Willie Gary "Bunk" Johnson was an American prominent jazz trumpeter in New Orleans. Johnson gave the year of his birth as 1879, although there is speculation that he may have been younger by as much as a decade. Johnson stated on his 1937 application for Social Security that he was born on December 27, 1889. Many jazz historians believe this date of birth to be the most accurate of the various dates Johnson gave throughout his life.

Charles Joseph "Buddy" Bolden was an American cornetist who was regarded by contemporaries as a key figure in the development of a New Orleans style of ragtime music, or "jass", which later came to be known as jazz.