Reconstructing a Life: Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden

• Authors: Patricia-Dorli Dumescu
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Michael Ondaatje’s novel Coming through Slaughter is a fascinating attempt to bring literature and oral history together in order to recreate Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden’s mysterious life. Daily routines and gestures, inner thoughts and high musical notes form a puzzle to which the citizens of the flamboyant New Orleans keep adding pieces. With the help of his only existing photograph, the present paper focuses on the unquestionable father of jazz, who kept “away from recorded history”.

Keywords

EN

fragmentariness; (in)sanity; jazz; memory; New Orleans; oral history

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Romanian Journal of English Studies
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 224-239

Dates

published

2012-12-01

online

2013-02-21

Contributors

author

Patricia-Dorli Dumescu

• University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Victor Babeş”, Timişoara

References

• Armstrong, L. 1986. Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans. New York: Da Capo Press.
• Asbury, H. 2003. The French Quarter. An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press.
• Bultman, B.E. 2000. New Orleans. Oakland: Random House.
• Burns, K. 2004. Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns. DVD. Paramount Pictures.
• Ondaatje, M. 1979. Coming Through Slaughter. London: Picador.
• Rose, A. 1974. Storyville, New Orleans. Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of theNotorious Red-Light District. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press.
• Ward, M. 2004. Voodoo Queen. The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10319-012-0022-y