Buddy Bolden's Blues (428 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.86 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by baron von munchausen (View user info) at 2007-10-09 03:57:19 EDT
In 1907:
It was the talk of the town-Buddy Bolden was back, and he was going to play in the parade this Friday. That's what they said-no one had seen him, no one had seen him except they said he'd been with Nora the whole time but no one knew.
I groan and roll over with a freight train nailing a gong in the back left corner of my head. Nora is gone-it's a weekday...does she have to open up? Does she still work there? I don't care, I think it's Friday, today everyone sees me back sees what I can do again today. I like parades, in parades I can let it go over hundreds and hundreds in the hard sun, it really kills in parades not like at night in a shit shit bar with 23 people kinda sorta paying attention. But the parades jesus man can't get enough.
In 2007:
"Jazz." The professor shot a strict underline beneath the word on the board. "I know you all know who Miles Davis is, Charlie Parker, Louis...does anyone here know who came before Louis?"
The room responded with a blank stare.
"A man widely accepted to be the father of jazz music. A cornet player named Buddy Bolden." Buddy Bolden, he wrote on the board. "A New Orleans man. He ran a barber shop from 8 to 4, slept from 4 to 8, drank from 8 to 12, and then played until it was time to open the shop again. The reason you've never heard of him is that he never made a recording. At least nothing that survived. He didn't die until 1931, but something happened at a parade in 1907 that kept him from ever playing again."
Noon on Friday and it was getting started. I stood on the side of the street as the colours passed. Green, red, green, yellow, red, green again. Sparser at first-it was only noon. I just wanted to see if Buddy was really back. That's what most people wanted to see today. It was going to be tough to catch a glimpse if he did come around, with this crowd. But everyone would hear him, they would hear him from a mile away. That much would be easy. I had heard Buddy only once, a couple years back, just before he disappeared. I knew Bunk Johnson, though, and Bunk had played some with Buddy's band a while back. Bunk told me about Buddy's sound, bigger than a truck, packing more force than a fully loaded freight train hurtling towards nothing with no one at the wheel. That was what he said about why Buddy's playing was special; it always sounded like there was no one at the wheel.
"He mixed early blues with gospel church music to create something wholly different. It made people upset, mixing the devil's music with God's music, they said. Not many people who ever heard Buddy play cared much about God, though; at that time in New Orleans, it was easier to find a pimp than a priest, a whorehouse than a church. Bolden managed to pack that into his body and pinch it out of a cornet. And he was the first man to do it."
They hear me coming.
I'm pushing it out hard. The notes aren't notes it's like fluid, but thicker and it hits you in the face. Let the silence be the instrument then surprise them, a quick sharp burst bam wwwwwap bap. I start low and get louder and bigger and higher, feeling it grow inside and outside, the pure straight hard energy is being absorbed by the power of all those people and shot back into me directly into my veins and then it comes right back out my mouth on a rock hard cushion of vicious air. The glinting gold in front of my face waves back and forth back and forth and I don't even think I'm moving it but there it goes. I keep pushing and it should probably hurt but all I feel is the powerful powerful in-between.
I could hear him coming.
That sound I had heard those years before, no one at the wheel. No one at the wheel, but it still always sounded right. Then I could see him, and he looked exactly the same as he sounded-no one at the wheel.
"Buddy was the innovator of the use of improvisation, the technique you all probably think of as what defines jazz music. It added power and excitement and spontaneity to the sound of his playing, a major reason why it garnered so much attention. In a 1936 interview with Bunk Johnson, he said that Buddy Bolden was famous for playing the cornet like there was no one at the wheel."
Frenzy is growing in me and it keeps spewing out and there's nothing I can do about it. Wwwap a doo BAP, doo BAP BAP wwwwwwaaAAAPP bweeEEEEEEEYAH! Pure ecstatic pleasure flowing out and I feel something warm and wet dribbling down my chin, flowing harder now but the sound keeps going pushing harder have to work harder now, feeling a building pain in my neck but can't stop pushing out the sound the pure orgasmic explosion of noise that fills my body more than it ever did before and it keeps getting harder and the pain is starting to be real and the sound is suddenly gone and I can't make it happen and something it spurting hard and I'm dizzy and then black.
I watched with fear and apprehension as I saw blood start to trickle down Buddy's chin from his lips. He didn't seem to notice, even when it started to cascade down in great red torrents, he just kept trying harder to play, until finally he was unable to make a sound and he collapsed, blood pouring from his ruptured face and his neck a dark shade of purple. Then he was surrounded by people and I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.
"At a parade in New Orleans in 1907, Buddy Bolden suffered serious injuries to his face and neck. This was due to what was actually something much more serious-an attack of acute alcoholic psychosis. Once he had been fixed up-not an easy job back then-he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He spent the rest of his life in a mental institution in Baton Rouge until his death in 1931. He was allowed to give haircuts to the other inmates every other Monday."
User Reviews
Submitted by baronMunchausen (user info) at 2007-10-13 22:54:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm a music performance major at what is consistently named in the top 10 music schools in the world. I play 5 instruments, have an extensive vocal background, and have won several composing competitions. So...yes, I have played an instrument before.
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-13 15:08:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
You asked, so you shall recieve.
Throught the whole thing, I was fairly unimpressed, until the ending. The ending I liked. I find if I can tell how something ends, before I finish reading it, it's usually not that good to start with.
I'll not call the english police on you, as you're not fucking up on purpose. You DO need to work on it though. Makes you seem unintelligable, like a teenage girl talking constantly, without break or pause for breath.
You're describing music as if you've never played an instrument. Passable for readers who don't play anything, but for those of us who do, it seems almost insulting. I speak only for myself on this, but somebody's bound to agree with me eventually.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-09 14:50:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-09 14:50:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by freebie (user info) at 2007-10-09 11:03:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-10-09 10:34:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this, although the fact that you're still repeating your words ("shit shit bar") is really annoying.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-10-09 10:31:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2007-10-09 09:58:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
very good.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-09 09:27:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Auto jazz music +2, especially for featuring a widely unknown name in music history by the general public.
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-09 08:18:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2007-10-09 07:07:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2007-10-09 04:11:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-10-09 04:00:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
oh yes