Jubilee: One Man’s Big, Bold, and Very, Very Loud Celebration of Peace by Alicia Potter (review)

He may not have had the staying power of John Philip Sousa, but Irish immigrant and band director Patrick S. Gilmore definitely commanded public attention in the mid to late 1800s for his large-scale public productions with a literal “cast of thousands.” Potter focuses here on an 1869 Boston concert, billed as the National Peace Jubilee, which involved the construction of an enormous, short-lived concert hall and five days worth of varied musical presentations. It’s a satisfyingly humongous do, but the timeline of events is unfortunately often vague, and many of the pertinent details of pulling off so huge an event are relegated to lengthy end matter or overlooked altogether. Tavares faces a challenge in translating the aural blowout into a visual medium, and his most effective spreads are those that convey the immensity of the hall, the custom-made organ, and the crowd; some of the figures, however, are a bit stiff, failing to convey the movement of the music. Still, the audacious scope of the jubilee, precursor and, no doubt, rival to thunderous arena rock, is a natural hook for young listeners, who will be surprised to learn that their staid ancestors also appreciated musical excess. A bibliography is appended.