The legendary Buddy Bolden (1877-1931), a cornet player from New Orleans, was the first jazz voice: wild, archaic, dirty.
His music forged a link between the European brass-band sound and the African drum rituals of Congo Square, and he was the first bandleader to play improvised music. In 1896 he assembled the first "modern" jazz band, which played in New Orleans parades and dances. The black community worshipped their unpredictable, crazy king. Until his musical, emotional, and physical excesses drove him to madness. In 1907 he had a breakdown during a parade and spent the remaining 24 years of his life in a psychiatric institution.

buddy's knife jazzedition presents its first voice – that of Henry Grimes: subtle, poetic and vigorous. His lyrics sound like his bass playing: magical and intuitive in a way that can neither be categorized nor explained.

Jazz tells of things that become different as they become, of things that have already become different.
D.S. Ware