Through an investigation which has been made with great care and thoroughness by eight "critics" and record collectors during the last six months, startling facts have been uncovered. The facts have been checked and rechecked and are as close to the truth as will ever be known.

The writer can only disclose the most important at this time.

Letter Tells All!

In a letter to William Russell, owner of the world's most complete record collection, Willie "Bunk" Johnson, the cornetist who taught Louis Armstrong his first music, tells the story:

"Now here is the list about that jazz playing: King Buddy Bolden was the first man that began playing jazz in the city of New Orleans, and his band had the whole of New Orleans real crazy and running wild behind it. Now that was all you could hear in New Orleans, that King Bolden's band, and I was with him. That was between 1895 and 1896, and we did not have any "Dixieland Jazz band" in those days. Now here is the thing that made King Bolden's band the first band to play jazz. It was because they could not read at all. I could fake like 500 myself, so you tell them that Bunk and King Bolden's band were the first ones that started jazz in that city or any place else. And now you are able to go ahead with your book".

Bunk Taught Louis!

Bunk has been acclaimed by many of the old-time musicians as the greatest cornetist of his day. There were three great cornetists, they say --Buddy, Bunk and Louis. Their music was passed from one to the other. Bolden played a real "stomp trumpet," and Bunk added fast fingering, runs and high notes with a sweet tone. Then Louis combined the two styles with his own ideas to become the man who is recognized today as the greatest hot musician of all time.

The influence of King Oliver upon Louis has been exaggerated, but through no fault of those who claim that Oliver taught him. New facts now show that Louis had been playing for more than five years before he joined Oliver's band.

Satchmo Agrees It's True

Sidney Bechet, Luis Russell, Pops Foster, Clarence Williams, Lil Armstrong and Louis himself all recognize Bunk as the greatest pioneer in hot jazz in the early part of the century.

Said Louis: "Bunk, he's the man they ought to talk about. What a man! Just to hear him talk sends me. I used to hear him in Frankie Dusen's Eagle band in 1911. Did that band swing! How I used to follow him around. He could play funeral marches that made me cry."

I'll let Bunk tell you in his own words of his influence on Louis--facets which Louis himself has corroborated:

"When I would be playing with brass bands in the uptown section (of New Orleans), Louis would steal off from home and follow me. During that time, Louis started after me to show him how to blow my cornet. When the band would not be playing, I would let him carry it to please him. How he wanted me to teach him how to play the blues and 'Ball the Jack' and 'Animal Ball,' 'Circus Day, Take It Away' and 'Didn't He Ramble?,' and out of all those pieces he liked the blues the best.

Blues Came First

I took a job playing in a tonk for Dago Tony on Perdido and Franklin street and Louis used to slip in there and get on the music stand behind the piano. He would fool around with my cornet every chance he got. I showed him just how to hold it and place it to his mouth, and he did so, and it wasn't long before he began getting a good tone out of my horn. Then I began showing him just how to start the blues, and little by little he began to understand.

"Now here is the year Louis started. It was in the latter part of 1911 as close as I can think. Louis was about 11 years old. Now I've said a lot about my boy Louis and just how he started playing cornet. He started playing it by head."

Old-time musicians say that Louis' early records with King Oliver, Fletcher Hend