Re: Old World vs. Sousa

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

Joshua Horowitz <horowitz (at) styria(dot)com> wrote:
> 
> thanks for the wonderful, fascinating  insights into Sousa!! I've often
> wondered what effect Sousa had on the development of the 
> *military band* orchestration and style of the early klez orchestras and
> also what happened during the European tours that Sousa made at the turn
> of the century. Apparently they swept Europe like wildfire. Do you have
> any ideas about that? Josh
> 
But don't the orchestras led by people like Schwartz and Hochman 
resemble more the "standard" instrumentation that American publishers 
issued at the time? Two violins, flute, 2 clarinets, 2 trumpets, 
trombone, bass, piano, drums; I forget exactly what it was, but I've 
seen dance folios like that. The local orchestra might have five 
pieces, and, if so, they'd only use those parts. I've got parts of 
standard dance music published in the 1850s and 1880s, also like 
that, though the instrumentation was less varied (no piano, flute, 
drums, etc.; only one clarinet and one cornet; the second violin plays 
double stops). A common series used in this area (Michigan) was "Gems 
of the Ballroom," which Sears & Roebuck sold, but mostly they used 
just the violin and piano parts.

I haven't seen the full Kammen folios, but were they published in the 
same format----arrangements for the above ensemble, 2 violins, flute, 
2 clarinets, 2 cornets, trombone/cello, bass, piano, drums? It would 
be interesting to know if European publishers were using the same 
instrumentation and publishing similar arrangements of popular dance 
music, and, if so, how far east in Europe they were doing it. 

Didn't Sousa just use a more elaborate band instrumentation (no 
violins or strings, of course), with bassoons, etc.? In other words, 
more closely resembling the concert and high school bands of today? 
My uncle played sarussophone in 1924 in a professional Shriner's band 
based in Florida, so maybe some of the instrumentation even got 
simpler.

What I mentioned in my earlier post about how the Romanian-American 
sound of the Ohio-Detroit-Chicago region changed from the '20s to the 
postwar period was this:  In the early 20th century, small ensembles 
playing band instruments, but playing dance music, were getting 
popular in certain parts of Romania. Immigrants in places like 
Canton, Ohio, started them, and they played for dances as well as 
parades and funerals. John Boldi (born 1904) started playing in 1918, 
learning from a Transylvanian Gypsy clarinetist who had immigrated 
earlier. In the recordings made in Chicago in 1927 that Boldi played 
on, the instrumentation is something like clarinet, sax, trumpet, 
baritone horn, and tuba. The postwar recordings Boldi made had 
changed---they used more sax as a lead instrument, added drums, 
dropped the baritone horn, and made foxtrots out of Romanian 
"romances" (hallgatok). Definitely they were under "big band" 
influence, although they still played by ear. Incidentally, the 
extinct Detroit Romanian-Macedonian band the "Blue Notes," which was 
musically descended from an immigrant who came from Bucovina to 
Cleveland in the late 1880s named Simion (Sammy) Duka, who played 
cornet and clarinet, on their 1970s LP included something called 
"Bukovinian Polka," a tune common to early klezmer recordings. 
Sammy's son Nick Duka, a drummer, said they played for a lot of 
Jewish weddings. 

Still, it would be interesting to compare changes in wedding bands of 
different ethnic specialties. Is the postwar Jewish union variety, 
which does the "Bunny Hop," foxtrots, mixed ethnic standards, etc., 
on its way out? Sam Ulano's _How to be in the Music Business_ (1965) 
is a good guide to New York City customs of the 1950s and 1960s, 
suggesting, for example, to buy "folk music" from Metro Music if 
needed, to "go Greek" to get extra jobs, and what to play at mixed 
marriages. Maybe the DJ done all this in...

Paul Gifford

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