THE WIRELESS
MILITARY BAND
Conductor,
B. WALTON O'DONNELL
March, The Washington Post Suite, Looking Upward i. By the light of the Polar Star; 2. Beneath the Southern Cross; 3. Mars and Venus
Suite, At the Movies i. Serenaders; 2. Crafty Villain and Timid Maid; 3. Balance all and swing partners
Suite, Cubaland i. Under the Spanish Flag; 2. Under the American Flag ; 3. Under the Cuban Flag
THE GREAT DAYS of John Philip Sousa were in the nineties and for a few years after the turn of the century. He had made a name as conductor of the Marine Band at Washington and again with his own Band which he formed in 1892. Already with a magnificent reputation in two Continents, he further added to his triumphs by writing music to a series of operettas of which El Capitan was the most famous. Thereafter he toured all over the world and blazed the trail for the dance bands of today.
His career-he died two years ago-extended right through the popular and dance music era that began in America some fifty years ago and which has spread in recent years all over the globe, but at no time was he connected with, or even in sympathy with, the jazz movement. He lives today by his marches alone, not that he was satisfied with that reputation only ; he essayed other things besides music of which he wrote a great deal more than just marches and operettas.
There is a certain piquancy in the fact that when in 1903 Sousa took his band to Paris the only criticism of his performance that can be said to have survived is one by, of all people, Claude Debussy. Debussy was struck with Sousa's manner of directing his orchestra. ' One must really ', he says, ' be singularly gifted to conduct this music. Thus, Mr. Sousa beats time in circles, or he shakes an imaginary salad or sweeps up imaginary dust and catches a butterfly out of a contrabass-tuba '. Debussy, however, was not so impressed with the music itself. 'American music ', he goes on to say, ' may be the only kind which can find a rhythm for unspeakable cake-walks. If so, I confess that at present this appears to be its sole claim to superiority over other music .... and that Sousa is indisputably its King '.