Although no recordings of Buddy Bolden exist today, his music is said to have incorporated the improvisation characteristic of jazz.

BBC: The birthplace of jazz

In my new novel "Tiger Rag, " Charles "Buddy" Bolden (a fictionalized version of the jazz pioneer) plays the trumpet's precursor, the cornet, which I describe on page two: the carefully calibrated valves, the mouthpiece, the bell triple-silver-plated on the outside, gold-plated on the inside, the finger pieces of inlaid pearl.

WSJ: Novelist Nicholas Christopher on Writing About Music | Word Craft