Concert Bands

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA

John Philip and his gang plunged through the weeds and briars along the muddy bank of the Potomac!

“Come on! It’s a band on the avenue!” cried Philip, dashing ahead. “Let’s hurry!”

This was a common occurrence in those exciting days. The War between the States was just beginning, and Washington, D. C., the headquarters of the Union Army, was a thrilling place to be.

The boys were kept busy watching the many activities. They saw officers on horseback galloping importantly in all directions. They saw men working furiously building large frame barracks for the soldiers or huge corrals for the thousands of horses and mules.

And now Philip’s father, Antonio Sousa, had quit his place as trombone player in the Marine Band and joined the Navy to do his part in fighting the war.

Bands were playing everywhere, but Philip was so fond of music he never grew tired of hearing them. He couldn’t keep away from a band or keep his feet from stepping in time when he was near one. Every day Philip Sousa slipped out of the house and attached himself to the first line of blue-clad soldiers he could find. He ran alongside them until he found the band. Sometimes he followed them all day long.

During the next few years the young boy saw many unusual sights. He saw people gay over some battles and sad over others. And then one awful morning Philip awoke to find the streets filled with crowds weeping instead of laughing. He saw the Capital city draped in black and all the flags hanging down low. When he asked about this, he was told that the flags were at half-mast because President Lincoln had been shot.

It was at Lincoln’s funeral that Philip first realized how sad music could be. The mournful sound of the muffled drums and the solemn, minor strains of music played by the bands marching in the procession, touched his young heart.

But the war scene that made the deepest impression upon Philip was the grand parade of the victorious armies. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and countless bands marched in a procession so long that it took two days to pass the White House. Young as he was, the boy made up his mind that some day he would lead a marching band like these.

The war was ended. Antonio Sousa had come home and returned to his place in the Marine Band. The family went back to their normal way of living.

Antonio Sousa was of Portuguese parentage although he had been born in Spain. When a young man he had come to America, to New York City. He met and married Elizabeth Trinkhaus from Bavaria, who was visiting relatives in Brooklyn. The young couple went to live in Washington, D. C., and in a small brick house at 617 G Street, S.E. John Philip Sousa had been born. There he grew to manhood “in the shadow of the Capitol,” to use his own words.

The out-of-doors appealed to Philip; he liked to play with other boys and go hunting and fishing with his father. But above everything else the boy loved music. He was happy when he was allowed to visit the nearby Marine Barracks during rehearsals. The bandsmen liked him and often let him play the triangle or the cymbals.

When he was very young, Philip had begun to study the violin with an old Spanish friend of his father. Later he studied in an Academy of Music conducted by a son of his first teacher.

“I overheard the teacher ask my father to send me to his school,” said Sousa. “I was terribly insulted when he said, ‘Even if he doesn’t learn anything it will keep him off the street.’

“Although I neither answered a question asked by the teacher nor spoke a word in school, I learned all he taught. I won all the medals he offered in the examinations.... I have them yet, little gold lyres.”

Philip’s violin teacher found fault with his manner of bowing and they had a fiery argument. Angry and disgusted, the boy decided to give up music. He went to work at night in a bakery. His parents insisted that he continue going to school in the daytime, but he could not carry on such a sleepless, strenuous schedule. He gave up the bakery job and returned to the Academy after his father had made peace with the professor.

Although only thirteen years old, Philip organized his first band—a quadrille band he called it. He played the first violin. Seven men, all much older than he, played respectively: the second violin, viola, bass, clarinet, cornet, trombone and drum. They became quite a famous dance orchestra until young Sousa, urged by the other members asked for an increase in pay. When the manager refused him, Philip quit. The other members played on without a raise, but Sousa had lost his job.

Feeling very blue and despondent, Philip was quite in the mood to accept an offer which came to him just then—to play in a circus band. The job seemed full of gaiety and glamour, but he felt sure that his parents would never give their consent. The circus agent also knew this was true, but he finally won the boy’s promise to keep it a secret and go with the company when it left Washington.

Under the cloak of secrecy the idea grew more appealing, but Philip made the mistake of confiding in his friend who lived next door, swearing him to secrecy. The boy promptly told his mother all about it. His mother, just as promptly, told Philip’s mother. Horror-struck she went to her husband, but Philip’s father wisely said nothing to the boy.

The next day, however, Mr. Sousa and his son went out for a walk. The walk ended at the Navy Yard where, a few hours before, Mr. Sousa had conferred with the Commandant, General Zeilin. As a result John Philip Sousa enlisted in the Marine Band June 9, 1868, as a music apprentice.

This was the beginning of Philip’s training for his real career. He soon became an expert cornetist, but he did not neglect his violin practice. And before long he had begun to compose music.

He made friends rapidly. Among them was the Honorable William Hunter, Assistant Secretary of State. Mr. Hunter, a great lover of music, each week invited a group of young students to his home for a musical evening. He always gave them a bountiful supper and never failed to slip a five-dollar bill into the pocket of his favorite, Philip.

After a few years the Marine Band began to lose its glamour for Sousa. He wanted more independence. Through Mr. Hunter’s influence he was released from the organization. He began to teach the violin, and his classes grew fast. At the same time he took lessons from George Benkert, a fine violinist. By playing first violin in the orchestra at Ford’s Opera House, he was able to pay his way.

Soon Philip, a handsome young fellow of nineteen, accepted a position as an orchestra leader in Chicago. And before long he went to Philadelphia to play first violin in Offenbach’s Orchestra which had come from France to play at the Centennial Celebration. He also played in Mrs. John Drew’s popular theater orchestra. Later he managed and coached a company of society folk in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Pinafore.

Then young Philip Sousa fell in love with Jennie Bellis, a pretty sixteen-year-old actress in the opera cast. In less than one year they were married and living in a little home in Philadelphia. Three children were born to them throughout the years, two girls and one boy, Helen, Priscilla and Philip Jr.

On October 1, 1880, Sousa was recalled to Washington from Philadelphia to conduct the Marine Band. He took the group of well-trained but disorganized musicians and succeeded in establishing fine cooperation and rare good feeling. He built the Marine Band into the finest marching band in all America. “The President’s Own,” as it was called, always played at the White House for social and state affairs.

At 26, Sousa was a man of distinctive appearance with his square-trimmed black beard, gold-rimmed eyeglasses and his always immaculate uniforms. He never failed to put on a pair of clean white kid gloves for each performance. In later years after Sousa had achieved great wealth, he stepped into a large Fifth Avenue store in New York City and nonchalantly ordered twelve hundred pairs of white kid gloves, at five dollars a pair.

Although Sousa conducted with a gracious dignity, he seldom smiled. Yet his audience keenly felt his strong, magnetic personality. He had no affectations or mannerisms but stood still in his place very erect, swinging his arms in precise unison in his own individual fashion. The music seemed to come from his expressive hands.

Sousa was a wonderful showman with a keen sense of spectacular effects. Once when giving an outdoor evening concert, he noticed the lights were turned on gradually. First a tiny speck appeared in the darkness, slowly growing into a glaring blaze of light. That gave him an idea. Sousa had his band begin the opening number, Nearer My God to Thee, in a soft, tender pianissimo just as the faint beam of light appeared. The music gradually increased in power as the lights grew brighter, ending in an enormous crescendo as the illumination reached its greatest strength. This was so impressive and pleasing that the audience requested this hymn and the accompanying lighting effects be played throughout the entire season.

The people, not only in the capital city but over the whole United States, were enabled to hear the finest music of the time through John Philip Sousa and the Marine Band. At his request Congress, for the first time, granted permission for the U. S. Marine Band to make concert tours over the country. Those opportunities were appreciated for that was an era when a fine band was a great novelty. Many people gladly traveled long distances to large cities to hear Sousa’s Marine Band.

After twelve years Sousa retired from this great organization. A syndicate of Chicago men asked him to come there and form a band “which would not be excelled by any brass band on earth.” He was offered a huge salary besides a generous interest in the profits. “And in addition,” said Sousa, “they purchased a half interest in all my manuscript compositions and in any others I may write through the next five years. For twelve years, I have been conducting in Washington and my heart is here, but this offer is too good to be refused.”

Sousa had no difficulty in forming his new organization in Chicago. Soloists on the various band instruments and expert bandsmen from all parts of the country, eager to join the famous bandmaster, applied for membership.

Beginning at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1892, this noted concert band traveled all over the United States, playing in every large town and city. They toured many foreign countries and in addition, made one trip around the world, winning the greatest success and honor wherever they appeared. Sousa and his popular band gave command concerts for England’s royalty, and it was a London newspaper man that gave him the title of the “March King.”

Sousa believed that he was inspired to write marches by the influence of the Civil War days during his childhood in Washington. At that time the air was filled with the sound of marching troops and military bands, and this impression had never left him. Sousa is said to have been responsible for the great popularity of marches during the 1890 decade.

The Stars and Stripes Forever came to him during an ocean voyage. Called home by the death of his friend and manager, David Blakesly, he sailed from Naples. He spent hours pacing back and forth on deck, and this music came into his mind and would not leave. When he arrived home, he immediately wrote the composition as he had heard it. This march was published without any change at all, and from its various sources earned Sousa over $300,000.

In World War I Sousa gave up his band and his huge salary to join the Great Lakes Naval Reserve. He became conductor of the Great Lakes Band for which he accepted only one dollar a month. He at once shaved off his luxurious beard—“so the young fellows wouldn’t think me so much older than they.”

The number of enlistments fairly swamped the band quarters. Hundreds flocked to receive instruction from this noted bandmaster. There were so many that Sousa organized a band battalion of 350 with a full quota of officers. The remaining men he put into double battleship units which were assigned to each regiment at the station and to different ships as the Admirals requested. While he was with the Great Lakes Band, Sousa designed a new band instrument—a mellow-toned horn to replace the Helicon tuba with its harsh sound. This Sousaphone is in use in all large bands today.

At the end of the war Sousa reassembled his concert band of eighty-four top-notch players. This was generally acknowledged the finest concert band of all time. He traveled with the group through six months of the year and vacationed the remaining months. For some time Sousa refused to broadcast as he disliked the radio. He said that he missed the direct contact with his audience and the stimulation of its presence and applause. However, when he was seventy-five years old, he accepted the large salary offered him to play weekly broadcasts of one hour each.

Although the world at large knew Sousa as the March King, his more than one hundred marches represent only a small part of his writings. He also composed ten operas, including El Capitan, in which De Wolfe Hopper starred. The Queen of Hearts, The Bride Elect, Chris and the Wonderful Lamp, and The Charlatan, all big successes in their day. He composed more than twenty suites, forty or fifty songs, and a monumental work for orchestra, organ and choir, including The Last Crusade. He wrote three novels: Pipetown Sandy, in which he devoted a chapter describing the two-day march of the victorious U. S. Northern army; The Transit of Venus; and The Fifth String. He was the author of numerous magazine articles, and an illustrated biographical sketch ran serially in the Saturday Evening Post in 1925. His autobiography, Marching Along, was published in 1928.

So many sources of income brought Sousa great wealth. He had always liked to ride horseback, play golf, and shoot clay pigeons at the trap. To indulge in these hobbies he bought a large farm—700 acres—in North Carolina. There he also raised game birds—quail, grouse and partridges, as well as dogs and horses. But Sousa really spent most of his free time at his beautiful home at Sands Point on Long Island, New York. There he was happiest when surrounded by his devoted wife and family. There he often entertained his warm friends, among whom were Thomas A. Edison, Victor Herbert, Irving Berlin and Charles Chaplin.

Sousa was seventy-eight years old when he died of a sudden heart attack, March 6, 1932, at Reading, Pennsylvania. He had gone there to lead the Ringgold band on its eightieth anniversary. His body was brought home to Washington, his birthplace, and lay in state in the bandroom of the Marine Barracks, where at the age of thirteen his musical career had begun.

During his funeral the Senators and Representatives of the U. S. Government paused in their proceedings to pay a tribute to John Philip Sousa, whom they called “The world’s greatest composer of march music.”

Sousa is buried in the Congressional Cemetery on a grassy plot, not far from his beloved Capitol.

“Wherever he has gone,” Deems Taylor wrote, “I am sure he has found a welcome. There is a dining hall in the Elysian Fields marked Grade A Composers Only. If you could look in at the door tonight, you would probably see him there; perhaps not at the speakers’ table with Wagner and Beethoven and Mozart and Bach and Debussy and the rest, but somewhere in the room—at a small table, possibly, with Herbert and Strauss and Delibes.

“‘However did he get in here?’ asks some disapproving shade—a small-town Kapellmeister, probably ... ‘Who got him in?’

“The guide smiles, ‘The marching men. The men who had to go long miles, on an empty belly, under a hot sun, or through a driving rain. They made us take him in. They said he made things easier for them.’”

PATRICK SARSFIELD GILMORE

The Father of the Concert Band

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, America’s first great bandmaster, was born on Christmas Day, 1829, in the village of Ballygar, County Galway, Ireland. His parents hoped that he would go into the priesthood, but that idea did not appeal to Patrick. He loved music more than anything else in the world. Even when a very small boy he had a knack of making his own toys from wood, wire or whatever he could find. Always they were crude musical instruments, fifes, drums or fiddles from which he was able to blow, beat or scrape a bit of a tune.

At fifteen, Patrick having finished the village school, went to work in a mercantile house in the nearby town of Athlone. Several regiments of the British army were stationed in the town, and Patrick could not keep away from their bands. One of the bandmasters, a Mr. Keating, noticed the boy and taught him to play the cornet.

Before long Patrick’s employer discovered that his young clerk was giving more time to music than business. He kindly suggested that the boy teach his own sons what he knew about music. But Pat did not care to teach, he preferred playing. He learned so rapidly that soon Keating gave him a place in a regimental band. Later, when the regiments were sent over to Canada, along went Patrick Gilmore.

When Pat was nineteen, he became tired of the military service. He obtained his release from the British army, and drifted down to Boston which was then the musical center of the United States. Young Gilmore at once found a job in Ordway’s Music Store. This concern which had a band and a minstrel show held his interest for a short time. But Patrick, true to his first love, soon got a place in a band and became known as a skillful cornetist.

It was but a short time until Patrick Gilmore was the leader of the Charleston Band. His second venture in leadership was as the successor of Ned Kendall, the well-known bandmaster of the Suffolk Band. Gilmore’s experience in the army had taught him the value of discipline and practice and with his genial, friendly disposition, he had no trouble in training his bandsmen. His reputation grew as he took over the leadership of the Boston Brigade Band.

About this time a noted French bandleader, Louis Antoine Jullien, arrived in Boston. He had a fine orchestra and used many spectacular effects in his programs. One number which must have made a deep impression on Pat Gilmore was called The Firemen’s Quadrille. In this, fireworks were displayed and a company of firemen appeared drenching the aisles with water from the hose.

Gilmore gave up the Boston Brigade to accept an offer from the Salem Band at “$1,000 a year and all he could make.” After two successful years he returned to Boston where he organized his first band. Gilmore was then twenty-nine years old. Handsome, high-spirited and even-tempered, he made many friends. He was popular in various circles, especially among newspaper publishers, merchants and politicians. Pat never believed in hiding his accomplishments; he used every possible means of advertising himself and his band. He took his organization to the Charleston Convention, in 1860, and to the Lincoln Convention in Chicago’s Wigwam.

When the Civil War came on, Gilmore and his band enlisted in a body in the 24th Massachusetts Volunteers. Governor Andrews named Gilmore Bandmaster-General and Chief Musician of the State of Massachusetts. The regiment was sent to North Carolina, and later to New Orleans where Gilmore was put in charge of all the military bands in the Department of the Gulf.

In 1864, at a huge celebration in honor of the inauguration of the Honorable Michael Hahn as Governor of the Union State of Louisiana, Gilmore staged a spectacular concert. He assembled a chorus of 5,000 school children, a band of 500 pieces, a huge fife and drum corps, with cannon and bells coming in to accent the climaxes. Hail Columbia, Star-Spangled Banner, America and other patriotic choruses were sung. Bandmaster Gilmore scored a great success. He returned home filled with ambition and eager for new worlds to conquer.

Back in Boston he organized a new band, and made a tour of the country, reaping more honors for himself and his new organization. Then Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore conceived the great idea which carried him to the peak of his career. In June, 1867, he told his wife after asking her to keep the matter secret, “I’m going to get up the greatest musical festival and the grandest celebration in the world. It is to be a National Jubilee to celebrate the Coming of Peace throughout the land. It will be held in a great coliseum that will be built to hold 50,000 people.... The excitement over all the country will be tremendous and everybody will rejoice at the idea.”

Gilmore went to work at once on his great project. Boston people thought he was crazy. Neither New York nor Washington would have anything to do with such a wild scheme. Failing to get any city to undertake the plan, he determined to do it himself. With his winning Irish ways Gilmore talked to millionaire bankers, conservative music leaders, doctors, lawyers and merchants, everyone of influence whose interest he desired. And he won their cooperation in almost every case. Julius Eichberg, the director of the staid Boston Conservatory of Music, agreed to conduct the chorus of 20,000 school children. Carl Zerrahn, Boston’s top orchestra leader, promised to direct the mammoth orchestra in several great works. Singing societies from far and near accepted invitations to join the grand chorus of 10,000 voices. They wrote for programs and soon the choral numbers were being practiced in countless towns and cities, all getting ready for the great event.

Gilmore, producer or projector, as many spoke of him, personally carried out his gigantic plans, and neither his powerful energy nor his smiling good humor ever failed him. He wrote hundreds of letters and signed each one. “Praying that the grace of God be with the undertaking and direct it to a successful end.” Although there were great numbers of objectors and opponents to the stupendous scheme, Gilmore, undaunted, worked cheerfully on. Many hundreds of people gave money and help to the happy, confident originator of the plan.

The date was set, June 15, 16, 17, 1869. The immense auditorium, 500 feet long, 300 feet wide and 100 feet high, was erected in St. James Park,—now the site of the Copley-Plaza Hotel. Thousands objected to the huge coliseum, saying that it would be unsafe for a great crowd. Parents protested against the 20,000 children’s chorus singing in the new untried structure. The school board reported this to Gilmore who cleverly suggested that the children sing on the final instead of the first day, after the building had been tested by the crowds at the earlier programs. The school board consented to this.

The coming great Peace Jubilee was the talk of the whole country. Crowds were coming from great distances as well as nearby. Gilmore had won the consent of the railroad companies to sell half-fare train tickets to all visitors. The newspapers advertised low-priced rooms and lodgings. All Boston was hysterically excited over the gigantic celebration. When the huge bass drum arrived on a flat car—it was the largest drum ever made in America up to that time—the crowd of curious people completely jammed the railroad station so that no one could get in or out.

In order to keep the thousands of musicians together in the performance, Gilmore had speaking tubes attached to his music stand through which he gave orders to his various assistant leaders throughout the band and chorus. Beside these tubes were telegraph keys to control the electrified cannon out in the park.

Finally all the arrangements were completed. Gilmore, returning home at midnight June 14, told his wife, “When I even think of tomorrow I can find no words to express my feelings.” Mrs. Gilmore gave him this cheery reply. “... Only two things will afterwards be spoken of as wonderful and miraculous—one is the Creation, the other, your Peace Jubilee.”

At three o’clock on the afternoon of June 15, the doors of the great auditorium were closed. The vast audience, thousands upon thousands, filled the great building from the floor to the roof. The singers, ten thousand of them, were seated on the stage. The one thousand men in the orchestra sat in their places with every instrument tuned in readiness.

The aged Edward Everett Hale offered the opening prayer. After the mayor’s too lengthy address which very few could hear, the concert master, Carl Rosa came on the stage to join the orchestra. Following him, amid great applause came the world’s most noted violinist, Ole Bull, to be the first violin in the orchestra.

Gilmore entered last, wildly cheered. He mounted the high stand. Bowing to the audience his voice trembled with emotion as he uttered a few words of welcome, ending with, “To One alone, the Omnipotent God, all honor, all glory and all praise are due.” He was a striking figure, tall and slender. His face, framed in his black sideburns and distinctive goatee, was pale from excitement. Large, star-shaped, gold studs glittered in the snowy shirtfront of his immaculate costume. Every eye was fixed upon the graceful erect leader. With his hands held straight before him his baton in his right, suddenly the baton was lifted high, then in a forceful swoop, signalled the opening down beat. Band, organ, chorus, all burst forth together in an ecstasy of harmony in the grand old hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

The entire audience went wild and their applause lasted for an unbelievable time. Gilmore, trembling and shaken, although filled with triumph, bowed and hurried from the stage.

The program proceeded in its regular order. Julius Eichberg took his place on the stand to conduct Wagner’s Tannhäuser by the band.

The most spectacular number, The Anvil Chorus from Verdi’s Il Trovatore, had to be repeated at every day’s program by the request of the audience. No one present could ever forget the parade of the Boston Firemen down the aisle to the stage.

When the time came for The Anvil Chorus which Gilmore always directed, he whistled through the tubes, snapped down his upraised hands, and every instrument instantly woke into sound. The clanging anvils shot flaming sparks as the firemen struck their rhythmic blows. At the grand climax the telegraph keys let loose the ear-shattering blasts of the cannon in a magnificent fortissimo. (Gilmore was the first bandleader to fire a cannon by electricity.)

The vast audience was completely carried away by the marvelous voice of the singer, Parepa-Rosa. She created a tremendous sensation by her singing of the Star-Spangled Banner. Dressed in glistening white silk with large buttons of red, white and blue, and diamonds sparkling in her dark hair, she was magnificent. The newspapers gave her great praise. “... Her voice ringing like a trumpet-call above the noise of a thousand instruments, ten thousand voices, the roaring organ, the big drum and the artillery.”

The whole program was a superb success, but the great soprano, Parepa-Rosa, the spectacular arrangement of The Anvil Chorus, and Patrick Gilmore himself, were the outstanding features of the festival.

To everyone’s surprise this huge music festival made a profit, a comparatively small sum, but when added to the proceeds of a benefit concert given for Gilmore, almost $40,000 was presented to him. That he had fairly earned this reward everybody agreed. He immediately went to Europe for a rest, he said, but later it was learned that he had spent much time making contacts with great bands for a bigger and a better Jubilee.

Gilmore who was now acknowledged the country’s greatest bandleader, returned from Europe all agog over another great musical Festival. The siege of Paris and the Franco-Prussian War had ended, so he decided to produce an International Peace Jubilee in Boston. He planned to double the chorus—20,000 instead of 10,000 singers, a band of 2,000 instead of 1,000; and a festival lasting three weeks instead of three days.

His preparations were soon under way. Another enormous auditorium—the first one had burned—and a larger organ were constructed. A bigger drum than at the previous festival was built in Portland, Maine. The heads were 12 feet across and the sides 4 feet high. It was so big that a wall had to be knocked out of the house where it was made in order to get it outside. It was shipped to Boston on an ocean steamer, but only a giant could have struck both sides at once and its thunderous sound was so slow in coming after the beat that it was useless. The World’s Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival was announced for June 17 to July 4, 1872. A whole regiment of soloists was engaged, and Johann Strauss came from Germany to personally conduct the huge orchestra in playing his beautiful Blue Danube Waltz. As the high point in the international Music Festival, Gilmore brought the greatest of Europe’s noted bands. The Grenadier Guards from London, from Paris the Garde Republicaine, The Kaiser Franz Grenadier Regiment Band from Berlin and also from that city, The German Emperor’s Imperial Household Cornet Quartette. The Irish National Band came from Dublin and the United States Marine Band from Washington, D. C.

However, in spite of the world’s most glamorous talent, the second great festival was a flat failure. The crowds would not come. One day there were 22,000 performers on the stage and only 7,000 people in the audience. Although The Anvil Chorus was again on the program and also the Soldiers’ Chorus given with red fire and many other embellishments, yet the people stayed away. No one blamed Gilmore, the unsurpassable, as he was called. He had done his part and produced every attraction which he had advertised.

Gilmore left Boston almost immediately for New York City. He was then forty-four years old, still fired with ambition and a desire to produce huge, perfect, spectacular performances. His band of one hundred players, always the most talented to be found, was in great demand.

In that year, 1873, Gilmore gave his last “big show,” this year in Chicago. It was a series of grand concerts celebrating the restoration of the city after the great fire. The programs were held in the huge concourse of the new passenger station of the Lake Shore Railroad, a room two blocks long, holding 40,000 people—and Gilmore filled it. He added two-hundred musicians to his band, had a chorus of 1,000 singers and to the delight of the audience he again played The Anvil Chorus with firemen, anvils, cannon and bells.

The Gilmore Band in 1875 played at Gilmore’s Gardens in New York City making the unusual record of one-hundred-fifty consecutive concerts to crowded houses. A highlight on the last concert of the season was a cornet quartette by the four greatest cornetists of that time—Arbuckle, Bent, Levy and Gilmore. In 1876 Gilmore and his band starred at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

For thirteen successive summer seasons the Gilmore Band played at New York’s popular Manhattan Beach resort. Gilmore and his noted organization toured the entire United States repeatedly. He was a marvelous organizer, a superfine showman and a good financier and business manager.

As a composer he did not rate high. He is generally given credit for having written the well-known song When Johnny Comes Marching Home, although many believed that he was not the author of the composition. That Gilmore was versatile and resourceful everyone admits. In 1890 when his band was asked to play at General Sherman’s funeral, Gilmore revised Marching Through Georgia, a rather inside-out-version, making an unusual, unknown funeral dirge, yet which many people felt was vaguely familiar.

While playing at the St. Louis Exposition, September 24, 1892, Gilmore died suddenly. His wife and only daughter were with him at the time. John Philip Sousa, Gilmore’s good friend, two days later at the opening concert of his great band at Plainfield, New Jersey, played The Voice of a Departed Soul, one of Gilmore’s own compositions. This seemed to be an appropriate musical finale to the life of a man who had gloried in producing dramatic and spectacular effects.

ARTHUR PRYOR

The clear, mellow tones of a trombone, playing Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep, stilled the noisy crowd until a whisper could be heard. Until that moment no one had paid any attention to the Pryor Band which was serenading General “Black Jack” Logan at the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic at Denver, Colorado, in 1883.

At the close of the solo General Logan hurried out of the meeting to speak to the bandleader, D. S. Pryor. “Who played that trombone? I want to talk to him.”

Removing his bearskin cap, Maestro Pryor proudly said that it was his son Arthur.

“It is God’s gift, and your son has a great future,” said General Logan. Laying his hand on the bushy locks of the bashful twelve-year-old Arthur, the General advised him, “Make the best use of the divine gift you have, boy.”

This incident made such an impression on Arthur’s father that he decided to give his son a more thorough musical training. He secured a Professor Plato, a renowned harmonist and theorist, to teach him.

Arthur Pryor, born September 22, 1870, in St. Joseph, Missouri, was destined to become a musical prodigy. It was in his blood. Back through the generations in his family ran the musical strain, an unfaltering line. His father, Daniel Pryor, was leader of Pryor’s band and “played all instruments.” His mother was a gifted pianist.

At the age of three Arthur beat the drums with such rhythm and skill that the neighbors in admiration forgot to complain about the noise. At six he was playing the piano. Later he did remarkably well on the cornet, alto horn and bass viol.

When Arthur was eleven he played the valve trombone and made his first appearance in Chicago, Illinois, where he was called “the boy wonder.” Soon the lad and his trombone were in great demand in his part of the country, with or without his father’s band.

Arthur reached another milestone at seventeen when his father gave him a slide trombone which he had accepted in payment of a debt. He devoted endless hours to its study under his father’s teaching, and progressed fast.

In later years, Arthur often laughed about his father, a strict teacher, rapping him on the head with a violin bow when he was slow in these lessons. That punishment was stopped after Mr. Pryor had done great damage to a 100 dollar bow.

But the boy did so well that he had a succession of acclaimed appearances at county fairs and other public gatherings in his part of the country. He soon attracted the attention of Liberati, noted cornet soloist of the time, who hired him for his band at Kansas City, Missouri. Arthur was with Liberati from 1888 till 1890.

The twenty-year-old trombonist was engaged for Patrick Gilmore’s band, but instead he accepted the conductorship of the Stanley Opera Company, going to Denver, Colorado.

Then he received his big chance. The great Sousa had heard stories about “a trombone wizard” from the Middle West and sent for him to join him at once. Arthur headed East with a trombone, a ticket to New York, thirty-five cents in cash and a determination to become a “great” in the musical world.

The first night in New York he slept on a bench in Union Square. But the next day at Sousa’s rehearsal the tall, red-haired young man, wearing clothes that badly needed pressing, astounded the veteran bandsmen by his unusual mastery of the trombone.

Pryor became Sousa’s first trombone player in 1892, and the next year played first solo with him at the Chicago Exposition. From premiere soloist he went on to be Sousa’s assistant conductor also. A warm friendship developed between the two musicians, and they traveled together on three world tours in sixteen countries.

An episode that shows Pryor’s trombone magic happened at a concert at the Enclosed Garden in Berlin. Trombonists of six German regiments were there especially to hear him. Pryor played a selection in which he produced his own bass accompaniment, jumping three or four octaves between notes. The vast audience rose en masse and gave him an unprecedented ovation. After the concert the German trombonists approached a German-speaking member of the band and asked permission to examine the master’s instrument. They spent several minutes looking it over, taking it completely apart in the process. Finally they went away grumbling, “It’s impossible. Just another Yankee trick!”

During these years Pryor was christened “the trombone king” and in Germany he was called “the Paganini of the slide trombone.” He estimated that he had played 10,000 solos while he was with Sousa.

Pryor’s association with Sousa ended in 1902. Samuel D. Pryor had recently died, and Arthur took over the band which his father had started one year before Arthur’s birth. With the reorganized band, now made up of some of America’s most talented musicians, Arthur Pryor appeared at the Majestic Theater in New York on November 15, 1903, for his band’s premiere concert.

For the next thirty years Pryor’s band was an internationally known American institution. Critics were lavish in their praise of this group’s simple but original and telling melody. The Pryor organization played at Asbury Park, New Jersey, for nineteen successive summers. From 1904 to 1909 it made six coast-to-coast tours; and for ten straight winters up to 1926, it played at the Royal Palm Park in Miami, Florida. It appeared for ten spring seasons at Willow Grove Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at expositions, state fairs and many public conventions.

Besides, Pryor led his band in various theater and radio engagements, the latter sponsored by General Motors, General Electric, Goodyear Tire and other companies. One popular broadcast, known as the Schradertown Band carried two comics, Gus and Louis, so-called proprietors of the Schradertown Garage.

Pryor was very active in making recordings, notably for the Victor Company. For thirty-one years he was organizer and director of various bands and orchestras making Victor records.

Arthur Pryor was the author of more than 300 compositions, including three light operas, Jingaboo, On the Eve of Her Wedding Day, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Originality, beauty of melody and exceptionally fine and effective arrangements characterize his compositions, many of which were sung, whistled and played over the whole country. On Jersey Shore was a great favorite, particularly with his New Jersey audiences who rose to a man when it was played. Razzazza Mazzazza, Irish King, Goody Two Shoes, and Southern Hospitality were always encore winners. But The Whistler and His Dog, a novelty two-step became a craze everywhere. Audiences demanded it, and whistled it and kept time with their feet to the lively, catchy tune.

Although Pryor remained identified with his band until his death, he virtually retired in 1938. He was always proud of his birthplace, St. “Joe,” Missouri, but New Jersey had been “home” for a long time. Here he lived with his wife, the former Maude Russell, whom he had married in 1895. Their two sons, Arthur, Jr., a bandsman and New York advertising executive, and Roger, orchestra leader and movie actor carry on the inherited musical strain.

Typical of the popularity of the genial, kindly Arthur Pryor was his election in 1933 as freeholder of Monmouth County with 5,000 votes over a veteran politician.

Arthur Pryor, noted bandmaster, composer, and greatest trombone player the world ever had, died June 18, 1942, at his home, in West Long Branch, New Jersey. But his music, which for more than fifty years had set the feet of millions of people throughout the world to marching, lives on.

PATRICK CONWAY

“Don’t worry, Mother,” said fifteen-year old Patrick Conway. “I’ll go to work at the carriage factory and make some money for you.”

Patrick’s father, Martin Conway, had just died, leaving five children and no money. There had never been much money in the Conway home and Patrick had never known his father to be well. Martin Conway while living in Ireland, had served in the British army and had been wounded at Sebastopol during the Crimean War. In 1863 he had brought his wife and baby girl to America, the land of his dreams. He proved his loyalty to his new country by joining the Navy and fighting in the Civil War. Tuberculosis developed and finally caused his death.

Patrick was born July 4, 1865 in Troy, New York. His life, even as a child, was not a carefree one in this home where there was both poverty and illness.

At the time of his father’s death Patrick was an honor student at Homer Academy in Homer, New York, where the family had moved. He willingly gave up his school work for a while in order to help the family. Three of the children were ill with tuberculosis and died within a few years after their father’s death.

Little did Patrick know that he would find his job at the carriage factory a dual one. When Charlie Bates, one of the workers who led the Homer Band learned of Patsy’s interest in the cornet, he said, “So you would like to play the cornet? If you will come to my house after work I’ll give you lessons.... Maybe you can be in the band some day.”

So Patrick worked all day learning the trade of carriage trimming, and walked six miles every evening to take his lessons. But that never seemed to tire him.

Later he joined the band and returned to school for part time work. After he was graduated from Homer Academy at the age of eighteen, he began playing with “Happy Bill Daniel’s Country Band Orchestra” where he gained valuable experience. This proved to be the beginning of his career as a bandsman.

But he needed money to help the family and to continue his studies in music. As soon as he had accumulated enough cash he bought a small cigar factory, which was soon a thriving little business. He left the making of fine cigars and the management of the factory to his brother Martin, so that he could devote his time to his music and study. He enrolled at Ithaca Conservatory of Music and at Cornell University.

“Patsy” continued his band work along with his college work. While he was playing for dances at the old Glen Haven Hotel, he met pretty Alice Randall. He decided at once, “That is the girl I am going to marry.”

After their marriage they lived in Courtland, New York, where their son Paul was born. Then they moved to Ithaca in 1895 when Patrick accepted an offer to teach music at Cornell University. He organized the Cornell Cadet Band and directed it for thirteen years.

Meantime about 1900, the city of Ithaca asked Patrick to start a city band. With the financial backing of Ebenezer Treman, one of the civic minded, wealthy merchants of the town, Patrick was able to bring some of the finest musicians in the world to Ithaca. Some of these musicians took their families and lived there, playing in the old Lyceum Theater Orchestra during the winter season when the band was not on tour.

This band played in practically every music and amusement center in the country. They went on many tours such as: the Buffalo Exposition; the St. Louis World’s Fair; the Cincinnati Zoo; Riverview park, Chicago; the Corn palace at Mitchell, South Dakota; and state fairs in the western states.

About 1904 Patrick’s engagements at Willow Grove Park, a popular resort near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and at Young’s Pier at Atlantic City, New Jersey began. These continued for many years.

In 1908 Patrick took over the Ithaca Band and gave it the name, “Patrick Conway and his Band.” People who had never heard of Ithaca began to hear about the band which took prizes at concerts given in various cities of the East. An old Ithacan used to reminisce, “Some bands wouldn’t even enter if they knew ‘Patsy’ and his bunch of terrors had.”

The next move was to Syracuse, New York. By that time Conway was making transcontinental tours with fifty or sixty men in the band as well as a dozen fine soloists.

In 1915 he played a long engagement at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. His friend Sousa was there at the same time, and on one occasion they each conducted part of a great concert in which both bands were massed.

In Syracuse during the winter months Conway organized and conducted the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra as well as a theater orchestra. He also did some composing but published only one march. His band made a number of records for Victor.

During World War I Patrick Conway was commissioned as Captain in the U. S. Army Air Force and sent to Waco, Texas to establish the first Air Force Band. At the same time Sousa was starting the Navy Band at Great Lakes Training Station.

Sorrow came into Patrick and Alice Conway’s lives when their son Paul died at the age of twenty-six. Paul, a pianist of great promise, had also played an instrument in his father’s band until his health failed following an accident when he was eighteen.

The family moved back to Ithaca in 1922. Patrick was made dean of the Conway Band School which was affiliated with the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. During the school year he trained a remarkably fine student band. He took a number of these boys with the big band on the summer tours. How the boys worked for that privilege!

During the winter he went into New York to hear good music and to broadcast on the General Motors Family Hour with Mary Garden, Nora Bayes, and other celebrities. He organized and rehearsed amateur symphony orchestras made up of business and professional men and women in several small cities of New York.

Bandmaster Patrick Conway, like his Irish friends, Patrick Gilmore and Victor Herbert, had two gifts often said to be peculiar to their nationality—the gift of music and the gift of making friends. But Patrick Conway had still another rare gift—that of inspiring his students with his own ideals. Countless young men turned to musical careers after finding a master teacher and a loyal friend in “Patsy” as they affectionately called him.

Conway was a striking figure as he directed his boys in almost faultless renditions of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Greig, Debussy and other great composers. The simplicity that characterized him was evident in his manner of conducting. He believed, “The conductor’s motions are intended as signs and suggestions to his musicians—nothing more. He doesn’t need to do a thing to entertain his audience. His band is there for that purpose, and the more he devotes himself to directing, the better the band will succeed in its purpose.”

A Conway band was equally at home with military selections and popular music. No leader of that day knew better how to make programs that the public wanted and yet make them like only the best.

If Conway had any leisure time, he knew what to do with it. Reading or hiking with one of his dogs as a companion were popular pastimes. He collected authentic stories about early days in the West.

His favorite sports were boxing and baseball. Each year at the opening game at the New York Polo Grounds he took a small band to play for his old friend, John J. (Muggsie) McGraw.

Patrick Conway died at Ithaca, June 10, 1929, at the height of his usefulness. At the time of his death the Ithaca Journal News paid the following tribute: “It is no small thing to have gladdened the hearts of the people, to have lifted them repeatedly above the mundane and trivial, to have made them forget the heat of the working day in the exaltation of good music. This was Patrick Conway’s contribution to his time, and for it he has earned the heartfelt gratitude of more than one generation. His own tradition of uncompromising musicianship, his belief in offering the best to popular audiences will be carried on by those who have learned from him.”

EDWIN FRANKO GOLDMAN

“What do you want to play young fellow?” asked the instructor of the grade school band, turning to the applicant next in line.

“The cornet, sir,” replied the boy.

“You’re pretty young, aren’t you?” said the teacher, looking closely at the small, bright-eyed lad.

“I’ll soon be nine, sir,” the youngster replied, eagerly, though he was really stretching a point.

“Well, we’ll try you on an alto horn in the second alto section. What’s your name?”

“Edwin Goldman, sir.”

Just two weeks later Edwin was asked to remain after band practice. “What’s the matter boy?” asked the bandleader, “You don’t seem to be able to play.”

“It’s hard to read that second part, sir,” said Edwin. “I’d rather learn to play the cornet.”

“You’d better wait a year or two. I told you before that you are too young. That’s all. Turn in your instrument.”

Eddie rushed out of the room fearing his tears would be discovered, while the young teacher hurriedly wrote “No talent” after the name of Edwin Goldman.

However the boy’s keen disappointment was so evident that two weeks later the teacher said, “Well, Edwin, I’ll give you another try—on the cornet this time—we’ll see what you can do.”

Edwin quickly showed what he could do. He made such amazing progress that it was evident he had his full share of his family’s talent.

Edwin Franko Goldman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, January 1, 1878. He had a rare heritage in a fine musical and cultural background.

Edwin’s mother, Selma Franko, came of a line of famous musicians. She was the oldest of sixteen children, and so many in that large family were musical that eight grand pianos were kept in their home to allow all who wished to practice. Selma, a talented violinist and pianist, was one of the five Franko children who toured the United States and Europe as young musical prodigies.

David Goldman, the father of Edwin, was also a brilliant pianist and violinist, but as an amateur only. He devoted his life to the profession of law. He was highly educated, widely traveled and very prominent in his field. Having descended from such a family, it is small wonder that from his earliest boyhood young Edwin dreamed that some day he would become a great musician.

The Goldman family moved to Evansville, Indiana, later to Terre Haute. When Edwin was eight years old they left the middle west to live in New York City.

Through his admittance to the public school band Edwin had obtained possession of a cornet. His faithful practicing nearly drove the neighborhood to distraction. Even his devoted family protested at the labored trills, runs and scales. But deaf to all criticism, the boy persisted. Before very long Edwin was asked to play at all the neighborhood parties, and his music was the pride of his school. He was voted the most popular boy in his class and received a prize for excellent playing when he was graduated.

At fourteen, Edwin Franko Goldman won a scholarship at the National Conservatory of Music where he studied composition under the great Antonin Dvorak. Next year, Jules Levy then the world’s greatest cornetist, hearing Edwin play, gave him an approving pat on the back as he said, “Someday you will be a great cornetist—you put your whole soul into the tones.” Levy, realizing the boy’s talent was happy to take him as a free pupil.

Two years later—at seventeen—Dr. Walter Damrosch chose Edwin Franko Goldman to be the solo cornet player in the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra. “The Baby of the Met,” the players called him; he was so small and so young. In fact, he was the youngest musician ever to hold such an important place in that great organization. There Goldman had the privilege of playing under the direction of Mahler, Hertz and for a while, under Toscanini.

For ten full years Edwin Goldman held this position. In the meantime he organized and directed small orchestras which were then in popular demand. Later on he began to play in various bands during his vacations at the Metropolitan. In 1912 he announced that he was going to give up his work in the Metropolitan Opera House organization. His family and friends disapproved and objected.

“What do you intend to do?” they asked. Goldman would not give them a direct answer. He had an idea, but he was not ready to disclose it. He began to teach the cornet and the trumpet. He attracted pupils from all parts of the United States and even from some countries in Europe. Goldman’s warm, magnetic personality combined with his outstanding musical ability made him a marvelous teacher.

While continuing his teaching this energetic young man conducted many series of band concerts in the New York area. He liked this work, but he was surprised and disgusted at the lack of systematic and adequate training among bands. They played in a haphazard way, trying solely for volume and noise. Goldman had always felt that this great difference between band and orchestra playing should not exist. He determined to form a band and train it in accordance with his own ideals. This had been his real reason for leaving the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra.

For a long time Edwin Goldman had envisioned a band with great wind instruments of much power, yet rivalling an orchestra in delicacy of tone and style. Now he hoped to form an organization of fine musicians and direct them in the production of great works played in this symphonic manner.

Few people sympathized with Goldman’s ideas. Most of those to whom he confided his plans assured him that he could never succeed. But Edwin Goldman had great faith and unlimited persistence. His first object was to collect the best available players of wind and percussion instruments, and with them raise the standards of bands and band music.

Having assembled his quota of chosen men, Goldman, as manager and conductor, founded the New York Military Band. (A few years later this name was changed to The Goldman Band.) With this group he put into use the methods, and ways of directing which he had learned from the great conductors under whom he had played at the Metropolitan Opera House. Goldman directed each player as if he were giving him private lessons. He marked instructions in red ink on their music scores, even telling them when to breathe. At first, the men objected to his strict supervision. “He treats us like kindergartners!” they said. Goldman held long, careful rehearsals which many of the players resented at the time, but later they found that a man trained by this expert teacher could become a welcome member of any first-class symphony orchestra.

By his own efforts Goldman collected a fund of $50,000, and in 1918 on The Green of Columbia University, The Goldman Band opened its first season of free summer concerts. This new Symphonic Brass Band was a distinct success. The newspapers praised it highly and people by the thousands flocked to the concerts. A few years later Columbia needed The Green for new buildings, and the band concerts were given on the Mall in Central Park three nights each week. On two nights weekly, concerts were played in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

In 1924 Daniel Guggenheim took over the costs of the concerts, making them a gift to the city of New York. The necessary money is now donated by the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation. The Goldman Band has given many programs in other parks, other cities and even in Canada.

An interesting new feature was initiated on the Goldman Concert program on the Mall in 1925—an Annual Music Memory Contest. For twelve consecutive years Aaron Gold, a middle-aged, leather craftsman, from the Bronx, won the first prize in this event. This music lover claimed to have gained all his musical knowledge through his attendance at the Goldman Band Concerts.

The Goldman Band, one of the first great organizations to play over the radio, was chosen to play on NBC’s opening program, November 15, 1926. This band is said to have had a greater listening audience than any other musical group.

In 1930 Dr. Goldman founded the American Bandmasters’ Association made up of all the prominent Band Conductors of the United States and Canada. The members elected Goldman their first president and some years later he was made honorary life president. This influential group has become a power in upholding the ideals of band music so long desired by Dr. Goldman.

At first bandleaders were obliged to use orchestral scores of the great masters’ compositions, rearranged for band instruments. Only expert musicians could make such arrangements successfully and it was an expensive procedure. Early in his career as bandleader Goldman had written to every living composer of note asking them to compose music for the band. “At first they all thought it was a joke,” said Dr. Goldman with a chuckle, “but now, more band music is written than can be used. A number of famous men, such as Grainger, Holst, Copland, Shostakovitch, Milhand, Gould and others, have been contributors to the repertoire of band music.”

On Dr. Goldman’s seventieth birthday, January 1, 1949, an unsurpassable tribute was paid to this man who had worked for years to have music—good music—composed especially for bands. The august League of Composers presented in his honor a program of their music for symphonic bands which was played by Goldman’s Concert Band in Carnegie Hall, New York City.

The Band was jointly led by Walter Hendl, the assistant director of the New York Philharmonic Association Society, and Percy Grainger, composer-conductor. This was the first time a program of art music written by noted living composers especially for the band, had been offered to the public.

Edwin Franko Goldman and Adelaide Marbrunn were married in 1908. Throughout the years they have shared a great love for music. Two children were born to them, Richard Franko and Louise Elizabeth. Richard Franko Goldman a thorough musician, a pianist, composer, arranger and musicologist, is the assistant conductor of the Goldman Band. Louise Goldman married and has a young son who seems to have inherited the Goldman musical talent, and incidentally, he is the apple of his grandfather Goldman’s eye.

A short time ago this eight-year-old Michael who began studying music at the age of six, brought a brief music manuscript to his grandfather. It was entitled “A Song to Music” and it was “Dedicated” to Gramp. Neatly written in the key of four sharps, the final measure began with a half-rest and ended with two full-toned chords high on the staff in the right hand part.

“Gramp, do you know why I put the half-rests in the last measure?” asked the budding composer.

“No, why did you?” queried Dr. Goldman.

“Why you see I had to have time to get my hands up there on the keyboard,” replied the lad proudly. So watch for his name among future composers, “Walter Michael Freed.”

The dynamic, but genial and kindly Dr. Goldman likes people and people like him. He has many friends among the musical “greats” of today and yesterday. And he knew intimately the noted bandleaders of the past generation.

He admired the inimitable Patrick Gilmore who was the real founder of the Concert Band. He enjoyed playing cornet duets with his good friend, Herbert L. Clarke, known as the World’s greatest cornetist.

Although Goldman was almost a quarter of a century younger than John Philip Sousa, the two were firm friends. At a party one evening at which Dr. Goldman entertained a number of noted musicians, Sousa remarked to the younger man, “I have always meant to tell you that I owe much of my success to your mother’s family. The first really fine music I ever heard was played by the five Franko children. When I was a school boy I attended their concert in Washington and I was thrilled and inspired by their wonderful playing.”

“Would you like to see one of those children again, Mr. Sousa?” asked Dr. Goldman.

“Nothing would please me more,” replied Sousa.

“Come with me then,” said Goldman. He ushered the guest into the next room, and proudly led him to a lovely white-haired lady. “Mother,” he said as they smiled tenderly at each other, “I wish to present my good friend John Philip Sousa who heard the Franko children play long ago.”

“Do you remember the little girl with the long braids, Mr. Sousa?” Her dark eyes twinkled as she pointed to a photograph of the five Franko children on the wall nearby.

“Indeed I do,” said Sousa. Stepping close to the picture he added, “There she is, the one on the left.”

“I am she—Selma”—said Mrs. Goldman smiling.

“At last I can thank you,” Sousa replied, “for your fine music which gave me inspiration and strengthened my desire to be a musician.”

If Dr. Goldman were the kind of man who glories in display, the walls of his spacious studio would be crowded with various medals, emblems and scrolls. He has received countless gifts and honors. He is the first musician to have been given official honors from the City of New York, including a beautiful New York City flag, several medals and watches, besides scrolls upon which are written official resolutions. Boston, San Francisco, Toronto (Canada), many other large cities and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have bestowed similar recognition upon this outstanding musician.

An unique honor has been given to Dr. Goldman by the Pawnee Tribe of American Indians who made him an Indian Chieftain and gave him the name of Chief Bugle. And not only has his native land shown its appreciation of Goldman’s achievements, but other countries as well. France made him Officer de l’Instruction Publique. Italy presented him with the medal of Cavaliere of the Order of the Crown.

Czechoslovakia made him a member of the Order of the White Lion. Various Universities have conferred upon Dr. Goldman their honorary degree of Doctor of Music. He also belongs to many musical organizations, fraternities and unions. And indicative of his love for young people, Dr. Goldman never fails to name his position as Music Counselor of the 4-H Clubs of the United States and also of the Boy Scouts of America.

But the honor which gave Dr. Goldman the “most profound satisfaction of all” was the presentation by Mrs. Sousa of her late husband’s favorite baton. Mrs. Sousa said, “I feel that my husband would have wanted this baton to go to his good friend, Edwin Franko Goldman.” Most leading musicians agreed that the honor of being the “Dean of American Bandmasters” rightfully went from Sousa to Goldman, “the man who had brought the band to a high pitch of musical perfection.”

Several books, very valuable to bandsmen, have been written by Dr. Goldman. Band Betterment, published in 1934 and The Goldman Band System which came out in 1936 are two of these. His first book, The Foundation to Cornet Playing has been most popular with ambitious cornetists and it quickly sold more than one quarter of a million copies. A new series by Dr. Goldman is being brought out.

Facing The Music, the famous bandmaster’s autobiography, is to appear shortly.

More than one hundred marches have been composed by Dr. Goldman, many of which have become so popular that he ranks next to Sousa in that field. On The Mall, Goldman’s best-known march, is often requested by the concert crowds who, without a signal from the leader, spontaneously join in singing or whistling the trio. Brooklyn is equally enthusiastic when he plays Hail Brooklyn, a march which Goldman composed and dedicated to the people of Brooklyn.

The United States Government recognizes Dr. Goldman’s great musical ability. Recently he was appointed on a committee of three to make a survey of the Government Service Bands in various centers including Japan and the Philippines, and to suggest ways of improving these bands.

Dr. Goldman generously gives much time to worthwhile musical efforts of various groups. Regularly, once each year, he conducts the Salvation Army Band in New York City. And also, every year, he leads the band at the Swedish Orphans’ Home to aid their money-raising campaign.

Young, talented musicians may be sure of a sympathetic hearing from this great-hearted man of music. He is always happy to discover and promote new musical geniuses.

At the funeral of the well-known Negro singer and composer, Harry Burleigh, Dr. Goldman was attracted by an unusually beautiful voice among the singers. He at once sought her out, gave her an audition and offered her an opportunity to sing at the Goldman Band Concerts.

Dr. Goldman is an unforgettable figure. He is a handsome man with wavy, white hair, brilliant dark eyes and a quick friendly smile. He is not tall, but slender, trimly built and of distinguished appearance.

This maker of “music for the masses” is one of New York City’s best-known men. While band music is his chief interest, he indulges in a hobby, that of collecting autographs and letters of composers, conductors, musicians and other famous people. Besides his other numerous activities, Dr. Goldman finds time to aid his “pet project”—School and College Bands.

Since the beginning of this movement Dr. Goldman’s efforts for its advancement have been continuous. As a judge at contests and music festivals, adviser and consultant, he has freely given his time. “These High School and College Bands have a wonderful future and will exert a great influence upon our country’s music,” said this music authority. Dr. Goldman is in great demand as a judge or speaker at all music festivals.

He firmly believes that every child should learn to play a musical instrument. “With that hobby,” says Dr. Goldman, “boys will not loaf or linger on the streets, not knowing what to do with their spare time. Now, with shorter work hours, people have more unoccupied time. Those who become interested in music will be interested in all the better things of life—art, literature, and sculpture. The only worthwhile things that last are cultural things. Music will remain with them forever.”