January Features
Professor Bolden's Orchestra: a Close-up
by Daniel Hardie
In 1903 invitations were sent out for a Mardi Gras Ball sponsored by the "Ladies of Providence and the Knights of Pleasure" to be held at the Providence Hall at the corner of Phillip and Liberty Streets on February 18, 1903 - music to be provided by "Prof. Bolden's Orchestra" (In Search of Buddy Bolden by Don Marquis, 1978/1993)
The grainy old photograph shown above was first published in 1935 in the ground-breaking history of jazz entitled Jazzmen and is the only pictorial evidence for the existence of the first jazz orchestra. The best evidence suggests that it was taken between 1903 and 1905 though even that dating has been the subject of dispute. Much ink has also been consumed arguing whether it was printed the wrong way round in the first edition of Jazzmen. I do not want to enter that dispute though I am persuaded by the physical evidence that the above presentation is correct. (For more on this, see Alden Ashforth, "The Bolden Photo," Annual Review of Jazz Studies, No 3.)
The players have been identified as Frank Lewis (standing) and Willie Warner (seated), clarinet; Willie Cornish, valve trombone; Jefferson Mumford, Spanish guitar; Charles (Buddy) Bolden, cornet, and James Johnson, string bass. Some authorities consider the standing player to be Warner and Lewis the seated man.
If the photo was taken in 1905, Bolden, who was born in 1877, was 27 or 28 years of age. Will Cornish, born 1875, was about 30; Jefferson Mumford, born 1870, was 35; Jimmy Johnson, youngest of the group, born 1884, was 21. Clarinetist Frank Lewis, born ca. 1870, was 35, and Willie Warner, born ca. 1865, would have been 40. The images in the photo appear to be consistent with these ages. A sidelight on this age structure is that the oldest man in the photo is clearly the seated clarinet player, and this suggests that it is indeed Willie Warner, who also appears to be wearing a dress suit of an earlier period, complete with vest and watch chain.
It is worth noting that, far from showing a scruffy Uptown band, it reveals a group well dressed in evening wear. This seems to have been the tradition for New Orleans dance bands around 1900. Buddy Bolden appears to be wearing white tie.
Instrumentation and Performers
The instrumentation shown in the photograph is not typical of bands of the Elemental Jazz era. Early photographs and published lists of band members indicate that a trap drummer was usually employed and that the leader of the band would usually be a violinist. No other early photographs show two clarinets being employed.
In fact, the photograph cannot be interpreted as representing the regular composition of the Bolden Orchestra. Wallace Collins who played with Bolden before 1900 is reported by Rudi Blesh as saying that the lead was played by the violin and Bolden "ragged" behind the lead.
Just who was the regular violinist is difficult to determine. Bunk Johnson recalled Alcide Frank (born ca. 1875) as the band's violinist and Manuel Manetta suggested that the photograph was taken when Frank left Bolden to form his own Golden Rule Band in 1905. (By 1905 Alcide Frank was leading his Golden Rule Orchestra at Foucaults (aka Fewclothes) Cabaret. Louis Nelson (de Lisle) was the clarinetist; Adolph Alexander Sr., cornet; James Brown, bass; and Joe Brooks, guitar.)
Manetta suggested the second clarinet was introduced as a temporary measure to perform as a substitute for the missing violinist. Marquis, Bolden's biographer, lists violinists Tom Adams, Dee Dee Brooks and James Palao as having played in the Bolden Orchestra.
Valve trombonist Willie Cornish enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1898 and left for the short Spanish-American War in Cuba. During his absence, he was replaced by Frank Duson but returned to take his place in the regular line-up. Marquis mentions Ed Jones and Bill Harrison as other trombonists associated with the group. Cornish left the band in 1906 and was replaced by Duson.
Clarinetists Willie Warner and Frank Lewis appear to have been regular performers, but Marquis suggests Sam Dutrey, Sr. and Alphonse Picou may have substituted from time to time. The authors of Jazzmen wrote, "Buddy used William Warner or Frank Lewis, or sometimes both on clarinet. Warner had a C clarinet, while Lewis played the usual Bb instrument."
Brian Wood suggests this information came from notes supplied to the authors of Jazzmen following an interview between C.E. Smith and Willie Cornish in 1938.
The use of the C clarinet meant that a player could play from the violin score as written, and there are examples of other players who used the C clarinet. Louis Nelson de Lisle featured the instrument and became known as "Mr. C Clarinet." This suggests that when Alcide Frank left the Bolden band, Warner or Lewis was pressed into service as leader.
I am not convinced by the identification of the clarinet held by the seated clarinetist in the Bolden Band photograph that it is a C clarinet. My own measurements suggest the front instrument is .93 times as long as the one held by the standing player. Measurements for my own C clarinet show its length overall to be .83 times that of a Bb instrument. Similarly, measurements of two Bb instruments by different makers reveal the length of the smaller to be to be .97 times the length of the longer. Measurement of the clarinets in the Bolden picture is complicated because the clarinet of the standing player appears to be fitted with a mouthpiece cap while that of the seated player does not. This could add to the difference in length by some millimetres depending on the cap. This suggests that the difference in length as measured could account for the fact that we have two Bb clarinets of different make, and it is certainly not enough to identify the seated player's instrument as a C clarinet.
January 2008 issue | © 2008 The Mississippi Rag
P.O. Box 19068, Minneapolis, MN 55419.