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Chapter Eight. Making the Sousa Band
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chapter eight Making the Sousa Band Eduard Strauss was busily preparing for a tour of the New World in the spring of 1890. He had largely taken over the family dynasty and was now looking to capitalize on the popularity of his last name in the United States. A transatlantic excursion was no minor undertaking, but Strauss had been convinced to make the journey by a former Minnesota secretary of state named David Blakely. As one-time proprietor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Minneapolis Tribune, and the Chicago Evening Post, as well as founder of a successful Chicago printing company, Blakely had already proved that he had the promotional skills needed to organize large-scale public events. His interest in music had spurred him to establish the Minneapolis Philharmonic Society, and in 1883 Blakely had served as the local manager for a visit by Theodore Thomas. In the wake of these successes, this politician-printerimpresario established an office in New York from which he could more effectively oversee his growing interests as a concert manager. The Strauss tour presented Blakely with an unusual problem. Under normal circumstances, touring artists would have been immune from the regulations that limited the activities of foreign contract workers while in the United States. Given the Strauss orchestra’s profile—and the potential competition its players might impose on New York musicians—some labor leaders argued against the legality of its visit. This position required some gymnastics, and so the New York unions suggested that Strauss’s players were more craftsmen than artists, and thus subject to work restrictions while in the country. Such opposition to the visit led the Port Collector in New York to question his own authority to even allow the orchestra into the country. Blakely worked quickly to contact potential signatories who would attest to the artistic value of the Strauss ensemble, and on March 2 he was able to publish endorsements from such figures as William Tecumseh Sherman, the writer George William Curtis, and the former interior secretary Carl Schurz. Eight. Making the Sousa Band 181 It would, of course, prove helpful to have the nation’s highest-profile musicians on board, and so Blakely turned to the piano manufacturer William Steinway; the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera House, Edmund Stanton; and the bandleader Patrick Gilmore. On April 19 Blakely sought to add another name to his list of advocates, and he wrote to the leader of the United States Marine Band in Washington: “I have a number of splendid Fig. 26. Sousa’s manager, David Blakely, ca. 1893. Author’s collection. [18.206.12.31] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:55 GMT) 182 part iii. the march king endorsements from such leaders as Anton Seidl, Dudley Buck, and others well known throughout the country, and I should be glad if you will add your testimony to that of the others.”1 Blakely’s efforts to promote Strauss in the United States were successful, but his reward would be much larger than a single tour by a foreign orchestra. In 1889 and 1890 his most important attraction was none other than America’s most celebrated bandmaster, Patrick Gilmore. But at the start of the new decade , Gilmore was considering either a well-earned retirement or a dramatic curtailing of his touring schedule. The departure of his band would leave a significant hole on Blakely’s roster, and as rumors of the Irish Orpheus’s exit spread, applications to replace him flooded into Blakely’s New York office. Inquiries came from such luminaries as the cornetist Alessandro Liberati and the leader of the Elgin Watch Factory Band, Joseph Hecker, but the most passionate plea came from the famed cornetist Jules Levy: “If Gilmore is soon to retire, as I hear he intends doing, why should you not take hold of me and make me, as you have him. I will agree to all reasonable proposals, and you shall be allowed to bind me to an ironclad contract. . . . With your assistance and wonderful management I can become the first Bandmaster in the Universe, but never under any other manager, ‘No a thousand times No.’”2 Despite such offers, Blakely already had other ideas. Levy, Liberati, and Hecker were well-established musicians who could extract significant sums of money from any manager willing to promote them. Blakely, however, was looking to mold a bandmaster, not merely represent one. Through publications , sheet music, and recordings, he had become aware of...