[Dixielandjazz] The Bolden photo

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

The best discussion of "that photo", that I know of, is the article "The
Bolden band photo - one more time", by Alden Ashfort in "Annual Review of
Jazz Studies", No 3, 1985. I'll check the precise details (page nos and
publisher) when my university library re-opens in the new year.

Ashfort is firmly of the view that the photo, as originally published in
"Jazzmen" (Ramsay and Smith, 1939) was printed the wrong way around, ie to
show Brock Mumford (guitar) and Jimmie Johnson (string bass) as
right-handed players. My 1945 reprint of "Jazzmen" has this same arrangement.

Ashfort's arguments are (for me) conclusive and use the configuration of
the keys on the clarinets and the valves on the cornet and trombone (yes,
Willie Cornish is holding a valve tombone in the photo) to come to his
conclusion. Listmates Louis Lince and Dan Hardie have reached the same
conclusion.

The argument boils down to a simple question - which is the more likely: 

(a) that Bolden, Cornish, Willy Warner (clarinet) and Frank Lewis
(clarinet) were "normal", right-handed players of their instruments and
that, for the photo, Mumford and Johnson were holding their instruments
left-handed, OR,

(b) that Bolden, Cornish, Warner and Lewis were left-handed and had
custom-built "left-handed" instruments; and Mumford and Johnson played
right-handed ?

This still leaves the other questions - why are Mumford and Johnson holding
their instruments left-handed?; were they, in fact, left-handed?

Don Marquis could find no reference to Mumford and Johnson being
left-handed and, as Dan Hardie has pointed-out, there are other photos of
Johnson, playing right-handed.

My view is that Mumford and Johnson played right-handed and that they were
posed, left-handed, for the photo for aesthetic/visual balance reasons.

All the best for the new year,
Anton