Colorful figures led brass bands

"He swore like a trooper. But after rehearsal, he forgot all about it. He'd go out and shoot pool with the guys." Paul Bierley on Arthur Pryor

It seems appropriate that the last tie to the golden era of brass bands also has a tie to the home of the Great American Brass Band Festival.

That last vestige is Leonard B. Smith, the 79-year-old conductor of the Detroit Concert Band. Smith was America's leading cornet virtuoso in his prime and wrote The Advocate-Messenger March in 1990 to commemorate the Danville newspaper's 125th anniversary.

Paul Bierley, a band historian from Columbus, Ohio, recently called Smith the last of the professional band masters from the golden era.

The first, the father of the modern concert band, was Patrick Gilmore, an Irishman who immigrated in 1849 to the United States. Gilmore envisioned band performances on a grand scale. He celebrated the end of the Civil War with a jubilee in 1867, conducting a 1,000-piece band and 10,000-member chorus in Boston. He outdid himself in 1872, conducting a 2,000-piece band and 20,000-member chorus at the World Peace Jubilee.

His Irishness - his free spirit and chatty nature - helped make Gilmore a successful entertainer and a celebrity.

When his band or any of the era's other great bands toured, they were hailed along the way. When a band arrived in a town, schools and businesses closed and the day became a holiday.

``The ordinary person never heard anything like this,'' Frank Cipolla, a band historian from Buffalo, N.Y., said. ``The normal thing they would hear on any given day would be a kid tooting on a horn, or a fire department band. And all of a sudden you have Patrick Gilmore coming into town.''

But while band leaders were entertainers, they also presented serious music such as opera excerpts and classical overtures.

The most famous of this era's band leaders, John Philip Sousa, idolized Gilmore. And as Sousa prepared to begin his own band's professional tour, the public wondered whose would emerge as the best.

``There was some question about which would get the best professional musicians,'' Bierley said.

But America missed the showdown. Gilmore died three days before the Sousa band's debut.

Marching bands naturally appealed to people then, and continue to do so, Bierley said. After all, they're written for human legs to walk to.

``A march is a natural thing. The human is built like a march,'' he said.

Sousa agreed.

``A good march should make a man with a wooden leg want to step out,'' Bierley quoted him as saying.

Although Sousa worked tirelessly, he only composed when he felt inspired. He never wanted a work to be only that - work. Other band composers felt the same.

``They all realized they had a God-given talent, and they felt obligated to present it to the world,'' Bierley said.

This might have been apparent in Sousa's demeanor in rehearsals; he never raised his voice. But it wasn't always apparent in others. Arthur Pryor wouldn't hesitate to cuss his players vociferously during practice.

``He swore like a trooper,'' Bierley said. ``But after rehearsal, he forgot all about it. He'd go out and shoot pool with the guys.''

By the 1930s, movie theaters and phonographs began making the arrival of a brass band less spectacular to the public. But once a year at the Great American Brass Band Festival, one town continues to make the arrival of brass bands a holiday.

Back to Gift of Song