Charles "Buddy" Bolden (September 6, 1877 - November 4, 1931) was a cornetist and the first New Orleans jazz musician to come to prominence.

He was known as King Bolden (see Jazz royalty) and his band was a top draw in New Orleans from about 1895 until 1907, when he was incapacitated by schizophrenia. He never recorded, but he was known for his open tone and very loud sound. Joe "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong were directly inspired by his playing.

While there is substantial first hand oral history about Buddy Bolden, facts about his life continue to be lost amongst colorful myth. Stories about him being a barber by trade or that he published a scandal-sheet called the Cricket have been repeated in print despite being debunked decades earlier.

Bolden suffered an episode of acute alcoholic psychosis in 1907. With the full diagnosis of schizophrenia, he was admitted to a mental institution where he spent the rest of his life.

Music

Many early jazz musicians credited Bolden and the members of his band with being the originators of what came to be known as "jazz", though the term was not yet in common musical use until during the era of Bolden's prominence. At least one writer has labelled him the father of jazz. He is credited with creating a looser, more improvised version of ragtime and adding blues to it; Bolden's band was said to be the first to have brass instruments play the blues. He was also said to have taken ideas from gospel music heard in uptown African American Baptist churches.

Although Bolden was recalled as having made at least one phonograph cylinder, no known recordings of Bolden have survived.

Some of the songs first associated with his band such as Careless Love and My Bucket's Got a Hole in It are still standards. Sounds foreshawdowing funk and rap can be heard in one of Bolden's theme songs, known then as Funky Butt (a reference to flatulence) and later as Buddy Bolden's Blues:

I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say,
Funky-butt, funky-butt, take it away.