Rhetoric Society Quarterly Oct 2018

Burying the King Again: Buddy Bolden’s Jazz Funeral and Defleshed Memory

J. David Maxson Pro Persona

Abstract

This essay conducts a rhetorical analysis of the efforts to commemorate Charles “Buddy” Bolden with a mock jazz funeral in 1996. Widely recognized as a jazz pioneer today, Bolden acquired most of his acclaim posthumously. Bolden spent the last twenty-five years of his life in the Louisiana State Insane Asylum where he died in obscurity in 1931. Bolden’s mock funeral provides a useful case for extending public memory scholarship by exploring the rhetorical dimensions of defleshed memories. Drawing from interviews, archives, and textual analysis, this essay theorizes defleshed memories as memories whose physical trace—or evidence of a physical trace—is attenuated to a state close to non-existence by coercive acts of institutional repression and neglect that sanitize and depoliticize memories. Further, this essay finds that defleshed memories are often rebodied to serve commercial interests but can also be reincorporated into more robust living traditions through rhetorical acts of commemoration.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2018-10-20
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2018.1444194
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism discourse analysis
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Fiss (2021)
    Ridicule, Technical Communication, and Nineteenth-Century Women Performing Coll…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Daniel-Wariya (2019)
    Welcome to Decision Points Theater: Rhetoric, Museology, and Game Studies
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly

References (78) · 2 in this index

  1. Allen, Richard B. Band vertical file: “Olympia Brass Band (1970–1971).” Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University…
  2. Bal Mieke (1999)
    Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present
  3. Berry Jason (2009)
    Up From the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II
  4. Blair Carole. (1999)
    Rhetorical Bodies
  5. 10.1017/CBO9780511778766.002
     ↗
Show all 78 →
  1. Blight David W. (2001)
    Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
     ↗
  2. Brennan Joseph. (2017)
    Personal interview
  3. Brown (2018)
    Remembering Silence: Bennett College Women and the 1960 Greensboro Student Sit-Ins
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  4. 10.1080/00335639509384111
     ↗
  5. ____ (1999)
    10.1080/00335639909384252
    Quarterly Journal of Speech  ↗
  6. Buerkle Jack V. (1973)
    Bourbon Street Black: The New Orleans Black Jazzman
  7. Burns, Mick.The Great Olympia Band. New Orleans: Jazzology, 2001. Print.
  8. ____ (2006)
    Keeping the Beat on the Street: The New Orleans Brass Band Renaissance
  9. Cain Kathy. (2017)
    Personal interview
  10. Casey Edward S. (2000)
    Remembering: A Phenomenological Study
  11. Charters, Samuel B.Jazz: New Orleans 1885–1963. New York: Oak, 1963. Print.
  12. Cho Peter. (2017)
    Personal interview
  13. (1967)
    Cicero. De Oratore, in Cicero De Oratore: Books I & II. Trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham
  14. 10.7208/chicago/9780226218359.001.0001
     ↗
  15. Colten Craig E. (2005)
    An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature
  16. 10.1080/14791420.2014.995685
     ↗
  17. Collection Don Marquis (1996)
    Buddy Bolden: First King of Jazz.” Narr. Delfeayo Marsalis. Prod. Joe Brennan and Michael…
  18. ____ (1996)
    The Buddy Bolden Project: Minutes, Wednesday
  19. ____ (1996)
    The Buddy Bolden Project: Minutes, Wednesday
  20. ____
    New Orleans City Council: Proclamation
  21. ____ (1996)
    VHS: Media Coverage of Buddy Bolden Jazz Funeral
  22. Doucet Clarence. (1964)
    Times-Picayune
  23. 10.1080/00335630.2011.585168
     ↗
  24. Elie Lolis Eric (1996)
    New Orleans Orphaned
  25. ____ (2017)
    Personal interview
  26. Faust Drew (2008)
    Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
  27. Florence Robert. (1997)
    New Orleans Cemeteries: Life in the Cities of the Dead.
  28. Foote Kenneth E. (2003)
    Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy
     ↗
  29. Gabbard Krin. (2008)
    Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture
  30. Gray Ryan. (2017)
    Personal interview
  31. Halbwachs Maurice. (1992)
    On Collective Memory
     ↗
  32. Hancock Colin. (2015)
    The Jazz Archivist
  33. Haskins Ekaterina V. (2015)
    Popular Memories: Commemoration, Participatory Culture, and Democratic Citizenship
     ↗
  34. Hersch Charles. (2007)
    Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans
  35. 10.1215/00265667-2858017
     ↗
  36. Kubik Gerhard. (2009)
    The Jazz Archivist
  37. Le Menestrel Sara. (2014)
    “Memory Lives in New Orleans: The Process and Politics of Commemoration.”
  38. LeDoux Jerome G. (2011)
    War of the Pews: A Personal Account of St. Augustine Church in New Orleans
  39. Linenthal Edward (1993)
    Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields
  40. Lomax Alan. (2001)
    Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of…
  41. Marquis Donald M. (2005)
    In Search of Buddy Bolden: First Man of Jazz
  42. 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036262.001.0001
     ↗
  43. ____ (2016)
    Personal interview
  44. 10.1080/10570319009374343
     ↗
  45. Middleton, Joyce Irene. “Finding Democracy in Our Argument Culture: Listening to Spike Lee’s Jazz Funeral on …
  46. 10.1525/rep.1989.26.1.99p0274v
     ↗
  47. Phillips Kendall R. (2010)
    The Failure of Memory: Reflections on Rhetoric and Public Remembrance
  48. ____ (2004)
    Framing Public Memory
  49. Phillips Kendall R. (2011)
    Global Memoryscapes: Contesting Remembrance in a Transnational Age
  50. Poirot et al. (2015)
    Memories of Freedom and White Resilience: Place, Tourism, and Urban Slavery
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  51. A. Russell Trans. Donald (2001)
    Quintilian. The Orator’s Education [Institutio oratoria]
  52. Raeburn Bruce Boyd (2014)
    Hurricane Katrina in Transatlantic Perspective
  53. ____ (2009)
    New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History
  54. 10.1525/ae.2001.28.4.752
     ↗
  55. ____ (1999)
    Cultural Anthropology
  56. Mitchell Reyes, G. (2010)
    Public Memory, Race, and Ethnicity
  57. Roach Joseph. (1996)
    Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance
  58. 10.5406/blacmusiresej.31.2.0291
     ↗
  59. ____ (2006)
    Space and Culture
  60. ____. (2013)
    Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans
  61. (2017)
    “The Screwmen
  62. Smith Michael P. (1990)
    A Joyful Noise: A Celebration of New Orleans Music
  63. Stewart Jack. (2004)
    Funerals With Music in New Orleans
  64. 10.1215/9780822376354
     ↗
  65. Turner Richard (2009)
    Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans
     ↗
  66. Vivian Bradford. (2010)
    Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again
  67. White Michael G. (2010)
    The Jazz Archivist
  68. ____ (2001)
    Triumph of the Soul: Cultural and Psychological Aspects of African American Music
  69. ____ (2007)
    Journal of American History
  70. Wilson Clive. (2009)
    The Jazz Archivist
  71. Yates Frances. (2014)
    The Art of Memory
  72. Young James E. (1993)
    The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning
  73. Zelizer Barbie. (1995)
    Critical Studies in Mass Communication
CrossRef global citation count: 13 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Res Rhetorica Apr 2026
    Logos in ancient Greek discourse on rhetoric: An overview ↗
    Arkadiusz Sokolnicki
    classical rhetoric rhetorical criticism discourse analysis argument
  2. Rhetoric of Health and Medicine Apr 2026
    What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Constructing Risk at Advanced Maternal Age ↗
    Melissa Carrion
    rhetorical criticism discourse analysis
  3. Poroi Feb 2026
    Multi-Methodological, Multiply Ontological: Pivoting Methodologies in Rhetorical Analysis of Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) ↗
    Paige Welsh; S. Scott Graham
    rhetorical criticism discourse analysis
  4. Poroi Feb 2026
    Using Stasis Theory as a Heuristic for Examining Epistemological Dilemmas in a Post-Truth Landscape ↗
    Bruce Bowles
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis argument
  5. Written Communication Feb 2026
    Rhetoric and Affect: The Role of Faith in Student Writers’ Wayfinding ↗
    Amy D. Williams; Jonathan Ostenson
    rhetorical criticism discourse analysis empirical research affect and writing