Klarinet Archive - Posting 001269.txt from 1999/01

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] HELP!
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 10:41:07 -0500

Wasn't Bolden a *cornet* player? Armstrong started on the the cornet, I
think, as did Keppard. How much this matters, I don't know.
Roger Shilcock

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Edwin V. Lacy wrote:

> Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 08:53:14 -0600 (CST)
> From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] HELP!
>
> On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 DHmorgan@-----.com wrote:
>
> > I heard it on NPR--they were talking about a famous trumpet player in
> > New Orleans--early in his career he was so bad everywhere he played
> > everyone told him to give it up--he was loud, he was off key, he
> > stank. But he loved playing and he kept it up--years later he became
> > the best player in the country and inspired the young Louis Armstrong
> > in his playing. Hopefully someone will be able to supply the name of
> > the trumpet player!
>
> I teach jazz history, but have never heard this story told in exactly this
> way before. The player who is most often thought of as being a direct
> influence on Louis Armstrong was Joe "King" Oliver, so called because he
> was thought of as the "king" of the jazz trumpet players. It was Oliver
> who brought Armstrong from New Orleans to Chicago to become a member of
> his band. That was about 1922 or 23 (no reference materials at hand right
> now.)
>
> Another possibility, because of the time frame, would be Buddy Bolden,
> supposedly the first trumpet player who can be identified as playing in a
> style which can be identified as purely jazz. He was playing in the
> mid-1890's. (Louis Armstrong always claimed to have been born in 1900, but
> his birth certificate has recently been found, and it seems that he
> actually was born in 1901.) Unfortunately, there are no recordings of
> Buddy Bolden. Armstrong probably heard Bolden, but he would have been
> quite young, and it may not have made much of an impression on him.
> According to all accounts, Bolden was indeed one of the loudest trumpet
> players ever.
>
> There are other more remote possibilities - Freddie Keppard or Bunk
> Johnson, for example.
>
> Could one of these be the mystery trumpet player mentioned on NPR?
>
> Ed Lacy
> el2@-----.edu
>
>
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