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The person most often credited with inventing jazz is cornettist Buddy Bolden, a barber. Since his career was over before the first jazz recordings were made, all we have left is legend. He was famous for his big bold cornet sound, as well as for his bold personality. His band started playing around 1895, in New Orleans parades and dances, and eventually rose to become one of the most popular bands in the city. He made up one song after another, and when be wasn’t playing, his rich voice was capturing attention. His band had one feature that later jazz authorities recognized as indispensable—"the trance", an ability to sink himself in the music until nothing mattered but himself and the cornet, in fervent communion. Legend has it that he was so popular he had eight bands playing on the same night, and he’d rush from band to band playing a few tunes with each. Several early Jazz musicians, like Sidney Bechet and Bunk Johnson, apparently played in Bolden’s bands occasionally.
The Bolden style had blues foundations, however, his music was more like ragtime with improvised embellishments. His band featured cornet, clarinet, trombone, guitar, bass and drums, playing a mix of popular dance numbers in both ragtime and blues style. By the turn of the century, many New Orleans’ bands had begun playing in the collective improvisational style pioneered by Buddy Bolden. One of those groups was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the group which made the first ever jazz recording.
In 1906, Bolden began suffering periods of derangement. The following year he was committed to a mental hospital outside of New Orleans, and remained there for 24 years until his death in 1931 at the age of 54. Trombonist Frankie Dusen took over the Bolden Band, renamed it the Eagle Band, and they continued to be very popular in New Orleans until around 1917. Although we have no recordings of Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton’s "Buddy Bolden Blues" did immortalize this pioneering musician.
According to the passage, what was Bolden doing when he wasn’t playing