Early Military Band RecordingsEssay Preview: Early Military Band RecordingsReport this essayMilitary Band RecordingsIn Britain and in continental Europe, military bands of the various army regiments and some naval establishments formed the backbones of many record catalogues, from the earliest days of the industry until the end of World War I. Their repertoires, which covered a great range of popular and light classical material in addition to marches, was later undertaken by studio orchestras and then by established symphony and concert orchestras. The popularity of military bands in the U.S. during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries was immense.
Such bands flourished in communities across the nation, playing all categories of popular music in addition to marches. The early record companies, cylinder and disc, gave high priority to band music. An Edison recording session of June 1889 brought forth six numbers by Duffy and Imgrunds Fifth Regiment Band, an ensemble that returned about 20 times to the Edison studio by 1892. The 12-piece band of Patrick S. Gilmore was recorded by Edison on 17 Dec 1891, doing 19 numbers of various types, some featuring cornetist Tom Clark. Voss First Regiment Band was another Edison group of the period. The first Edison Diamond Discs made by military bands were done in 1913, by the National Promenade Band and the New York Military Band; later by the Edison Concert Band (the material recorded was dance and pop as well as march). Columbia signed John Philip Sousa and his United States Marine Band to an exclusive contract as soon as the firm began to make entertainment records in 1889.
The 1891 Columbia sales list included 27 marches plus 23 other orchestral items. Sousa had a new ensemble in the 1895 catalog, the Grand Concert Band, featuring the famous trombonist Arthur Pryor. A list of Columbia brown-wax two-minute cylinders issued from 1896 to 1900 shows the United States Marine Band playing “Washington Post March” (#1; 1896), followed by close to 100 other numbers. Many were marches, e.g., “Columbia Phonograph March” (#58) and “Columbia Phonograph Co. March” (#63); others were waltzes, overtures, operatic potpourri, medleys of national airs, patriotic songs, and even “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” (#378). Sousas Grand Concert Band made many Columbia cylinders from 1895 to 1900, including popular songs, marches, and two solo items by Arthur Pryor.
The year 1896 also saw the beginning of a series by the Washington Military Concert Band, Gilmores Band, The Old Guard Band (New York), and the Twenty-third Regiment Band (New York). Columbia continued to record military bands when it phased into the disc format (from 1902; Columbia cylinder sales ceased in 1912). A house group, the Columbia Band, made a series of overtures and operatic excerpts in 1904 and continued to 1909. Many other bands were recording for the label too: Princes Military Band, Rena Military Band, British Grenadiers Band, etc. The interest in band music continued into the electrical recording era (1925-), with the Grenadier Guards Band and the Highland Military Band among
e.g.:
New York Philharmonic
C.J. K. L.
A.M. Johnson
In 1911, Columbia went ahead and reissued the band for musical purposes, though it was too complicated to record for the market.
C.J. K.L., with whom Columbia had worked on some major musical arrangements, received his first assignment in 1911 during a stint at the Bologna Theater in the early 1920s. The New York Philharmonic was, in short, a concert-stage-style band with an ensemble band and a large ensemble orchestra.
The Bologna was very good, with a good vocalist in his group, and all that, though, was about it. But it was always about the music, so for a group of about 30 people the best chance was to sit down with the manager in Bologna to hear the band’s compositions, and with the other three to record the original recording, and finally make the changes. To that end, a special session of Columbia’s studio was set up from a table in one part of the concert hall at this time, with a small auditorium for the entire show. This was used until about a week after the initial rehearsal, in the summer of 1922 when the band learned that it had no further plans for the concert. Columbia had to write a concert of less than 50 minutes from the last concert set, with several smaller rehearsals and special performances, before the final rehearsal, on October 7, 1923.[4]
For this period at least, Columbia made an annual touring program (S.W.B.), where all the band members would be at the ready to perform. The program cost $500 a pop, which was paid to both the band and the audience.[5]
In 1922 Columbia had one of the best record sales periods of any U.S. orchestra. Its first performance in the United States was on September 11, 1891. “The music is excellent on the stage, especially the orchestra parts. The tone is superb, and we like to perform the song at all.” Its second performance, on October 25, 1892, was a great show, in which Columbia played a little orchestra.
The first concert was called for after Columbia’s death. It consisted of two days of shows, with an orchestra (soprano, violinist, cellist, piano), a minor ensemble (dancinette), two full plays — one of which was a tune sung at one of two different concerts on the East River, in New York — and a short performance a couple of days later.
In 1926 Columbia issued a statement, in which it stated that