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A most pure and perfect music

I encourage  you to click on the title for the link to order your own complete sets of recordings. You will not find any more 'stirring' music than a good clean march!  I also suggest you just to a 'search' on the word 'march' and learn about the details of the march musically as well as the composers - and the stories and history that go along with many of the marches.  A word of caution: you might just get 'addicted' to march music.

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"A march should make a man with a wooden leg step out."
John Philip Sousa

"You can not listen to a really fine band play 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' and keep your chin down."
Karl King

"It's hard not to tap your foot along with the lively and happy beat of the march.  A hundred years from now, bands will undoubtedly look and sound differently than they do today, but there's ample reason to believe that they will still be playing these musical treasures from the Golden Age of the March."  - Andrew Glover


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While ensembles of wind and percussion instruments have been around for literally centuries, what we know today in the United States as the concert band was born after the American Civil War.  Patrick Gilmore is generally considered to be the 'father of the modern concert band', and his early bands continued to play a special kind of music that was first used by military groups for parade and morale-raising purposes - the march.  From those years when America was barely one hundred years old, marches not only developed an identity and format of its own, but also becomes a form of popular music.

The "old line" march, as it has been described, was cultivated by the man who rightfully gained the moniker "The March King" - John Philip Sousa (1854-1932).  While Sousa's famous legacy includes many wonderful and stirring marches, there were many others who composed brilliant marches.  Some of these individuals were quite prolific and prominent in the band world; others were known to a relative few.

Sousa's marches have gained an enduring place among the most famous of all march composers.  See Sousa for more information on Sousa and the Detroit Concert Band under the direction of Dr. Leonard B. Smith.

But there are more great composers of marches besides the great Sousa!

Two of the most respected, influential, colorful and beloved figures in the American Classic Concert Band movement were contemporaries and close friends: Henry Fillmore (1881-1956) and Karl King (1891-1971).  These two men produced an avalanche of band music.  Unlike Sousa, Fillmore and King were largely self-taught and learned to compose on their own, while traveling the rugged life of the circus "trouper."

Any trombone section that would accept the challenge of a Fillmore march would need an almost unbelievable technical virtuosity to successfully perform many of Fillmore marches - such as the unbelievable speed of "Rolling Thunder."  Fillmore is most famous for composing a series of delightful trombone 'smears,' the most popular of which was "Lassus Trombone."

Karl King wrote 185 marches.  This landmark of American music is extraordinary for several reasons, in addition the sheer quantity of works.  It has been said that there is no such thing as a bad Karl King march - and that may well be true, impressive all the more since King was only seventeen years of age when his first work was published.

While some composers wrote excellent 'heavy' marches for professional and highly experienced bands, and others wrote easier marches for smaller town bands and school groups, Karl King displayed an unsurpassed ability to compose some of the greatest marches of all time in both genres.  His "Emblem of Freedom" which the composer himself assessed as his finest march, challenges the most accomplished of bands, while "The Home Town Boy has been played by thousands of young musicians in high school bands.  Also from the decidedly 'more difficult' genre is the "The Melody Shop.'  This march is legendary to some (and notorious to others) for an infamous baritone/euphonium obbligato on the final strain.

A great cornetist and eventually a publisher was Charles LloydBarnhouse (1865-1929).  As a cornetist, Barnhouse played up to eight hours a day - exactly the kind of stamina needed to battle through the 'chop-buster' "Battle of Shiloh."

One of the first new composers to generate a string of 'hits' was Missouri native Russell Alexander (1877-1915).  Alexander played in and wrote music for circus bands and vaudeville shows, and one of his early successes was "Olympia Hippodrome" complsed while he toured the world as a baritone player with the Barnum and Bailey Circus band.

The march is not soley an American musical form, or even an American invention.  Marches from around the globe present colorful vignettes of lifestyles and cultures of other lands.  Johannes Hanssen was dubbed the "John Philip Sousa of Norway."  The march "Valdres" paints a vivid musical portrait of his native land.

Certainly no British march is more famous than "Colonel Bogey" by Kenneth J. Alford.

More "one hit wonders"  would include Roland ForrestSeitz (1867-1946), who enjoyed a long and successful musical career, but his "March Grandioso" is solely responsible for his stunning legacy. Edwin Eugene Bagley (1857-1922) is unknown to all but the most devout band historian, yet virtually anybody would recognize the famous second strain of hie "National Emblem" march.

The bands of the post Civil War era bear little resemblance to the bands that we see and hear today in the miliarty, at schools and in our communities. But today's bands are still playing marches, and for good reason.  Do you not agree!

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Here are short clips of the above mentioned marches.

Olympia Hippodrome

Emblem of Freedom

March: Grandioso

Rolling Thunder

The Battle of Shiloh

Colonel Bogey

The Melody Shop

Lassus Trombone

Valdres

Visit "The Golden Age of the March" to purchase the entire set of marches
including many others from the Golden Age of the March set.
Also visit www.walkingfrog.com for a complete listing of their music works.


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The March and the Band Movement in America Quick Quotes on The March and the Band Movement in America (short quotes taken from the long but complete article below)

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- THE PRIDE OF AMERICA -  THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE AMERICAN MARCH

• This is a very excellent and detailed account of the history of the march and the band in America.
• Visit this site to read a very detailed and comprehensive description of the golden age of the American march.
• It describes the origination of the march along with the growth of the 'band' movement in early America.
• It mentions all the names that are prominent in the development of the band.
• It mentions many of the march titles that many of us have played over the years.
• We can have a better background of the marches and their history as well as placement of the march and early band in the history of America.
• There  is also a good 'historical dateline of America' for those who do not know our history as a country.

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The end - well, for now, anyway.