Teach Yourself Jazz - online guidebook

For the beginning player, with sheet music samples

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	CHAPTER FIVE NEW ORLEANS COLOUR AND EXPLOSIONS
	Nature, driven out with the pitchfork, was coming back with a bang after the emancipation of the negro. Let us start this part of our story with a quick look at one figure who is typical of Nature's loud and boisterous return—Buddy Bolden. Charles 'Buddy' Bolden (1868-1931) lived and flourished his trumpet in New Orleans. Typical of the successful product of negro emancipation, Bolden was a barber who owned his shop. In addition, he found time to edit and publish a scandal sheet—'The Cricket'—and to blow a mean trumpet. These were the days before recording, and so we must rely on second-hand information for our idea of Buddy Bolden's horn playing. By all accounts it was powerful. New Orleans bands played a lot in the open air; and when Bolden was on the trumpet, you could hear him two miles away. Had the sound been recorded, we should maybe have found it harsh by present-day standards. Louis Armstrong writes: "All in all, Buddy Bolden was a great musician, but I 25