From “The Washington Post” by The U.S. Marine Band to “The Stars And Stripes Forever” by The Sousa Band

 

(In Which All The Big Records Are By Marching Bands Because That’s The Only Sound The Equipment Was Able To Pick Up)

If you wanted to record music in the 1890s, it had to be loud. As you might expect from a technology uncapable yet of creating copies, severe technical limitations needed to be overcome. Not only did the music have to be loud, it had to be clear. The sort of noise that could pound its way down to the stylus at the end of the horn. We’re talking trumpets, we’re talking trombones. Not tubas however, as the notes they played shot right up into the air, very much in the wrong direction.

Only in miniature however. You couldn’t fit in an entire marching band into the studio, all crowded close around one single horn. Even if you could, the recording instruments wouldn’t be able to cope. All it would record was a massive buzz of noise. So instead of the entire entertainment spectacle that came with  a marching band of hundreds upon hundreds, they tried to replicate all of that, with a band the average size of eight. They did a remarkable job. And recorded a ridiculous number of records. Given how famous and therefore busy these marching bands were it’s kind of amazing they bothered making records at all. That’s possibly another reason for only sending a handful of musicians to the laboratory.

Sousa’s Band wasn’t the first marching band to record and to have those recordings popular in the phonograph parlours. The U.S. Marine Band – a marching band so prestigious that it provided the music for The White House and was often prefaced with the boast “The President’s Own” - had briefly held that title, but John Sousa was the conductor of that band too. 50 recordings of the U.S. Marine Band were included in Columbia Records first catalogue in 1890. Along with the collected works of George W. Johnson these were pretty much the first hit records.

Not that John was likely involved in the recording himself – what with his attitude to “canned music” mentioned above, although being such early days he may not have formed an opinion yet – he was too busy doing more important work such as writing made-to-order marches for Presidents, specifically President Chester A. Arthur, possibly the most forgotten U.S. President ever. Chester hoped that the march – “Semper Fidelis”, it’s Latin for “Always Faithful” - would help him be less forgotten. It seems likely that Sousa himself forgot about it, since it didn’t get published until 1888, two years after poor Chester died.  It would get recorded in 1890 and, um, it’s not one of Sousa’s better tunes (“Semper Fidelis” is a 3), it’s an appropriately forgettable tune for one of America’s most forgettable presidents, so let’s talk about one of Sousa’s best tunes… The U.S. Marine Band’s first big cylinder success, “The Washington Post March.”

“The Washington Post March” had been written by John Sousa a year earlier, performed for the first time in public at an amateur essay-writing awards ceremony, held by “The Washington Post” newspaper, or more specifically, The Washington Post Amateur Authors Association. The winner was a 19-year-old girl called Mary Priest who wrote about a friend of hers named Helen and her dreams of - against her parent’s wishes! – becoming a nurse. Reflecting the same tear-jerker tendencies that would inform much of the pop of the era, Helen died of yellow fever whilst looking after the patients she loved. Mary was of the opinion she should have listened to her parents and stayed and brightened up their family home.

For an amateur essay-writing competition, the attendances were staggering! 25,000 people. One in ten Washingtonians! Most of them were reportedly members of the The Washington Post Amateur Authors Association. The U.S. Marine Band was simply bonus entertainment. But what a bonus! Also, what a way to introduce your latest hit marching tune!

And what a tune!

Let us stop for a second to stand at attention and salute, the utter awesomeness of “The Washington Post March”, a tune within a tune within a tune. It’s like four of the most recognisable and catchiest melodies ever written being smacked down in front of you, one after another. A medley of melodies, each one capable of being a classic tune of its own. The bit that goes “ba-ba ba-ba-ba baaaaa b-b-b-b-baaaaaaa b-b-b-b-baaaaaaa!!!!” Classic! The bit that goes “da-da-da da-da-da da da da da da-da-da d-d-da da daaaaaa!!!!” That could be its own song!!!! Every section of “The Washington Post March” – and “The Washington Post March” is written in the marching band “standard form” of “IAABBCCDCDC” – is instantly recognisable. That doesn’t happen often. To have the I, the A, the B, the C, and the D, to all be such utter earworms… that doesn’t happen often. Even Sousa couldn’t make it happen all the time. See “Semper Fidelis”, the made-to-order President Chester Arthur march mentioned above.

As is the case with a lot of such ubiquitous tunes, the 1890 version of “Washington Post March” by U.S. Marine Band sounds distinctly odd, and only part of that can be attributed to the terrible technology of the time. Every other version of the “Washington Post March” you have ever heard has been brighter and blastier, every other version you have ever heard has been filled with considerably greater quantities of vim and vigour, than the jerky, clunky and ghoulishly slow version that the U.S. Marine Band dished up back in 1890. This will not prevent the tune from being stuck in your head all day though.

As well as being an incredibly catchy earworm, dancers also found that “The Washington Post March” was remarkably good for doing the two-step to. In fact, the perfect piece of music for doing the two-step to. “The Washington Post March” thus became the dance-sensation sweepin’ the nation! And rightfully so! ("The Washington Post March" is a 7)

The U.S. Marine Band was an extremely loud band. Even when only a miniature version – small enough to fit into the Columbia recording studio/laboratory – it was an extremely loud band. And Sousa had a way with naming his tunes to emphasize this loudness. Case in point: “The Thunderer” - also from 1890 – in Sousa goes into battle against the primitive recording technology of the time and pounds it to a pulp, leaving a trail of distortion and static behind. It’s virtually nothing but crackling noise, but it’s crackling noise with a mission. ("The Thunderer" a 6)

Simply writing ubiquitous marches wasn’t enough for Sousa. Sousa had dreams. Pretentious dreams. Dreams of writing an operetta. Everyone wanted to write an operetta in those days, particularly – or so it feels – those artists operating in genres not suited to operetta. Sousa tried to write one called “The Devil’s Deputy” but he never managed to finish it. One of the tunes he did manage to compose for the project however, with "The Liberty Bell."

“The Liberty Bell” is a bombastic, distorted affair. It frizzles and sizzles. Even though it’s only a slither of the whole band, the noise they make is still too much for the primitive technology to handle. Even though it’s only a slither of the whole band, they are still apocalyptically loud. Then they applaud themselves at the end. That is not picked up well by the horns. It sounds like a walrus dying. ("The Liberty Bell" is a 6)

Sousa’s dream of writing an operetta came true a few years later, in 1896, when he finally finished “El Capitan”, featuring a plot that suggested he may have a sense of humour after all. The Viceroy of 16th Peru is worried that he’s about to be assassinated and thus disguises himself as the rebel leader. The results are hilarious. The shenanigans plentiful. And he had another hit in the coin-arcades with a medley of its component tunes: “The El Capitan March.”

Given that it’s a medley of hit tunes, you might expect “The El Capitan March” to be quite wonderful. I mean, if “The Washington Post March” can sound like a medley of classic hits, despite only being one single composition. what would a literal medley sound like? Sadly, not as good. ("The El Capitan March" is a 5)

Whilst Sousa was following his operatic dreams, the rest of the band – or at least the handful that could fit in front of a phonograph horn - was embracing more syncopated grooves.

Or at least the trombonist Arthur Pryor was. 

Since Sousa refused to have anything to do with the recording process, Arthur took over the band. Being a trombonist, Arthur was deeply into the bottom end of the marching band, deeply into the groove. And being from St. Louis he had grown up, not only in the centre of America, but near the centre of a lot of what was happening in Black America. What’s more, he was actually taking notice of what was happening in Black music. Which he then turned into tunes for minstrel shows. Minstrel show tunes such as “Coon Band Contest,” aka “The Tune That Won The Ham For That Coon Band”* an oddball little song in that it’s a song that makes fun of itself. Arthur describes the song that the band is playing as a “dismal sound.” He describes it as “flat” and “queer.” It’s a song that gets stuck in everyone’s head, leading them to hate the composer so much that he gets shot. But the band does win the contest with it, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose. After all, they did win a ham!

This song, this “flat”, “queer”, “dismal sound” that prompts the listener to engage in a murderous rampage, is Arthur’s own song. And, as a nice little detail, the murdered composer is a trombone player, just like Arthur himself.

None of these plot points appear on Arthur’s recorded version however, since it’s an instrumental. The technology was nowhere near advanced enough to record the human voice in addition to a blistering marching band.  Instead it’s an extremely repetitive and rapidly played little jingle that will get stuck in your head. It’s stuck in my head right now! (“Coon Band Contest” is a 6)

Arthur broke away from Sousa in 1903 - in the middle of a Russian tour - started his own marching band, reputedly because he wasn’t getting enough trombone solos. Arthur was a passionate proponent of the trombone; he believed that the trombone did not get the respect that it deserved.

This was rectified with “Blue Bells Of Scotland”, a hundred year old Scottish folk song that was actually named “Bluebells Of Scotland”, after the flower. Arthur starts off playing the mournful melody straight and slow. Then the rest of the band join in for a bit and they play it fast.

And then, Arthur, he just goes off and does some truly amazing things. Things that are reputed to be virtually impossible for a trombone to do. Such as jumping three and a half octaves and landing on a farting noise! Such as more notes than you’ve ever heard a trombone play before!! (“Blue Bells Of Scotland” is a 7)

Since Arthur had been leading and arranging the Sousa recording sessions anyway, there’s not too much difference between their records and the stuff that had been recorded under the Sousa name. They simply picked up where their Sousa cylinders had left off, playing a mixture of instrumental versions of the big pop hits of the day, the occasional piece of classical music (their version of the 1812 Overture being a particularly popular recording) and a whole lot of ragtime, a pop phenomenon which I’ll be discussing soon.

As for those “big pop songs” of the day, what were they?

*I feel I need to warn you here that a lot of the hit songs of this period will feature the c-word in their titles. The c-word was omnipresent throughout popular culture, there is no getting around it. And whilst definitely derogatory, there were worse things to be called. Although come to think of it, those words were pretty ubiquitous as well. Arthur himself recorded a jerky, foreboding, groovy thing called “Darkie’s Temptation.” Quite why it’s called that has been lost in the mists of time. It probably did originally have words. Like “Coon Band Contest” it was probably written with the aim of being a minstrel show classic. It no doubt told a funny story at the “darkies” expense. But all we have is an instrumental: a “flat”, “queer”, “dismal sound’ of an instrumental. It’s rather good. (“Darkies Temptation” is a 6)