Brass, Reeds, and Percussion

Considered by some to the successor to John Philip Sousa, Edwin Franko Goldman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on New Year’s Day, 1878. When his father died, Edwin, his mother, and his siblings moved to New York City, where the family had musical connections. Edwin’s grandfather was a professional classical pianist. Edwin started taking trumpet lessons when he was 9 years old and eventually played in the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra with his uncle, the concert master.

Today’s edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion is designed to help ua listeners become kool cats by listening to bongo music from the 1960s. During the late 1950s, bongos became popular because almost anyone could play them. They were also widely used in popular music. So today’s edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion will feature a number of 1960s recordings.

Sometimes, wind band music is popular music—a fact demonstrated during this edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion when we hear a 1961 top-10 hit that was described as the first big-band record you could twist to. “Up a Lazy River” was written in 1930, but it became a top-10 hit in 1961 when a version by Si Zenter and His Orchestra made it to the Billboard Top 100. The tune and most of the words were written by Sidney Arodin, born in Westwego, Lousiana. (That’s across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.) He was a clarinetist and songwriter.

In 4 years, Glenn Miller had 16 number-one hits and 68 top-10 hits. That’s more than Elvis Presley with only 38 top-10 hits and the Beatles with 33 top-10 hits. During World War II, Miller lead the Army Air Forces Band from 1942 to 1944. On December 15, 1944, while flying to Paris to arrange for transferring the band to Paris, the airplane carrying Miller disappeared over the English Channel.

Cornelis Dopper is sometimes referred to as the most Dutch of Dutch composers because his frequent use of Dutch folk music in his compositions. But during his lifetime he was a accused of sounding too German and also too much like John Philip Sousa. In November 1918 after a performance of Dopper’s 7th Symphony which ends in a march, a member of the audience expressed his dissatisfaction with the composition by shouting "Long live Sousa"—in Dutch, of course. The heckler was banned from the concert hall for a week.

Today’s edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion features the "Lincolnshire Posey" by Percy Grainger, but we begin with tune that won the 1967 Grammy Award for Song of the Year: “Up, Up, and Away," composed by Jimmy Webb. Because Webb's father was a Baptist pastor and former U.S. Marine, Webb learned piano and organ as a child and grew up singing in church. In 1961, at age 14, he bought his first record: "Turn Around, Look at Me" by Glen Campbell.

Henry Fillmore was such a prolific composer that he used several different pseudonyms. This made his father’s publishing house in Cincinnati look like it had more composers than it actually did, a tactic that was apparently used to increase sales.

In recognition of Black History Month and to celebrate Mardi Gras, you’ll hear performances by Bunk Johnson and Sidney Bechet on today’s edition of Brass Reeds as we go way down yonder in New Orleans. Before there was Louis Armstrong or King Oliver, the hot trumpet player was Bunk Johnson, the King of the Blues. Before there was Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw, the hot clarinet player was Sidney Bechet.

Pál Kinizsi lived from 1432 to 1494 and was a Hungarian general serving under king Matthias Corvinus. Starting out as a son of a miller, he became a count in what is now part of Romania and Serbia. He commanded King Mathias' famed Black Army when it defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Breadfield in October 1479. He reputedly never lost a battle. Wielding two swords when he fought, he is often referred to as the Hungarian Hercules. Julius Fucik, the Czech march king, dedicated a march to this Hungarian folk hero.

Arrangements of orchestral works for wind band are more commonly known as transcriptions. So this edition of Brass, Reeds, and Percussion features wind-band arrangements—or transcriptions—of opera music. The practice of arranging orchestral music for wind band began as early as 1775 when opera music was arranged for the harmonie, most typically an octet of two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons.