Session 5: Marches and Rags: The Columbian Exposition

History of Popular Music; Prof. Jenkins

I. Brass Band Culture

a. After the Civil War and into the first decades of the 20^th century, most Northern towns had a brass band to play concerts, parades, and events. By 1889 one journalist reported that there were over 10,000 such bands in the US. The proffered an interesting mixture of patriotism and popular culture. The trend had less impact in the South until the early 20^th century.

b. Standard band had at least ten members, with most bands including roughly seventeen players. There were male and female bands (e.g. Helen May Butler’s Ladies Military Band). The famous professional bands were much larger: 80-100 performers in a single band!

II. John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) was the most popular bandleader of the era, known as the “March King.” He conducted the US Marine Band (starting at the age of 26) as well as his own commercial band. He wrote many famous marches, including “Stars and Stripes Forever,” the US National March.

a. Sousa hated recording; “The Menace of Mechanical Music” (1907): “Sweeping across the country with the speed of a transient fashion in slang or Panama hats, political war cries or popular novels, comes now the mechanical device to sing for us a song or play for us a piano, in substitute for human skill, intelligence and soul.”

b. Still, starting in 1893, he allowed his band to record and even use his arrangements. These recordings were often conducted by Arthur Pryor, Herbert L. Clarke, and Walter B. Rogers.

c. Herbert L.Clarke—cornet virtuoso—recorded his own composition, “Caprice Brilliante (The Debutante)” with Sousa’s Band for Victor Records on October 21, 1908. This record had an influence on Louis Armstrong and many other cornetists/trumpeters. Another great example of the precision of the Sousa band on record is “Falcon March” (1910) conducted by the trombonist Arthur Pryor. Notice that Pryor rearranged the composition specifically to make it shine on record—he clears enough space that you can actually hear the bass (and the bass part is quite impressive). It is a remarkable recording for 1910. Pryor also recorded many cakewalks and rags (more on rags below). “Trombone Sneeze: a Humoresque Cakewalk” (1902 for Victor)—note the prevalence of trombone “smears” (probably derived from minstrel practice) adding a new effect to band music (and one used in ragtime a lot); there are also blue notes and a bit of improvisation.

d. Sousa was key in the history of copyright—negotiated royalty payments with publishers.

III. World’s Fair: Columbian Exposition; Chicago May 1, 1893—October 30, 1893

a. Celebrated the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. The fair had a major impact on architecture, sanitation, the arts, and Chicago’s standing in the country (not to mention, it was the occasion of the U.S.’s first serial killer—H.H. Holmes).

b. The fairgrounds (known as the White City) were designed in the Beaux Arts style—with an emphasis on balance and symmetry. This was a temporary section of the city with 690 acres and nearly 200 new buildings, canals, and lagoons. The White City and the Exposition as a whole quickly became a symbol of American Exceptionalism.

c. The “Midway Plaisance” (the origin of the term “midway” to refer to carnivals including sideshows) contained several attractions and amusements separate from (and prior to the charge for) the main exhibition halls. The original Ferris Wheel (by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.) appeared there (and by some reports saved the fair financially). Inside were to-size reproductions of Columbus’s three ships and the first “commercial movie house” showing moving pictures to accompany lectures by Eadweard Muybridge on animal locomotion.

IV. The Ragtime Craze (1895-1918)

a. Syncopated (“ragged”) music that began as dance music in red-light districts in African-American venues in St. Louis and New Orleans. Seems to have been, in part, an attempt to add syncopation to the marches of composers like Sousa, perhaps combining rhythmic aspects of minstrel music (the constant activity, syncopation, and staccato notes certainly bring the banjo to mind) and the form and meter of the march.

b. Ernest Hogan was one of the pioneers and may have coined the term. 1895: published two of the earliest rags, “All Coons Look Alike to Me” and “La Pas Ma La Rag.”

c. Also 1895: Kerry Mills (white classically trained violinist) released the first published ragged cakewalk with “Rastus on Parade” and followed that in 1897 with the very popular self-published “A Georgia Camp Meeting.” Sousa’s band recorded this in 1908.

d. First song with ragtime accompaniment was Bert Williams “Oh, I Don’t Know, You’re Not So Warm!” (1896).

e. Scott Joplin (1868?-1917) became one of the most celebrated composers of the genre. Major hits include “Maple Leaf Rag” (1899) and “The Entertainer” (1902).

f. Typical Form Patterns include: AABBACCC’; AABBACCDD; AABBCCA.

g. Arthur Pryor recorded several successful ragtime marches with the Sousa band including his own compositions “A Coon Band Contest” (1906) with smears and a surprising freedom of tempo (toward the end) and “Canhanibalmo Rag” (1911) with a freedom with respect to the beat (falling behind beat).

V. Ragtime Banjo: Vess Ossman and Fred Van Eps

a. Ossman made the first ragtime record in 1896 for Columbia called “Ragtime Medley. He went on to record as soloist, with an orchestra, and with a trio (banjo, mandolin, and harp guitar). 1906: trio recording of “St. Louis Tickle.” (The B-section of this song is known as the “Funky Butt” like the bar in New Orleans and is connected to the unrecorded but celebrated early jazz cornetist Buddy Bolden; Jelly Roll Morton claimed it was written by Bolden—he called it Buddy Bolden’s Blues) 1907: “Maple Leaf Rag” with Prince Orchestra.

b. Van Eps was faster, cleaner, and more precise than Ossman but less funky, less exciting. He learned to play by listening to and emulating Ossman’s records (an early example of a tradition built through recording). Ragtime becomes a kind of concert music with Van Eps and starts to fall from favor. “Persiflage” (1925) is a good example of ragtime losing some of its verve.