[Dixielandjazz] Re: Buddy Bolden

[TBW504 at aol.com]

Brian...I think that if Jelly Roll Morton writes a song about Buddy Bolden
and names it " I thought I heard Buddy bolden say," this would indicate that
Buddy Bolden was quite well known.  Jim Beebe

The same song mentions Judge Fogarty. I expect he was well known too? The 
first recording of the number was in 1939, by the way. I repeat Bolden was 
scarcely known at all outside his social class in New Orleans. Thus when 
investigators began belatedly to investigate the origins of jazz many in the city who 
claimed to have known him weren't even sure of his name; others claimed he had 
descended from a balloon in Lincoln Park whilst playing the cornet, thus 
confusing him with an entirely different figure, Buddy Bartley or Bottley as some 
"authorities" had it. It is impossible to claim that Bolden was "well-known" 
until the publication of "Jazzmen" in 1939.
Brian Wood