherme Franco. This must have been 1976 or '77, at the long-defunct Midtown Pub in Atlanta.

Tyner would have been in his late thirties at that time. He was in his twenties during his tenure as one-fourth of one of the greatest jazz ensembles of all time, the John Coltrane Quartet. And he was 71 when I heard him play a concert with his trio at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse tonight.

Age has taken a step or two off of Tyner's technique, but has not effected his musical instincts. His rhythm section was accomplished, but not particularly distinctive. (I never caught the drummer's name, but Gerald Cannon was the bassist.) The first set was fairly mellow; he opened with "Sama Luyaca," which he first recorded in 1978, and segued into a version of Ellington's "In a Mellotone" which was a swinging delight. The trio's seemingly spontaneous arrangement of Coltrane's "Moment's Notice" included uptempo burning and bluesy medium tempo passages.

The second set had more of the modal intensity I associate with Tyner, with plenty of the "left hand like a drum" that is one of the pianist's trademarks. The highlight of the evening was this set's reading of "Blues on the Corner," from the 1967 Real McCoy album. Tyner overlaid the basic twelve-bar form with complex subsitute harmonies, but never lost the blues feeling. And it swung like hell.

I was pleased to see that the hall was packed; Mr. Tyner seemed touched by the warm reception he received. As he was making his final speech of the evening, a couple of ladies in the audience yelled, "We love you!" They spoke for all of us.

King Bolden

Sooner or later, everyone who is at all interested in the history of jazz has got to deal with Buddy Bolden. By the time researchers began looking into the origins of the music in the 1930s, Charles Bolden (1877-1931) was already more legend than man. The Bolden story usually included these elements:

Buddy Bolden was the first jazz musician. (Well, maybe.)

He could blow his cornet so powerfully that when he was playing in Lincoln Park off Carrollton Avenue, he could be heard downtown in the French Quarter. (Um... no. Please!)

He could blow his cornet so powerfully that when he was playing across the river in Algiers, he could be heard downtown in the French Quarter. (Theoretically possible, considering the lack of automobile traffic noise and the way sound carries in New Orleans.)

Bolden was a barber, a scandal sheet editor, a police informant. (No, no, and no.)

He blew out his brains, figuratively speaking, going beserk during while playing a parade. (Sorta.)

Okay, let's deal with the first thing everyone "knows" about Buddy Bolden - he was the first jazz musician. It seems kind of ridiculous that the beginnings of this wonderful music called jazz could be pinned down to one person. Except.... Musician after musician who lived through the Bolden era and survived long enough to be interviewed has stated that he was the first to put together the strands of ragtime, blues, spirituals, and Creole songs in such a way that something new was created. Typical is an account by the great Creole trumpeter Peter Bocage, who was born in 1887 (and so was a young man of 19 when Bolden's career ended). Bocage was interviewed by Dick Allen and William Russell in 1959 [clarifications in brackets are mine]:

Q: Who do you think was the first band to play jazz or ragtime?
A: Well, I attribute it to Bolden. Bolden was a fellow, he didn't know a note as big as this house [he couldn't read music], whatever they played, they caught [by ear], or made up. They made up their own music and played it their own way. So that's the way jazz started. Just his improvisation.

This passage is transcribed in the book which contains pretty much all of what we know (and probably will ever know) about Bolden: In Search of Buddy Bolden by Donald Marquis. Marquis' book, first published in 1978, is meticulously researched, and so might come off as disappointing in a roundabout way: Marquis resists the temptation to embellish the Bolden story. He dispels many of the myths, and simply presents everything he has been able to find out about Bolden. The problem is that even Marquis was not able to find out that much - there are plenty of gaps in the story, and we are left without a real feel for what kind of person he was. But the book is extremely valuable for showing us as true a picture of Bolden as we are likely to get.

But what did he sound like? If Bolden recorded (and accounts of a cylinder recording persist), nothing has survived. But Freddie Keppard (1890-1933) did record, and many early New Orleans musicians said that he sounded something like Bolden. Peter Bocage again:

Q: Did anyone or does anyone play like Bolden?
A: Keppard, they were most on the same style. The improvisations is always gonna be a little different, no two men alike.

Keppard recorded several times during the 1920s, but only the 1926 date by Freddie Keppard and His Jazz Cardinals presents him on his own terms. His playing on "Stockyard Strut" and "Salty Dog" is clipped and raggy, built around short phrases. It is powerful, but doesn't swing in the way jazz had already started to swing by that time. It's easy to imagine that Keppard's cornet style may contain an echo of Buddy Bolden.

A group of traditional jazz musicians built around cornetist Marc Caparone issued a CD in 1999 which, although little known, is an impressive piece of jazz scholarship, as well as a fun listen: Music of the Bolden Era on the Stomp Off label, by the Imperial Serenaders. The selections, instrumentation, and performance styles are based on the best available research about what and how Bolden played. It's archaic, lively, and pretty convincing.

When I first visited New Orleans in 1990, I made my own Bolden pilgrimages. My first evening there, I drove several miles out St. Charles and Carrollton Avenues to the sites of Lincoln and Johnson Parks, two recreation areas for the "colored" citizens of the city where Bolden played. There's not much to see there; my first wife wryly commented that "that sure is a historic gas station." But Bolden's house on First Street is still standing, and will most likely remain intact until New Orleans is finally washed away, since the house has been placed on the National Register of Historical Places. It looks as it probably did 110 years ago, although during Bolden's lifetime this was a middle-class, racially mixed neighborhood. Now it is one of the poorest parts of the city, full of vacant and decaying buildings - depressing and a little frightening to drive through, let along walk in.

But my real Bolden moment came when I was walking through Armstrong Park, which was carved out of the Treme neighborhood. The Masonic hall known locally as Perseverance Hall was formerly on St. Claude St., but it now stands on the park grounds. One morning I walked up at a time when the building was being renovated. The workers had left the doors unlocked, so I walked in and stood on the wooden floor where Buddy Bolden had played for dancers a century earlier. Standing on the boards Bolden had stood on, looking up at the high ceiling, and imagining the sound of the Bolden band in 1900 was a moving experience.

Buddy Bolden had mental/emotional issues which were exacerbated by alcohol abuse. In 1907 he was arrested and sent to the Lousiana Insane Asylum in Jackson. He stayed there for 25 years before dying a forgotten man. The exact location of his grave is unkown, but it's somewhere in Section C of New Orleans' Holt Cemetery. All of us jazz people owe him a debt. Thank you, Buddy Bolden, and rest in peace.