Streaming including via Youtube and Amazon Prime Video - Rod Bishop reports on BOLDEN (Daniel Pritzker, USA, 2019)

New Orleans residents - and many others around the world - believe Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) invented jazz.

Although members of his band claimed recordings of his work were made, none have been found. This puts the Bolden legacy at a distinct disadvantage and allows others such as “Jellyroll” Morton - who wrote the standard I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolton Say- to claim: “It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the Cradle of Jazz and I myself happen to be the inventor in 1902”.

Bolden had been playing well before 1902 and his band is generally dated as attracting attention in New Orleans in 1895. Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, who claimed to have joined The Bolden Band in that year, is unequivocal: “King Buddy Bolden was the first man who began playing jazz in the city of New Orleans and his band had the whole of New Orleans really crazy and running wild behind it”.

Bolden drew immediate accolades for his powerful, loud and clear horn playing; for his fusion of musical styles (ragtime, marching band music, Baptist church music, blues); for his innovation of ‘improvisation’; and for his rearrangement of the dance band with string instruments as the rhythm section and the frontline comprised of trombones, clarinets and Bolden’s horn (a cornet).

Bolden is also thought to be the originator of the ‘Big Four’, explained by Wynton Marsalis as a syncopated brass drum pattern which opened up the music to provide far greater room for improvisation.

 “Jass” and later “Jazz” (meaning pep and energy) was not coined as a term for the music until 10 years after Bolden and his band had appeared. It’s a true product of New Orleans’ famous ‘gumbo’ culture.

Other ‘inventors’ often discussed in the formation of jazz are Freddie Keppard, King Oliver and Kid Ory. No-one disputes the first megastar was Louis Armstrong.

Buddy Bolden’s reputation was born in New Orleans’ infamous Storyville, a neighbourhood east of Canal Street and north of Rampart Street. Sadly, nothing is left of this legendary area. In Treme,when DJ Davis is trying to make ends meet as a tour guide in what was once Storyville, one of his clients asks: “Do you people preserve anything important?” and Davis is forced to reply: “This is New Orleans. We let it go to hell. Preservation through neglect”.

And so, to Bolden, this brave mess of a biopic. The good news is Wynton Marsalis’s music for the film is outstanding. The bad news is very little else is.

Daniel Pritzker

It’s been a labour of love for director Daniel Pritzker, a man described by Wikipedia as “an American billionaire heir, musician, filmmaker and member of the Pritzker Family”. Forbes magazine claims his net worth at $1.95 billion.

Filming started in 2007, reshoots were done in 2009 and 2010 and the project then languished. After recasting and rewriting, he reshot the film in 2015: “I didn’t know what I was doing…I had never made a film.” And it shows. You can feel the conviction, but the material seems to have been worked, reworked and reworked again to a point where the vision just implodes into what feels like one long stylistic and alienating montage. Even Bolden’s creation of jazz is not lucidly conveyed.

In 1907, at the age of 30 and following an episode of alcoholic psychosis, Bolden was diagnosed with dementia praecox (schizophrenia) and interned in the Louisiana State Insane Asylum. He died there on 4^thNovember 1931 at 55 years of age, after 25 years as an inmate.

He has all but disappeared from history, except in modern day New Orleans where he is regarded as a deity. Unfortunately, this film does little to raise appreciation. 

Anyone capable of creating jazz in the late 1890s and giving his compositions titles like Funky Butt deserves so much more.