Buddy Bolden's House Site

Charles 'Buddy' Bolden is widely regarded as the first jazz musician — the cornet player whose powerful, improvisational style fused ragtime, blues, and brass band music into something new around 1900. His home at 2309 First Street in the Tremé still stood until it collapsed in 2019, despite years of preservation advocacy. The lot is empty now. No verified recording of Bolden's playing has ever been found, though legends of a lost cylinder persist. He was committed to the Louisiana State Insane Asylum at Jackson in 1907 at age 30 and spent the last 24 years of his life there. The most influential musician in jazz history left no recorded music behind.