Sousa on the first Sousaphone (1919)

The great bandmaster in 1919

The wonderful folks at the U. S. Marine Band Library have recently digitized the microfilms of the Sousa Band Press Books and made them available online (see here). While plowing through them the past few days, I came across what is now the earliest reference to Sousa discussing the origin of the Sousaphone. It's from the October 9, 1919 edition of the Akron Beacon Journal:

We get a few more of the details from Sousa about three years later - esp. that J. W. Pepper was the "instrument maker" to whom he suggested the modified helicon, and who dubbed it a "Sousaphone." And at least one detail is wrong here. It is not true that "The larger one in use in the band weighs 70 pounds"; it's more like 33 pounds which is reportedly what the earliest large, four-valve Conn Sousaphone weighed in 1903.

But John Kuhn was indeed one of the two playing the Sousaphone in the Sousa Band at that time, for the 1919-20 tour. W. V. Webster was the other one, and he was replaced at some point by Henry P. Stern. But Kuhn was the star player, perhaps because of his background, but more so because he was a phenomenal player. Here he is in photo with Sousa's Band, published around 1919:

For the 1920 tour, when Kuhn was now paired with Walter Goble on Sousaphone in the band (along with two standard tubas), a newspaper report from July gives us additional insight into Kuhn's talents:

The unwieldly bass horns, including the big sousaphone, borne by the biggest man of the aggregation, moved forward, like the elephants in the circus and boomed out a basso profundo song, with a surprising mellowness of tone. The sousaphonist, by the way, is a full blooded Indian, a college graduate, regarded by Sousa as one of the greatest tuba players in the world.

It turns out that Kuhn was also pretty good at baseball, as he was part of Sousa's team in 1919 ("Chief," on the left):