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Speaker 1: Talk about being behind the curveball. All my podcasts are

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finally on one site, aro dot net a r r

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oe dot net, seventeen different podcasts to choose from. Hello, Ero,

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how are you doing today? Norman on fine?

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Speaker 2: Thanks.

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Speaker 1: I want to congratulate you on the Bolden cylinder. And

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the reason why is because I am a music fanatic.

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I love the history of music, and I blame that

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on Casey Kasem and Dick Clark because but what happens

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is is that with a book like yours, you're telling

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me there's more to life than than top forty pop

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music and country music. You need to dig a little

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bit deeper. And so jazz in all honesty in the

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past ten years has become my walk and way. So

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to read about Buddy Bolden. I'm going, why, Norman, did

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I not know this?

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Speaker 2: That's great, glad to hear it.

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Speaker 1: What was it like for you to go do the research?

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There's no way in heck that a mystery can become

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an easy research, you know, because there.

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Speaker 2: Is actually so little known about Buddy Boulden. It was

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a bit of a blank canvas. So obviously, yes, I researched. Uh,

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you know, there's a couple of primary sources, and then

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there's there's is a book that is the closest thing

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to a you know, a true historical account of his life,

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but so little is known. I mean, you know, this

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is nobody who is alive has ever heard him play

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a note. Wow, which is kind of amazing given that

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he is, you know, so frequently credited as you know,

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this the first jazz musician, the first, the first got

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to put it all together.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the way that he did it was blues

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and rag time. And so when when I read that

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inside the book, I actually went back and I thought,

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I got to listen to some music around that that

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particular time in history, because I want to see, you know,

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how it all, you know, comes together. Because I always

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look at was because I listened to a lot of

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today's modern day jazz, which is funk, you know, and

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that in itself could be connected to the blues or

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the rag time. So I mean, that's the kind of

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rooting system that you're creating here right exactly now. I

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do want you to know that in my hand right

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now is an Edison standard record. It is a cylinder.

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What if what if mister Bold and Buddy Bold and

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his music is right here on this cylinder. What I mean,

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what are the chances because there are millions of these

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things out here? What would happen if he hit it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be something. I mean, there were His bandmate

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Willie Cornish said that they cut an Edison cillar and

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cylinder in eighteen ninety eight, which that would have been

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a wax cylinder in that time, and so they were

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fairly perishable. And the long standing rumor was that there

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was a guy named Oscar Zohn who was a grosser

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in New Orleans who knew Buddy had that and parent

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it was in his storage shed and his and that

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set burned in the nineteen fifties. So that's you know,

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there's one sort of storyline that you know, there was

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a cylinder and that's what happened to it, but nobody

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can substantiate that.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what kept Buddy from becoming bigger

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than life? Because so many times a lot of us

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in the music industry, Oh, we want to be discovered,

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we want to be heard, we want to be seen.

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But Buddy seemed to be there, but kind of behind

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the vision.

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Speaker 2: Well, you got you got to figure, you got to

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account for the times and the place. He was bigger

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than life in New Orleans, particularly among the black community

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at the time he was King Bolden. You know, he

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was wildly popular, but there weren't you know, recordings weren't

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disseminated widely. Musicians, you know, typically were not known nationally.

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They were known in there, you know, their market there

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wherever they were locally, and then I guess if they toured,

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you know, maybe they built more of a following. But

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you know, this was the turn of the twentieth century

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and all the modern technology that helps people go national

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it didn't exist at that time.

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Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Norman Woolworth coming

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up next, the name of his book, The Bolden Cylinder.

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We are back with Norman Woolworth. So if you could

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sit down with Louis Armstrong right now, what would you

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ask him, because I mean we're talking about a guy

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that picked up his trumpet because of Buddy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean there are quotes from Louis Armstrong

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where he said, you know, I want I wanted to

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play like that, and I would listen to him because

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you know, I think you only heard him like once

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or twice when he was like five or six years old.

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But you know, I didn't know if I ever had

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enough air in my lungs to you know, blow up

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moren like that. And what what he said, as well

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as some other contemporaries, is that Buddy was not virtuosic.

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He was not like a great musician in the way

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we would typically think about that. He wasn't. He didn't

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read music like you know most of the orchestras of

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the day. He sort of he came in the streets.

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He was mostly self taught, and he just played what

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he heard. And the other thing to think about is

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that azz today you listen to modern jazz, it's it's

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almost like an academic form in some ways. But in

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the early days and the way he played, I mean,

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what they all say is he played louder than everybody else,

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and he played dirtier than and in those days, you know,

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that was a music of sort of ecstatic release of

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you know, put your troubles away while you listen to this,

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and you know, just be yourself and you know, move

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to the music. And that was the way audiences received him.

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You know, jazz morphed into lots of other things. You know,

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in succeeding decades, but in those days, that's what it was.

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Speaker 1: Well, you saying that just reminded me of a conversation

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that I had with Brian Culbertson recently, whose new CD

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is called Day Trip, and he talked about that expression

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about being in the present place of now, and that's

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why he surrounded himself with so many people that understand

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what jazz is. It's a lifestyle, but it's also free form.

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You got to let the universe move through you. And

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and so now I started doing a like like a tree,

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you know, in the way of going, Okay, if this

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is where Brian is today, I want to see how

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he's connected to Buddy in the past.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, I think it's tempting,

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but ultimately folly to sort of draw a through line

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from Buddy to you know, Lose Armstrong or Miles Davis

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or whomever. You know, if he hadn't come along, somebody

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else would have, you know, But he sort of had

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that brief moment. And all we really know about him

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is from his contemporaries who were interviewed in the nineteen

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thirties and forties. Because the other thing about Buddy which

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I assume you know this. But he disappeared. I mean,

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he had a very short reign of five or six years,

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and then he disappeared because he went insane and he

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spent the last twenty five years of his life in

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a sanitarium. So and nobody when he was around was

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taking jazz seriously in any sort of you know, in

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terms of media or whatever. It was in the nineteen

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thirties and forties when people started talking to Willie Cornish

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and Bunk Johnson and Kid Ory and Willie Armstrong and

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and you know, they all have sort of different accounts

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of who but he was and how he played, and

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you're not really sure who the reliable narrators are. You know,

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they were jealousies, involved in all sorts of things. So,

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you know, it really is a mystery. I mean, it's

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a he's a very enigmatic historical figure.

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Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this question. They always say

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that led Zeppelin was the great mysterious band of all time. Now,

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after reading this book and holding these stories and these paragraphs,

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I got to tell you, I really think that Buddy

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out does led Zeppelin.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's really unbelievable to me.

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I mean, there's been a lot written about Buddy. Most

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of it's just the same stuff over and over again,

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because really it's you know, there's not that much we

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can actually know. Everything is based on sort of anecdotal accounts.

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But it's remarkable that he is so consistently credited with

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being this pioneer, and yet we have no real evidence

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other than what you know, people say about them. There's

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nothing we can listen to and say, oh yeah, of course, wow, wow.

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Speaker 1: What did you learn from this project, because you know,

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you went into it as a student and now you

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are the instructor teaching us about this journey.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just one of the things I

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took from it is how music pops up from a place.

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The whole thing about you know, at rad time and

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the blues, I think that's probably an oversimplification. I mean,

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he would have heard those things, but he also would

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have heard church music. He would have heard the military

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marching bands that would come through the streets. He would

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have heard trains and steamboats and you know the hooves

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of the clock clop of you know, horses going through

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the street, when waggon creaking, wagging wagging wheels and you

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sort of wonder was he playing those things also? And

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so that that's what really intrigued me was how does

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music get started when when when existing forms like ragcmon

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blues collide and they become something entirely new. That's really cool,

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I mean, and this veriment. There's a lot of examples

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of that throughout music history, you know, including you know,

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how to how to rock and roll get started? You know,

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the blues had a baby right all that, So that that,

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I guess, I don't know if it's a learning so

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much as a just something that was reinforced for me.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, you've got to come back to this show anytime

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in the future, Norman. The door is always going to

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be open for you.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you. This is fun. I love talking about

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this though you.

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Speaker 1: Pat will you be brilliant today?

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Speaker 2: Okay, I's O case should be you