Strictly Oompah: August 2021

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Wait, Patrick Stephen Gilmore? Yes!

I just ran across this when researching the sudden death of the legendary bandmaster typically known as Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (1829-1892). I ran it by a Gilmore researcher I know, and he confirmed it. Now you know!

Here he is in June 1892 with his band of one hundred at Madison Square Garden:

Sousa on the Sousaphone

"The Sousaphone received its name through a suggestion made by me to J. W. Pepper, the instrument manufacturer of Philadelphia, fully 30 odd years ago. At that time, the United States Marine Band of Washington, D. C., of which I was conductor, used a double B-flat bass tuba of circular form know as a 'Helicon.' It was all right enough for street-parade work, but its tone was apt to shoot ahead too prominently and explosively to suit me for concert performances, so I spoke to Mr. Pepper relative to constructing a bass instrument in which the bell would turn upwards and be adjustable for concert purposes. He built one, and grateful to me for the suggestion, called it a Sousaphone. It was immediately taken up by other instrument makers, and is today manufactured in its greatest degree of perfection by the C. G. Conn Company, of Elkhart, Ind." (John Philip Sousa, Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 1922, p. 8)