Yeah, it's not a Sousaphone, but wow!

Steve Dillon, of Dillon Music, and I have been trying to uncover the history behind the so-called "Harvard tuba," as his shop is in the process of restoring the vintage beast that has lived in the Harvard Band room since 1948. We've still got some gaps to fill in the story, but it's coming along, so stay tuned!

This morning I had the opportunity to see this monster up-close and personal, and I have to say - no photo does it justice. The horn is truly stunning to see in real life! But here are a few shots of my encounter with this rather hefty piece of history that dates to at least 1892, and perhaps even 1889:

That's Steve on the left, and me on the right, and I'm 5 feet 8 inches in height. The tuba is well over seven feet tall! Concerning when this horn was built, check out this side-by-side comparison:

On the right is the tuba today, while on the left is what is almost certainly this exact horn, seen in a lithograph featuring Gilmore's Band of One Hundred in either 1892, or more likely 1891. But on the bell you can see a portion of the giant letters spelling "BESSON," and below that what appears to be the numbers 889 ascending from left to right. It probably reads "1889," which may very well be the year the horn was built.

The engravings on the bell are different today, but we're wondering if the lithographer added those important bits of information so that they could be seen in the poster. Or it could be that the engravings seen today (photo below) were added at a later date.

We thoroughly examined the bell, just in case there was a trace of "BESSON" and "1889" behind what is there today, but found nothing. But there was a small stamp on the back of the second valve:

Blowing that up, here's what we found:

It reads "F. Besson Bte S.G.D.G," which likely means the horn, or at least the valve section, was built in France by F. Besson. The "Bte S.G.D.G" is apparently an abbreviation for the French phrase, "Brevete sans garantie du gouvernement," meaning something like, "Patented without guarantee of the government." Not sure what to make of that yet, but such a stamp is found on many old Besson instruments.

Of course, as noted above, the bell says, "Besson & Co. London England Carl Fischer U. S. Agent New York," so we'll have to reconcile these differences. Was the horn built in France or England? Or, again, was that bell engraving added later to this French-built horn (Besson did have a London factory as well, and Carl Fischer did import Besson instruments).

So, again, stay tuned as we piece together the clues and tell the story of this amazing, oversized tuba! And I'll circle back with Steve in a couple of months when they are done restoring the horn. Until then, here's where it sits, waiting for its makeover:

For an earlier post on this monster, click here.

Did Conn make the first Sousaphone?

The answer is most definitely "No!" My research has made it clear that J. W. Pepper made the first Sousaphone in 1895. But for years just about everyone believed that C. G. Conn was responsible for the original Sousaphone. For example, check out this article in the April 9, 1934 edition of the Battle Creek Enquirer:

Where exactly did Mr. Oxley get his information? Well, from C. G. Conn, Ltd! As early as 1921, the Conn catalog said this, "The first Sousaphone Bass ever made was built in the Conn factories more than a score of years ago" (opening line in the page below):

And just today, almost one hundred years since that catalog came out, I checked the Conn-Selmer website, and they are still making this claim! Note the very last line, which says, "Conn continued on a series of 'firsts,' building . . . the first sousaphone, built to John Philip Sousa's specifications":

It is no surprise, then, to find this claim scattered across the past one hundred years. For example, here it is in the 1926 brochure on "New Wonder Basses"; note the last paragraph:

And here it is in the 1935 Conn catalog (and the horn pictured is not even the first Conn Sousaphone!):

And here it is in a newspaper article on the Conn company from 1943:

And here it is in The Instrumentalist in 1949 where, once again, the Sousaphone featured is not even Conn's first:

And this particular Sousaphone persists as being viewed as the original. Here it is in a cute photo in the July 15, 1951 edition of the Chicago Tribune, with the date now a year earlier:

And again from that same year, this time in The Instrumentalist:

And here it is yet again, this time in the December 1959 edition of Popular Mechanics:

This particular Sousaphone, believed to be the very first one ever made, was eventually donated to the Interlochen Center for the Arts in 1970:

Here it is, two years later, being played at Interlochen by none other than Harvey Phillips!

And here's a Conn catalog page from the 1980s, making the same claim, that "Conn made the first Sousaphone." Except that he didn't!

Now, the truth is that Conn did make the first Sousaphone that Sousa kept in his band for years. In fact, Conn Sousaphones were used exclusively by Sousa from the time the first one was built, in 1898, until Sousa died in 1932.

Here is the notice of that very first Conn Sousaphone in the January 22, 1898 edition of the Music Trade Review:

But make no mistake about it. J. W. Pepper built the original Sousaphone almost three years earlier. Time to finally correct your website, Conn-Selmer!

UPDATE: August 13, 2023 - I hadn't checked in a while, but it looks like the main Conn-Selmer website no longer talks about the history of C. G. Conn, and therefore there is no mention (finally!) of "building . . . the first Sousaphone." However, the European site for Conn-Selmer still says that. We're halfway to finally eliminating this over-a-century-long false claim!

UPDATE: February 17, 2024 - I recently stumbled upon what is now the earliest reference to Conn supposedly inventing the Sousaphone. It goes way back to 1907, in the January 3 edition of the Mountain Home [Idaho] Maverick newspaper:

The column also lists the entire roster of the 1907 Maverick Home Band, so I thought I would give them their due! J. H. Garrett, "with a physique adapted to gracefully carry it" (as it says above!), was the one playing that very early C. G. Conn Sousaphone:

Conrad sighting on the train in 1899!

I'm pretty selective with whose feed I see on facebook, focusing primarily on family members and people or organizations that are related to my research. I have a lot of "friends," but only follow a few, just to keep life a bit more simple!

Today, Loras Schissel, who works with the Library of Congress, posted a photo on facebook of a few Sousa Band members playing cards on the train during a tour in 1899. The moment I saw it, I thought, "My goodness, that guy on the left looks like Herman Conrad!" Loras thought so as well. The monster handlebar mustache was one clue, but the face looks right as well.

Here is the world's first Sousaphonist in all of his card-playing glory! I wonder what they were playing, and did the other guy just realize that he won?!

Did it end up in the Ringgold Band?

One of the more curious things about the original Sousaphone, built by J. W. Pepper in 1895, is that it seems to have disappeared after being featured in the early 1896 tour of Sousa's Band. And by early 1898, Conn's first Sousaphone is being used by Sousa, instead of the Pepper horn.

So where did the original Sousaphone end up?

Having examined Pepper's horn up-close, it clearly has a lot of miles on it, but where was it played after it left Sousa's Band? Well, a possible answer appeared in the January 16, 1937 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, where the topic was . . .

First of all, note that the author, J. S. Willing, confidently affirms that the original Sousaphone was "manufactured here in Philadelphia," rather than in Elkhart, Indiana. He's right, of course, but I wonder how he knew that? For years, even at this point (1937), Conn had claimed to build the very first one, and that seems to be what everyone believed.

Second, I've contacted the folks at the Ringgold Band to see if they have any record of that historic horn being used in their band way back then. But, so far, they have not been able to find anything.

After searching a bit myself, I did find a few photos of the band. Here's one from 1904, eight years after the Pepper horn was last seen. There is a helicon shown, but no Sousaphone:

And here's a shot from around 1911, or about seven years later. Now there are two monster helicon basses dominating the back row, but still no sign of a Sousaphone:

Of course, the article mentions the original Sousaphone being in the Ringgold Band around 1937, so perhaps it was added to that historic ensemble closer to that time. We just don't know - yet!

However, it should be noted that John Bailey, the man who re-discovered the Pepper Sousaphone back in 1973, and sold it to the Pepper Co. in 1991, is still active in the Ringgold band! Interesting, huh?! And he found the long lost horn 45 years ago at Renninger's Flea Market in Adamstown, PA - not too far from where the Ringgold Band is based.

Very curious indeed!

Who remembered Conrad in 1945?

I came across this random newspaper clip the other day, from the February 14, 1945 edition of The Missoulian - almost 25 years after Herman Conrad died. Note the last question:

I'm encouraged to know that the person who wrote this clearly remembered Conrad, who was an immigrant from West Prussia, all those years later. Although, technically, he was not "first Sousaphone" with Sousa; Conrad played the one and only Sousaphone featured in that great band during the time he was in it (1893-1903). The other basses during that decade were all standard tubas.

And, hey, since this clip came out on Valentine's Day 1945, I'll go ahead and post this doctored up photo of Conrad from a few years ago!:

More on an early Conn Sousaphone

The earliest Conn Sousaphone that we know for sure has survived the ravages of time is the one currently displayed at the Iowa Band Museum (see this post). It was built in 1899, and delivered to the A.O.U.W. Band of Cedar Falls, Iowa, on June 8 of that year, according to the Waterloo Daily Courier:

After playing around with it for a few weeks, they decided it was a keeper, as the newspaper reported:

While the valve cluster seems to be unique to this horn (again, see this post), I have to assume that the other specs are probably close to those of Conn's first Sousaphone, built just over a year earlier. Both had four valves, with the Iowa horn weighing between 32-37 pounds and with a the bell measuring 24-26 inches in diameter (curiously, the two accounts above don't agree on these details!).

Here's the earliest known photograph of that vintage Sousaphone:

Almost 10 years later, the Sousaphone was still going strong, as can be seen in this colorized photo of the band, supposedly from 1908 (back row, left of center):

In 1914, the band was under the direction of F. L. McCreary (and that may be him in 1908 as well), and the Cedar Falls Daily Record of December 3 that year produced a brief report on the band, which also said a few words about their prized possession, that early Conn Sousaphone.

The specs on the horn listed here are probably incorrect (or, at least, they are significantly different from what the earlier reports said), and, unless this is an entirely different Sousaphone, it was not "bought from Sousa," nor would it likely have cost $500, as the earliest Conn Sousaphones were apparently selling for around $250. But it's fun to read about this great old horn!

Gilmore and the giant Harvard tuba

One of the more fascinating things I have come across in my research on Herman Conrad is the following poster of Gilmore's Band - presumably based on a photograph (yet to be found) and created prior to Gilmore's death in 1892, when he launched his tour of "One Hundred":

Based on earlier images of the band, Conrad is most likely holding one of those large-belled helicon basses, either five guys in from the right in the back row, or six guys in from the right two rows below that. 

But what are we to make of that huge tuba toward the middle of the back row? Here's a close-up look at it:

Apart from the engraving on the bell, it is a dead-ringer for the giant tuba that is kept in the band room at Harvard University (being held here by my friends Matt Walters and Steve Dillon):

Here's a closer look at the bell engravings that can be seen today:

It says, "Besson & Co. London England Carl Fischer U. S. Agent. New York." The artist's rendering in the poster shows a giant "BESSON" (or rather "?SSON"), which perhaps was, or maybe even still faintly is, there on the upper part of the bell (I haven't seen the horn myself - yet!).

But, again, everything else matches perfectly, so it seems likely that it is the very same horn - and that's what my research has affirmed. In the March 24, 1929 edition of The Boston Globe, there is the following headline and photo:

The article that follows provides us with the earliest known account of the story behind this giant tuba:

Just how much of this story is true? It's hard to say. But the connection with Gilmore checks out. And the timing is right, as Gilmore had plans to take his band of one hundred to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 (although his death on Sept. 24, 1892, obviously changed those plans, and I have found no record of that giant tuba appearing at the World's Fair the following year; it may very well have found its way back to that "store window in New York" following the great bandmaster's death).

Further, the folks at Carl Fischer Music recently posted an old photo, said to be from around 1920, showing that horn in front of their main Boston store. It had apparently made the trip from New York by that time:

Finally, I found a photo published in various newspapers in late Spring, 1928, which appears to be showing us that "farewell appearance" in Boston a month or so earlier, where the horn was "Perched in solitary splendor on a five-ton truck":

But how did this giant tuba end up at Harvard? The earliest reference that I could find that connects it to the university is from late December, 1948, and that appears to be the very year that it fell into the Band's hands. 

In the 1972 Harvard Bulletin, Christopher Johnson wrote that "It is a documented fact that the Band acquired the instrument from Carl Fischer, Boston, on August 24, 1948, for the sum of $100. Fischer's, it appears, was under the impression that the Band was merely renting; but the clerk had scrawled 'sale' on the slip, and the horn was Harvard's."

That report also mentions the legend that the horn was initially connected with Sousa's Band, which is repeated elsewhere, such as the wikipedia page for "Subcontrabass tuba," which states that it was "built by Besson on the suggestion of American Bandmaster John Philip Sousa, who toured using [it] in his band from 1896-1898." But there is simply no documentation for this claim, and it is almost certainly false.

In 1973, a humorous photo of the giant Harvard tuba, which is very similar to the photo above, featuring the three ladies in 1929, was sent out via UPI to newspapers around the country. Here it is:

This photo also showed up in the Fall 1988 edition of the T.U.B.A. Journal, with the following caption that tells a bit more than the newspapers did:

A dramatization of The Tuba's relative size - oboist Laura Carr became the first human straight mute in 1979 [actually 1973]. Band equipment handler Samuel Shaw (left) and Band Director Tom Everett are holding The Tuba. The drama became real just after this photograph was taken. Ms. Carr, hysterical with laughter, became stuck and had to be extacted [sic] with the assistance of two security guards.

That journal article also shows Sam Pilafian playing the giant horn in 1979 - something that he did numerous times, I'm told.

I hope to be speaking with Sam soon to hear more about this beast of a tuba that goes all the way back to Gilmore's Band in 1892. Stay tuned!

For more on this giant tuba, click here.

Merry TubaChristmas, 2018!

We had a great showing for the Lansdale, PA TubaChristmas a few weeks back - about 75 horns in all. The weather brought us inside, to St. John's, but we packed the house! Here are a few photos from where I sat on the stage . . .

Waving our tubas to a grateful audience!

The gallery behind me, and to the left, where the Sousaphones tend to gather!

My view, from above the organ console

Most of us could see the conductor, if we looked real hard!