Buddy Bolden 'invents' jazz

Early 1900s: Number 1 in our series of the 50 key events in the history of jazz musicWhether or not the cornetist Buddy Bolden invented jazz (Jelly Roll Morton is one of the best known other claimants to the title), he certainly created the enduring archetype of the jazz musician as doomed romantic hero when he suffered a mental breakdown in 1907, at the age of 30, and spent his remaining years in a Louisiana asylum. The tantalisingly poignant twist to the tale of the idiom's first celebrated in...

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