The Buddy Bolden Orchestra 1897/1907

               The Buddy Bolden Orchestra 1897/1907

       This page tells the story of the world's first jazz orchestra.

                     It contains two articles:

          1. Professor Bolden's Orchestra: a Close Up by Daniel

   Hardie reprinted from the January 2008 on-line Mississippi

   Rag

           2. Who Was the Leader? Commentary on an article by

Karl Gert zur Heide first published in New Orleans Music Vol

5 No 2 December 1994  

      1. Professor Bolden's Orchestra: a Close-up

                                         Daniel Hardie

     

                 Buddy Bolden’s Orchestra ca 1903/5

In 1903 invitations were sent out for a Mardi Gras Ball sponsored by

the‘Ladies of Providence and the Knights of Pleasure’ to be held at the

Providence Hall at the corner of Phillip and Liberty Streets on February

18th 1903 music to be provided by Prof. Bolden’s Orchestra” (Marquis

D. In Search of Buddy Bolden 1978/1993 p72)

The grainy old photograph above, first published in 1939 in the ground

breaking history of jazz titled Jazzmen, is the only pictorial evidence for

the existence of the first jazz orchestra. The best evidence suggests

that it was taken between 1903 and 1905 though even that dating has

been the subject of dispute. Much ink has also been consumed arguing

whether it was printed wrong way round in the first edition of Jazzmen.

I do not want to enter that dispute though I am persuaded by the

physical evidence that the above presentation is correct. (See Alden

Ashforth The Bolden Photo - Annual Review Of Jazz Studies No3)

The players have been identified as Frank Lewis, (standing) and Willie

Warner (seated) clarinet, Willie Cornish valve trombone, Jefferson

Mumford Spanish guitar, Charles (Buddy) Bolden cornet and James

Johnson string bass. Some authorities consider the standing player to

be Warner and Lewis the seated man.

If the photo was taken in 1905 Bolden who was born in 1877 was aged

27 or 28. Will Cornish, born 1875 was about 30, Jefferson Mumford

born 1870 was 35, Jimmy Johnson, youngest of the group, born 1884

was 21. Clarinettist Frank Lewis, born ca 1870 was 35 and Willie

Warner, born ca 1865 would have been 40. The images in the photo

appear to be consistent with these ages. A sidelight on this age

structure is that the oldest man in the photo is clearly the seated

clarinet player, and this suggests that it is indeed Willie Warner who also

appears to be wearing a dress suit of an earlier period, complete with

vest and watch chain.

It is worth noting that, far from showing a scruffy Uptown band, it

reveals a group well dressed in evening wear. This seems to have been

the tradition for New Orleans dance bands around 1900. Buddy Bolden

appears to be wearing white tie.

Instrumentation and performers

The instrumentation shown in the photograph is not typical of bands

of the Elemental Jazz era. Early photographs and published lists of band

members indicate that a trap drummer was usually employed and that

the leader of the band would usually be a violinist. No other early

photographs show two clarinets being employed.

In fact the photograph cannot be interpreted as representing the

regular composition of the Bolden Orchestra. Wallace Collins who played

with Bolden before 1900 is reported by Rudi Blesh as saying that the

lead was played by the violin and Bolden “ragged” behind the lead.

Just who was the regular violinist is difficult to determine. Bunk

Johnson recalled Alcide Frank (born ca 1875) as the band's violinist and

Manuel Manetta suggested that the photograph was taken when Frank

left Bolden to form his own Golden Rule Band in 1905. (By 1905 Alcide

was leading his Golden Rule Orchestra at Foucault's (aka Fewclothes)

Cabaret. Louis Nelson (de Lisle) was the clarinettist; Adolph Alexander

Sr., cornet; James Brown, bass; and Joe Brooks, guitar.) Manetta

suggested the second clarinet was introduced as a temporary measure

to perform as a substitute for the missing violinist. Marquis lists

violinists Tom Adams, Dee Dee Brooks and James Palao as having played

in the Bolden Orchestra.

Valve trombonist Willie Cornish enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1898 and

left for the short Spanish American War in Cuba. During his absence he

was replaced by Frank Duson but returned to take his place in the

regular line up. Marquis mentions Ed. Jones and Bill Harrison as other

trombonists associated with the group. Cornish left the band in 1906

and was replaced by Duson.

Clarinettists Willie Warner and Frank Lewis appear to have been regular

performers but Marquis suggests Sam Dutrey Sr. and Alphonse Picou

may have substituted from time to time. The authors of Jazzmen

wrote:

“Buddy used William Warner or Frank Lewis, or sometimes both on

clarinet. Warner had a C clarinet, while Lewis played the usual Bb

instrument.” Brian Wood suggests this information came from notes

supplied to the authors of Jazzmen following an interview between C.E.

Smith and Willie Cornish in 1938.

The use of the C clarinet meant that a player could play from the violin

score as written, and there are examples of other players who used the

C clarinet. Louis Nelson de Lisle featured the instrument and became

known as ‘Mr. C Clarinet’. This suggests that, when Frank left the Bolden

Band, Warner or Lewis was pressed into service as leader.

I am not convinced by the identification of the clarinet held by the

seated clarinettist in the Bolden Band photograph as a C clarinet. My

own measurements suggest the front instrument is .93 times as long as

the one held by the standing player. Measurements for my own C

clarinet show its length overall to be .83 times that of a Bb instrument.

Similarly measurements of two Bb instruments by different makers

reveal the length of the smaller to be to be .97 times the length of the

longer. Measurement of the clarinets in the Bolden picture is

complicated because the clarinet of the standing player appears to be

fitted with a mouthpiece cap while that of the seated player does not.

This could add to the difference in length by some millimetres

depending on the cap. This suggests that the difference in length as

measured could be accounted for the fact that we have two Bb

clarinets of different make, and it is certainly not enough to identify the

seated player's instrument as a C clarinet.

Fortunately there is a photo of Louis Nelson De Lisle holding what is

clearly a Clarinet in C in a photo of the Imperial Band ca 1908. In front

of him a larger clarinet stands on the floor. Careful measurement

indicates that the smaller clarinet is approximately .805 the length of

the larger (Bb or A?) instrument. I compared the length of my A clarinet

with my C instrument and found the C to be exactly .805 the length of

the A. This suggests that the standing instrument may be an A clarinet

or a Bb with a long mouthpiece cap.

                                  

Above: Louis Nelson de Lisle holding a Clarinet in C major

        (Photo of the Imperial Band ca 1908)

Taking all these measurements into account I do not believe it is

reasonable to identify the clarinet of the seated player in the

Bolden band photo as a C clarinet.

Bob Lyons and Albert Glenys played string bass with Bolden before

1900 but the younger Jimmie Johnson appears to have been the

regular bass player. Bassist Ed Garland also claimed to have subbed

for Johnson.

Jefferson Mumford was the regular guitarist until 1906 when

Lorenzo Staultz took over the guitar chair.

Bolden’s biographer Donald Marquis lists Cornelius Tillman (born

1872) as the regular drummer. However Jimmy (Jamesy) Phillips,

Dee Dee Chandler and others sat on the trap drum stool from time

to time.

Potted History

The Bolden Orchestra was an offshoot of a previous group led by

former street guitarist Charles Galloway after 1889. It seems

originally to have been a string band, consisting of guitar, string

bass and violin, that was gradually reinforced with clarinet (Willie

Warner), cornetist (Ed. Clem) and valve trombone (Tom Landry).

Charles Bolden joined the band on cornet around 1895. Marquis

states that Bolden soon began using musicians from Galloway's

band to accept professional engagements on his own behalf.

According to Samuel Charters Bolden was a charismatic player and

by 1896/7 he was becoming known in New Orleans as the inventor

of the hot blues. By 1900 he was known as Buddy or Kid Bolden

and eventually King Bolden.

For about ten years the Bolden Orchestra played for dances at

neighbourhood halls both Uptown and in the French quarter, over

the river in Algiers and travelled on excursions to other Louisiana

towns like la Place and Plaquemine. There is some evidence of

Bolden playing in street parades, though this does not appear to

have been the major occupation of the group. Trumpeter Charlie

Love recalls Bolden’s band wearing blue coats and caps, a uniform

more suited to street parades than the evening dress of the Bolden

photo. Wallace Collins apparently played tuba on such occasions.

Around 1906 Buddy Bolden dismissed some of his regular sidemen

including Willie Cornish and Jefferson Mumford and Frank Duson and

Lorenzo Staultz were recruited. When Bolden was incapacitated by

mental illness in 1906 Duson took control of the Orchestra. With

Bolden’s permanent hospitalisation in 1907 Duson established the

Eagle Band to carry on the tradition.

Repertoire

Bolden apparently absorbed influences from Galloway and Mumford

who had been playing street music before 1890. He and Galloway

introduced to some of the traditional vernacular dance songs and

blues formerly played by street bands to dance hall audiences.

About half of the tunes reported to have been played by the

Bolden Orchestra fall into that category.

In Bolden’s time the faster dance songs would have been called

Jump ups. They were simple tunes with raggy melodies that like If

you don't Shake You Get No Cake or All the Whores Like the Way I

Ride often had vulgar lyrics. The blues influence appeared with

slower numbers like Make Me a Pallet on the Floor said to have been

a favourite with his audiences.

Although such things appealed to his audience they apparently also

wanted to hear the latest ‘pop songs’ from the burgeoning nationwide

publishing industry and vaudeville stage and a significant

proportion of the orchestra's repertoire was drawn from such

sources. They included coon songs, ragtime songs and sentimental

love songs suited to the performance of the two-step, or

schottische. Examples of the former include Any Rags (1903), If

the Man In the Moon Were a Coon (1905) Mr. Johnson Turn me

Loose (1896). On the more sentimental side they played love

songs like Lazy Moon (1903), Ida Sweet as Apple Cider (1903) and

Wait till the Sun Shines Nellie (1905).

The popularity of classic piano rags after 1899 led to a demand for

favourites like Maple Leaf Rag (1899) and a number of rags by

composers of the Joplin School were apparently performed.

It will be observed that this was an up to date repertoire. The

orchestra was expected to provide for the dances of the time. The

faster vulgar dance songs and popular songs in 2/4 or 4/4 time

supported the very popular two-step and the emerging ragtime

one-step. The newer slow drag was danced to the blues. More

traditional waltzes, polkas, mazurkas had to be played and the

speciality of the evening was the quadrille ? a medley of

conventional dances in different tempos. The repertoire is dealt

with in more detail in “The Birth Of Jazz: Reviving the Music of the

Bolden Era”.“ (The Birth Of Jazz: Reviving the Music of the Bolden

Era” by Daniel Hardie see:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~darnhard/EarlyJazzHistory.html )

Some critics suggest that by 1906 Bolden was having trouble

keeping up with demand for the latest numbers and that by 1907

bands like that of the younger Fred Keppard played more of the

latest hits.

Performance Practice

Bolden's orchestra belonged to a New Orleans musical tradition

solidly based on European performance practices See Hardie D.”

The Ancestry of Jazz: A Musical Family History” iUniverse 2004

Chapter 13 p166 ff and p 173.

However by 1895 even the most conventional of dance orchestras

of the time were introducing syncopation to their performance

styles. These were orchestras trained in the conservatory tradition.

There has been much contention about the musical standards of

the Bolden Orchestra.

Buddy Bolden himself had some elementary tuition from Manuel Hall

beginning in 1894. However Bunk Johnson said that though Buddy

could play in any key, he didn’t know which key it was. Others said

the band played everything in Bb, the easiest key for the Bb

transposing instruments (cornet and Bb clarinet) or only in a limited

range of flat keys.

Frank Lewis was reputed to be a good sight reader as were Willie

Cornish and Willie Warner who were both believed to have arranging

talents (Warner was later to go on to arrange for A.J. Piron’s

Orchestra.) Similarly Jimmy Johnson went on to play in high quality

bands and was a good reader. Little is known of the musical

abilities of Jefferson Mumford or Cornelius Tillman. It can be taken

for granted however that, whoever the violinist was, he would have

had sight-reading skills.

Experience with the repertoire performed by the Orchestra

indicates that it would have been necessary to adapt many new

numbers from piano scores or published arrangements. Some of the

simpler vernacular tunes could have been learned by ear. Manuel

Manetta stated that a folder of lead sheets was maintained by

clarinettist Frank Lewis.

What made the Bolden band different from its early competitors

was the introduction of improvisation and blues intonation. As Bunk

Johnson indicated, they improvised all the time. According to

Wallace Collins from the earliest days the violin played straight

melody and Buddy ragged the melody by taking one note and

putting two or three to it. To provide variety the melody was

passed around to other instruments to perform individual melodic

improvisations. The rhythm was two beat with an emphasis on the

after beats.

Some writers have assumed that the music was coarse and

incompetent, even hokey, but there is no evidence to support this.

On the contrary, witnesses emphasise good tone and sweet

performance coupled with loud and soft variations. Latin American

rhythmic elements were also noted.

Musical Comparisons

There are some fascinating snippets of information in the oral

history that enable us to glimpse the likely sound of the band. A

number of witnesses identified Bolden’s style with that of Fred

Keppard, and in the slower sweeter tunes that of Bunk Johnson. In

the rougher numbers the louder intonation of Wooden Joe Nicholas

was considered comparable with Bolden’s louder moments. One

witness said that Frank Lewis played like the later George Lewis and

we have recorded examples of the playing of contemporary players

Louis Nelson de Lisle, Alphonse Picou, and George Baquet. Another

witness compared trombonist Frank Duson’s style with that of

Alfred Warner. In the 1940’s Kid Rena’s jazz band recorded with a

light sounding rhythm section similar to that of the Bolden Band.

The only recordings of early New Orleans violinists, those of

Armand Piron and Peter Bocage, allow us to eavesdrop on the

violin/leadership role in the early jazz bands.

It seems from the above that in many respects the band would

have sounded similar to some later jazz bands, though probably

lighter because of the light rhythm component. It seems reasonable

to think it might have sounded similar to the Keppard led Original

Creole Orchestra but sadly that group was never recorded.

I have, while researching the various accounts of early jazz music,

been struck by the number of occasions on which writers still begin

by referring to the Bolden band as mythical or legendary. There is

no excuse for this. As early as 1978 Donald Marquis dispelled the

many mythical elements of Bolden’s story and presented the facts

of his life and musical development. Since then even more has been

discovered about his family background. It does not take very long

to find factual information about the band, its members and its

performances in even earlier historical works.

Professor Bolden’s Band performed a mixture of popular and

vernacular dance music in the neighbourhood dance halls of New

Orleans from around 1896 to 1906. It adapted the staid

conventions of performance of the time introducing syncopation,

improvisation and elements of blues performance. After 1899,

while still catering for the older traditional dances it introduced

music suited to the newer dances of the ragtime era.

Note: Two additional photographs inserted in the article as published in the

Mississippi Rag have been omitted as unnecessary to the original text. The only

other change is the substitution of the correct date of publication of Jazzmen

which was 1939 not 1935 as shown in the published version.

                           2. Who Was the Leader?

Commentary on an article by Karl Gert zur Heide first

published in New Orleans Music Vol 5 No 2 December 1994

Jazz historian Karl Gert Zur Heide was the first to

question the leadership of the Bolden Orchestra in his ground

breaking 1994 article entitled 'Who Was the Leader of Charles

Bolden's Orchestra'. After pointing out that Buddy Bolden was

christened Charles (Joseph) he stated correctly that the proper

contemporary title for this type of group was Orchestra rather than

Band. He also correctly identified the players.

After a short interlude in which he discussed the tonality of the

two clarinets shown (he concluded that the seated player was

holding a C clarinet), he drew attention to the missing violinist

leader.

As he indicated, the leader of a New Orleans Orchestra of the time

was usually considered to be the violinist, who played the lead part,

often from a written score - zur Heide called him the musical head.

There is ample evidence to support this contention, much of it I

elaborated in Exploring Early Jazz: The Origins and Evolution of the

New Orleans Style Chapters 4 and 5.

He then argued that as the violinist was absent from the only

photo of the Bolden Orchestra the leader role must have been

played by the second, seated clarinetist - Willie Warner when the

two clarinet format was used*. This seems to be a reasonable

deduction. Karl pointed out that in any case the leadership function

was often split among members, with the managerial aspects being

farmed out to an instrumentalist other than the musical leader. In

fact two contemporary bands - The Imperial Orchestra and the

Olympia Orchestra, followed this practice though each was

sometimes referred to by contemporaries by the name of their

star cornet players, Manuel Perez and Freddie Keppard respectively.

zur Heide suggests that Dee Dee Brooks would have been the lead

violinist of the Bolden Orchestra and he is certainly one of the

violinists associated with the group. He did not suggest who carried

out the managerial function but as indicated above Frank Duson

seems to have taken over this role when he was with the band. It

seems possible that Buddy Bolden initially managed the group but

later as his health declined the managerial role was increasingly

assumed by Duson.

'Who Was the Leader of Charles Bolden's Orchestra' was an 

important contribution to the literature, not only because it

raised the important issue of leadership but because it first drew

attention to the important role of the violin in early New Orleans

jazz.

*At the time of writing (February 2008) Karl affirms the conventional view

expressed in his article that Warner is holding a clarinet pitched in

C major.