| Charles Bolden was born in New
Orleans on 6 September 1877. Bolden started playing cornet professionally
in the 1890s. By the turn of the century, Bolden's Band was considered
by many the best in New Orleans, and Buddy himself was called "King Bolden".
His vigorous freewheeling improvised music influenced even the city's "legitimate"
(classically trained) bands to start playing in a hotter style. Bolden
started showing signs of mental instability in 1906 (according to Jazz
writer Fred Ramsey, possibly due to an ear infection which developed into
meningitis), and was committed to a state sanitarium in 1907, where he
died 4 November 1931. |
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