The prelude to Conn's Sousaphone?

When C. G. Conn introduced his first Sousaphone to the world in January 1898, which shows up in Sousa's Band almost immediately, it wasn't the first big bass horn that he had created for a famous bandleader. A year or more earlier, T. P. Brooke had requested that Conn build him a giant tuba to be featured in his band.

From a newspaper ad in early 1897

In the February 7, 1897 edition of the Logansport [Indiana] Pharos-Tribune, we find this curious notice:

Here is what the "monster tuba" looked like (photo courtesy of Dr. Margaret Downie Banks at the National Music Museum):

 Later that year, in the September 29, 1897 edition of the Pittsburgh Daily Post, we learn that Brooke designed the horn:

But, as it turns out, this was not the only "immense tuba" to be seen in a big-time touring band in the 1890s. Sousa, of course, already had his "Sousaphone," built by J. W. Pepper in 1895, and which toured with his band in 1896. But Frederick Innes also had Conn build him a giant bass horn for his band in 1897! (Did Brooke and Innes know of each other's dealings with Conn?!) Check out what appeared in the July 18, 1897 edition of The Tennessean:

So now we have a new "largest horn ever made" - although we don't yet know how it compared to Brooke's "monster tuba," as there are no specifications provided in the article. But there is a drawing of this beast of a helicon bass:

A week later, in the July 25, 1897 edition of The Tennessean, there is another drawing, this time of the entire band, featuring Innes' spectacular "giant tuba":

We learn a bit more about both of these giant tubas in  H. W. Schwartz's wonderful work, Bands of America, published in 1957 (and, according to the dust cover back flap, Schwartz "was for many years an executive of C. G. Conn, Ltd." - how interesting!). He contends that Innes got wind of Brooke's plan to have Conn build for him the world's largest tuba, but "before it was finished, Innes placed his order for a bigger one - bigger by one inch in bell diameter!" (p. 181).

Schwartz also suggests that the reporter who wrote the article above, about "Innes' Giant Tuba," either

had an uninhibited imagination or (what is more probable) . . . was a young and gullible reporter who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of William Grett, the tuba player. Grett, with his tongue in his cheek, no doubt enjoyed talking about his big tuba and facetiously advanced the hypothesis that this one bass would take the place of four other basses, and that the reason for this was to save Innes money by requiring fewer players. The reporter thought Grett was leveling with him and wrote it up as the truth. (pp. 182-83).

Further, Schwartz wrote that "the facts about [Innes'] tuba came out in the Dominant, a musical magazine of relatively small circulation, edited primarily for professional musicians by Arthur A. Clappe" (p. 183). But I looked through issues of the Dominant from around that time, and couldn't locate what he found, which was this:

Clappe gave the relatively prosaic but accurate specifications of the tuba as weighing sixty-three pounds and as having three piston valves and a bell thirty-three inches in diameter. Its range was the same as any other tuba of the time, going down to the Bb which was in the third octave below middle C. Its principal distinction was its wide bore and sonorous tone quality. (p. 183).

So there you have it - according to Schwartz's research.

The interesting question for my purposes, of course, is whether Conn's work on these two giant tubas of Brooke and Innes had something to do with him building a Sousaphone for Sousa. In less than a year, such a horn shows up in Sousa's band. But did Sousa request it, or did Conn take the initiative? Stay tuned!