Kendell Kardt - Buddy Bolden (1971)

There was one artist in the recent Ronnie Montrose post that might be unfamiliar to many people, and so here's a bit of information about him. Kendell Kardt was born on 27 February 1943 in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, and he grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, where he attended public schools. Because his religious parents discouraged his 'worldly' interest in music, he left home at age nineteen to attend college, where he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree with a major in music in 1967. He soon abandoned classical pursuits in favor of popular music, and while still in college he joined his first rock band, The Frozen Flowers, who performed locally in Queens. They released one single, 'Are You In Love', written by band member Bob Zaidman, and after the breakup of the Frozen Flowers, Kardt performed briefly as a founding member of The Fugs in the mid-1960's. During this time he began to pursue songwriting, at first with collaborator Matt Fried, and then on his own, focusing on developing a rock ensemble as a vehicle for his new songs. In 1967 he formed a power trio called Black Betty, in which he was the bassist and lead vocalist, and they attracted the attention of record company entrepreneur Jac Holzman, whose Elektra Records label was still based in New York. Holzman agreed to record Black Betty if the band found a replacement for guitarist Jack McNichol, but Kardt refused and the deal fell through. The following year he formed the quartet Rig, which also included guitarist Artie Richards, bassist Don Kerr, and drummer Rick Schlosser, and after playing the New York club scene for a couple of years, the group recorded an album for Capitol Records in 1970, under the auspices of new manager Bill Graham and producers Elliot Mazer and Adam Mitchell. At the same time as being in Rig, he was also a session player, and appeared on the Archies 'Sugar Sugar' album, playing the Rhodes keyboard on the title track. 

At the end of 1970, Rig broke up and Kardt relocated to northern California with co-manager Mark Spector in order to be closer to Graham's San Francisco operation. In 1971 he recorded a solo album titled 'Buddy Bolden', scheduled for release on Capitol, and including musicians such as Ronnie Montrose on lap steel, electric and acoustic guitar, Spencer Dryden on drums, David Torbert on bass, Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar and banjo, Ed Neff on fiddle, and Pamela Polland, Barbara Mauritz and Lynne Charles on background vocals. When Ronnie Montrose formed his band Montrose, they recorded one of the songs,'Black Train', for their 'Warner Bros. Presents Montrose!' album, and this prompted interest in the shelved album once it became known where the song came from. Kardt himself has posted the songs on his own website kendellkardt.com, and so you can now hear this legendary album in all it's glory, housed in a sleeve that celebrates the title character, the African/American cornetist who was regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of ragtime music in the early 1900's, which later came to be known as jazz. Kardt continued to write and perform his compositions nationally as a solo artist until 1984, after which he retired from performing and writing to devote himself to his family and other projects, and now lives quietly in rural New Hampshire.

Track listing

01 Buddy Bolden
02 Black Train
03 Mr White's Song
03 Get On By Me
05 Country Lullaby
06 Jesse, Jesse
07 Don't You Worry, Darlin'
08 Arabian Queen
09 City Lights
10 After The Rain
11 My Delight