Le Regiment de Sambre-et-Meuse - - the march better known as French National Defile...

Sambre-et-Meuse was a department of the First French Empire named for the Sambre and Meuse Rivers. The capital of the department was Namur. Today the region is part of Belgium and Namur is the capital of the Belgian province of Namur. In the 1640s, the Spanish Netherlands had acquired the area. Louis XIV invaded the area in 1692 and claimed it for France. Three years later, in 1695, William III of Orange-Nassau claimed the area in the War of the Grand Alliance. Under the Barrier Treaty of 1709 the Netherlands gained the right to set up troops in Namur. However, the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 gave the control of areas formerly under control of the Spanish Netherlands gave power to the Austrian House of Habsburg. It was an Austrian region protected by Dutch troops. In November 1792, the French began acquisition of the area. The 3,000 soldiers stationed at Namur became prisoners of war and France claimed this as a department in 1794. It remained a part of France until 1815, after Napoleon's defeat. The Congress of Vienna (Austria still claimed this territory) began sectioning off what is now Belgium into the Netherlands at this time. In 1830, Belgium had its own revolution and declared independence from the Netherlands. There is so much more history after that, but we are mainly interested in the story behind the march we know as the FRENCH NATIONAL DEFILE. (Notice how the area doesn't seem so French.)
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So, to reiterate: The department of Sambre-et-Meuse existed from 1795 to 1815 (Napoleon's defeat was actually the year before). Namur was the capital. The department was split into four arrondissements which were further split into 4-6 cantons each. The area has been considered Belgian since 1815. As said there's a lot more history, but we need to remember this is a French march.
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Le Régiment de Sambre-et-Meuse was a poem written by Paul Cezano in 1870 as France was getting ready for the Franco-Prussian War and the country was beginning its Third French Republic. The idea of the poet was to recall the bravery of those soldiers back eighty-some years before. In time, music was added. J. Robert Planquette (1846-1903) was a composer of art songs and light operas and was popular in both France and the United Kingdom. The song was composed in 1871. In 1879, Joseph François Rauski (1837-1910) wrote an arrangement of the song into a military march. (In my humble opinion, Cezano, Planquette, and Rauski should all get credit for composing the march.)

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Now for some real confusion: The U.S. version of the march called French National Defile isn't technically the same piece as the march I have been talking about. It was composed by Andre Turlet in 1908 as a commission by the New York publisher, Carl Fischer. I have seen no biography for Mr. Turlet. A friend of mine who retired from the main Carl Fischer outlet in New York told me there was talk among the employees that Turlet was actually Louis-Philippe Laurendeau (1861-1916), an employee of Carl Fischer who was actually quite a decent composer and arranger. He is most famous for introducing the march Entry of the Gladiators by Julius Fučík (1872-1916), which Laurendeau (known as Phil to his Carl Fischer colleagues) renamed "Thunder and Blazes," a name that stuck with that march for the past 116 years. Although born in Quebec, Phil Laurendeau spoke with what was called a "typical Toronto accent." Because of this, Phil came up with a "safety alias," George H. Reeves, a name which he used for writing educational materials. Although he died long before many good public, private, and parochial schools were able to develop really successful instrumental music programs, Phil Laurendeau had a dream that there would come a time when learning how to play a band or orchestra instrument would be done in schools as good as or better than any private musical academy. Anyway, this all shows the background of the man I would guess would have written the American version of the French National Defile, of which I am sure if anything else, he came up with the title. The march is an arrangement of Planquette's march using an early 20th century concert band instrumentation.  Since most of Carl Fischer's publications had relatively short copyright spans, later editions of some marches had additional editing (marked on the page as an arrangement). Later editions of French National Defile are marked "arranged by Julius S. Seredy." Seredy (1874-1946) was another Carl Fischer employee although he didn't do very much in the way of original compositions. Basically, he was assigned band or solo works and corrected anything that looked like a mistake. If the copy looked clean, he would add some dynamic contrast that wasn't in the original. 

Alex F. Lithgow (1870-1929) - - Sousa of the Antipodes

Alexander Frame Lithgow was born December 1, 1870, in Glasgow, Scotland. His parents were Samuel and Agnes Allison Lithgow, his father being a master tinsmith. When Alex (pronounced as if it was spelled "Alec") was six his family immigrated from Scotland to New Zealand and they lived in the city of Invercargill.  The family, which besides his parents and Alex, included a brother and two sisters. They performed in traveling shows as the Lithgow Traveling Company. Alex was a musical prodigy and was skilled at both the cornet and the violin. In 1894 he moved to Launceston, Tasmania, mainly to be a conductor but music was a hobby for most people at that time, even for Alex. For his "day job" in Tasmania he worked as a pressman for a daily newspaper. He married his wife June 6, 1900, in a Presbyterian church. Alex was a member of the temperance movement (he wanted the sale of alcohol to be either banned or heavily regulated). Since Alex was quite prolific in composing marches, he began publishing them himself, although he never put a copyright on anything. He wrote music for wind band or brass band, mainly marches, but also other music that bands play, like overtures, waltzes, and tone poems. The Invercargill Quick March (his most famous composition) was written in 1901. As the title implies, it pays honor to Alex's New Zealand hometown. In 1921, an Australia postmaster who was once stationed in Launceston and knew Alex well wrote lyrics for Invercargill. They were originally sung with piano rolls, although the Lithgow family was very much in favor of the words:
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Though I've sailed overseas from Invercargill
There's a yearning strong that calls me back to Southland
Where in childhood days, I used to play and be 
Part of a local music family.
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Joyous hours playing with the Garrison Band
Concerts and contesting all around New Zealand
And marching down to Dee Street, in the southernmost town.                                                                         
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The memories, of childhood, and playing tunes, I loved to learn
Someday I will return, to mountains high and green leafed fern
Oreti Beach, Waihopai, an Oyster feed, from Foveaux Strait
I cannot wait to see, who greets me, at Bluff port gate.
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Invercargill is, the only place that I adore
And my old band pals, I long to see them all once more
Soon my ship will be, returning from the deep blue sea
To my dear old home, the gem of all the Southern Seas

Alex was busy with all kinds of musical endeavors until 1927 when his health began to fail. He retired to his home in Launceton, where he died on July 12, 1929, at the age of 58. At his graveyard service (in Carr Villa Cemetery in Launceston) several massed bands played Invercargill and other marches he composed.

Here is a list of some of his marches:
- Invercargill
- National Guard
- New South Wales
- Galvini
- The Royal Australian Navy
- Fighting Mac
- Stars and Cross
- Rylanda
- Tasma
- Sons of Australia
- Victoria
- March (Sousa wasn't the only march composer who wrote an untitled march)
- Middlington
- Canberra
- Aboriginal March
- Artillery
- Cuckoos
- Queen of the North
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When his marches were published in North America and Europe, he was given the title, Sousa of the Antipodes. Antipodes is a funny word that means it's a place that is the opposite of wherever the person who says it is. The implication is that since these publishers are in the Northern Hemisphere and Australia and New Zealand are in the Southern Hemisphere, that makes Invercargill and Launceston in the antipodes. But for Alex in Tasmania, New York was the antipodes for him.
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Tasmania is a part of Australia.

Claudio S. Grafulla (1810-1880) - - He added flutes and clarinets.

Claudio Sanchez Grafulla (born Claudio Grafulla Sanchez, as in Spanish culture, the father's name goes before the mother's name) was born in 1880 on the island of Minorca. He had been a musician (hornist) ever since he was about 16 years old. Although Minorca was Spanish, it was occupied by British troops (from the Napoleonic Wars, which ended in 1815) for part of his childhood until he was about ten years old and from them he learned how to speak English. Grafulla immigrated to the United States in 1838, and took a position as horn player with the New York Brass Band in New York City. The brass band was associated with the Seventh Regiment of the New York State National Militia (immortalized in John Philip Sousa's march, The Gallant Seventh). Grafulla was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1844 and soon became the bandmaster (conductor) of the New York Brass Band, to which he added woodwinds (starting with only flutes and clarinets) in 1860. The band was known as the New York Seventh Regiment Band after that point. Grafulla had been composing and arranging marches for the brass band ever since he joined up with the group. One of his first compositions for the combined band was Washington Grays, which was written for (as a commemoration) of the Eighth Regiment of the New York State Militia (Kingsbridge Armory) in the Bronx (until 1898, New York City only consisted of Manhattan Island--the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island were independent cities until that time).  Washington Grays was a very unique march for that time and is still considered different in that it has no introduction, break strain, or stinger. Grafulla's composition style for his lesser known marches was typical of other American composers at the time while Washington Grays has a European quality to it. But it doesn't sound Spanish... rather more German or Italian. The name "Washington Grays" refers to the uniforms the Eighth Regiment wore prior to their entry into the U.S. Civil War, when all the troops began wearing blue uniforms. The original instrumentation of Washington Grays was a basic brass band setup with additional parts for E-Flat Clarinet, 1st B-flat (or A) Clarinet, 2nd B-flat (or A) Clarinet, 3rd B-flat (or A) Clarinet, D-flat Piccolo, and Flutes (1st and 2nd parts on one page).  The current edition of Washington Grays was arranged for concert band by the Canadian band composer Louis-Philippe Laurendau (1861-1916), under the pseudonym, George H. Reeves in 1905. It included all the instruments of a 20th century concert band but was published as march size. Laurendeau was not only a composer but also arranged several popular European marches in the same format which were unavailable for American bands prior to that time.
Claudio Grafulla was a very quiet man who never married. His whole life was centered around music.

The Truth About Sousaphones...

When John Philip Sousa thought up of the idea of the sousaphone he wanted a huge TUBA that would be portable and could be played in any environment.  The picture here was what he came up with. The first one was built by J.W. Pepper & Sons out of Philadelphia in 1893. The biggest difference between this and the currently produced sousaphones is that the original sousaphone had a bell that pointed straight up in the air. As Pepper got out of the musical instrument business and concentrated on sheet music, C.G. Conn, Ltd., began to start taking credit for the creation of the instrument. Upright sousphones are nicknamed raincatchers for obvious reasons.
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This is a modern helicon with rotary valves. They also come with piston valves. The helicon predates the sousaphone by about 35 years and has always been more popular  in Europe than in North America, although the Purdue University marching band used helicons until about 1925 when they were replaced with raincatcher sousaphones. Unlike the raincatcher sousaphones, which ceased production over 80 years ago, helicons are still being produced today.
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Front facing bells (correct term is "recording bells") were introduced in the early twentieth century. The reason for the directional bell was not for marching, as Sousa's attitude that "the tuba bells should always point up, spreading that thick layer of bass sound over the band like icing on a cake" was a fairly common way of thinking up through the 1930s. Any time recording devices or amplification was used called for a directional bell.
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Tubas like this came out around 1907. It is called a recording bass (not a recording tuba). Younger tuba players get really irritable about that word BASS as it applies to the tuba. I know I did when I was 14, but it went away very quickly, after I turned 15. The reason this is a recording bass is that it took the place for the string bass on orchestra recordings. Tubas got a whole lot of repertoire during that era that they would never have again, thanks to archaic recording methods of the time. (Remembering that the tuba wasn't even invented until 1835, there were a lot of good composers who were dead by that time.) Just remember, call this a recording bass and not a recording tuba and your intelligence will be rewarded. Don't be like the ignorant musical instrument store managers who call this an upright tuba with a front bell. Bad. Bad. Bad.
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I think the real confusion of the 14 year old tubists and their mothers who believe everything their sons tell them is, what do you call this thing? Yes, to a music store owner, it's a tuba. That's how it's written in the Conn catalog. They are the only people for whom this idea that A SOUSAPHONE IS NOT A TUBA really matters because you don't want to order something like this and end up with a sousaphone. You have to be smarter than that.
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Another problem (according to the 14 year old tuba players and their mommies) is that the idea of throwing around the idea that a sousaphone is a marching tuba and the 13 year old newbie tuba players will start calling this a sousaphone. (A good solution for this is not to buy these and they will go away.) This is called a "marching tuba" but any of the tubas (and that includes sousaphones, kiddies) on this list can be used as a marching band instrument. We used German upright tubas lots of times for parades and military reviews when I was in the U.S. Army band program. I wonder what Jean Shepherd, who played tuba in the Army band program in the 1940s and often got into a tizzy over "uneducated idiots" referring to sousaphones as tubas...
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Just so you know, this is the only instrument on this list that isn't a tuba. "What is it?" asks the mother from the Beavertail Cactus High School Opuntia Marching Band Booster Club. You don't know? And you are trying to tell me that a sousaphone is not a tuba and you really don't know why except that it confuses some music store clerks who only got into music after they finished college. This is a cimbasso (don't worry about pronouncing it correctly... I doubt you would ever see one in a high school group...) It was created by a German musicologist in 1959 to take play the trombone parts in Romantic Italian operas and previously only seemed to work on tubas. Technically, it is a trombone, having a cylindrical bore giving it a raspier sound than a tuba. Tubas might be loud but, for the most part, having a conical bore, it's much gentler.
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This whole thing brings me back some 35 years when I played tuba with the 298th Army Band in Berlin, Germany. Since Berlin is in the part of Germany where most of the locals are Lutherans, the idea of Lent and Ash Wednesday aren't such big things. But in Southern Germany, the German version of Mardi Gras, which is called Fasching, is huge. This was at a time when it gets mighty cold in Berlin, so the Berlin Brigade had nothing for us to do. So in 1980, we were invited to do some ceremonies for the outpost in Fulda, Germany (near the Czech border). Fulda had lost its band in a downsizing of the Army in the 1970s. We did parades on post with our white fiberglass sousaphones (all we had at the time) and the commanding officer there hated what he saw although he didn't mention what it was until the following year. (Yes, we would be invited back. And this was an excellent gig.) But playing a sousaphone in the Fasching celebrations was a big burden... literally. The people watching us march from the street started placing gifts down our sousaphone bells: beer, candy, chocolate, canned fish, cookies, doughnuts, and even cake. I had to go to the post office so I could mail some of this stuff home! And yes, I knew beer wasn't mailable but I am a tee totaller, so I gave the suds to someone who did drink and could appreciate it.
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We found out what the Fulda commander (his name was Colonel John Sherman Crow) didn't like about the band. He said the band was beautiful, except for the four white toilets sticking up out of the back row of the marching formation. Of course he was talking about the white sousaphones. The Army in Berlin had better resources than most Army bands and we had these huge Alexander Kaiser tubas. We were told not to take our own instruments on the trip. If these horns got damaged, the Army would take care of them (I had a Mirafone 186-5U CC.) We went out on the parade field at Fulda in combat dress with the tuba players playing those Alexanders. As I got close to the reviewing stand I saw that Colonel Crow had a big smile on his face. After it was over he came to us and commended, "You all look so great without the tubas..."

Harry L. Alford (1875-1939) - - The REAL Alford

Harry LaForest Alford was born August 3, 1875, in Hudson, Michigan. When he was two his family moved to the nearby village of Blissfield. As a child, Harry was active in musical activities. He taught himself how to play the trombone, piano, and organ, as well as how to compose and arrange music.
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He first made his living as a church organist at the age of 16. Back then, if a person had musical talent, he worked rather than trying to learn more about music in a university or conservatory. Harry was a very hard worker. After working for a long time as a traveling trombonist, he realized he lacked musical knowledge, which confounded his good skill. He took classes at the Dana Musical Institute in Warren, Ohio (now part of Youngstown State University) and went back to traveling around with bands.
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At age 28, he got fed up with traveling and moved to Chicago, where he had a music studio. He made a living by renting out space and arranging music. No one had ever made a full time living arranging music at this time. However, the music he arranged for the pit orchestra of shows by entertainer Eva Tanguay (1878-1947) made him very busy as many theater managers loved his arrangements and he was able to make a living by doing orchestra arrangements. He was famous for his quirky music.
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In the early 1920s his firm, The Harry L. Alford Arranging Studios moved into the sixth floor of the State-Lake Theater Building in Chicago. It continued until a year after his death.
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Harry wrote his first march at the age of 14 for a brass band that was visiting Blissfield. The director of the town band in the city got wind of this and had Harry write marches for that group. He decided that he would write band music, especially marches, whenever he had the time.
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Dr. A.A. Harding director of bands at the University of Chicago in Champaign-Urbana, commissioned Harry to write several half time projects for the Marching Illini. One of those was a march setting of the popular song, "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" in 1919. That arrangement is still popular with bands today. He composed over 100 pieces for band, most of them marches.
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Harry was the band director of the Templar Band of the Siloam Commandery in Chicago from 1927 until his death.
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In 1902, Harry married Lucille Teetzel. They had two children, Harold and Ruth (Harry's name was NOT a diminutive of Harold... In naming his son Harold LaForest Alford, he told his friends that he gave him the name everyone thought Harry had). Harry was very good friends with John Philip Sousa and Merle Evans. When Sousa would come over to have supper, Lucille refused to serve him until he took off his white gloves. Lucille passed away January 30, 1938, after some health problems she had for some time.
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Harry died suddenly on March 4, 1939, at his home in Chicago.

Census records, and not Internet rumors, were used to get Harry's correct birthday. The problem here was that two major Chicago newspapers published his obituary with the wrong birth year (1879). While the papers retracted their errors, the damage is still happening as those obituaries are used to prove Harry's birthdate. Rumor years vary from 1872 to 1883.

Kenneth J. Alford (1881-1945) - - The British March King (who never was)

Frederick Joseph Ricketts was born February 21, 1881, on the East Side of London. His father was a coal merchant. He died when Joe (that's what everyone called him) was seven. Joe was the fourth of five children of Robert Ricketts and his wife Louisa (née Alford). Louisa died when Joe was 14. It was then that he decided he wanted to be in a military band. He had gotten some musical training at his church, which involved singing and piano lessons. 
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Joe enlisted in the British Army in 1895. Boys could enlist at ages 14-21 in jobs that included musician (bandsmen), drummers (regimental/attached to an infantry unit), tailors, shoemakers, artificers (more or less, "inventors" of deadly weapons for the artillery), and clerks. For some odd reason, Joe lied about his age, stating that he was born March 5, 1880, but he was legal age for service when he joined up with the band of the Royal Irish Regiment. Since this date was given as his birthdate for all the time he was with the Army, it is possible that this was a clerical error. As part of his training, he studied the cornet, as this was the instrument that was needed when he joined. Within five months he played the cornet well enough to play with the band. He was well liked and eager to learn new things. In his free time he took it upon himself to learn how to play every instrument in the band. When he was 15 (in 1896)  he wrote his first march, For Foreign Service. It was never published.
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The Royal Irish Regiment was posted in London upon his enlistment and every two years was at a new post. After leaving London, the band moved to Limerick, Ireland, and next they went somewhere out in the middle of nowhere in India. In 1903, the Commanding Officer of the Royal Irish Regiment and his bandmaster, Warrant Officer J. Phillips recommended that Joe take the Bandmaster Course at the Royal Military School of Music in Twickenham, Middlesex (Kneller Hall). Very few bandsmen got in at such an early age.
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The Bandmaster Course included lessons in harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, musicianship, composition, and arranging. Each student had to learn five woodwind instruments and five brass instruments. The course lasted for two years: The teachers for the first year were members of the faculty of the Royal Military School of Music. In the second year professors from the Royal College of Music taught additional skills including arranging, composition, conducting, and church music (learning how to compose for the organ). There were all kinds of competitions but Joe didn't win the march composition competition. The winner was W.V Richards and the march was Namur. Some historians believe that Joe wrote this for Mr. Richards as some sort of favor. It has all the hallmarks of a Kenneth J. Alford march.
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Joe excelled at Kneller Hall but he did not get an appointment to a field band for two years. During the meantime, hes served as chapel organist and school bandmaster (this position wasn't formalized until 1949). 
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In 1908, Joe was sent to South Africa to command the Second Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. It was during this time he felt a need to compose marches. His first successful march was The Thin Red Line, which his band played often. It was not published until 1925. Although it wasn't illegal, it was frowned upon for British Army officers to engage in civilian commercial pursuits. It was deemed necessary for him to make a nom de plume, so Kenneth Joseph Alford was born in late 1910. How he came up with the name: Kenneth was the name of his oldest son (his only child until 1913); he kept Joseph from is own middle name; and Alford was his mother's maiden name. The first march composed under this new name was Quick March Hollyrood in 1911. His band was posted in Edinburgh and Hollyroodhouse was the Scottish residence of the reigning monarch. The Hollyrood march was given its premiere when King George V and Queen Mary came to visit in July 1911 during their coronation year. It was published in 1912.
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During World War I, the adult members of his band were posted to war service as stretcher bearers. Joe and the band boys remained in Edinburgh for the duration of the war.
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He remained with the Second Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders until 1927, his successor being Charles Smart Beat. Over 15,000 attended Joe's farewell concert.
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Joe transferred to the Royal British Navy and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Royal Marines. He was first posted to the Royal Marine Depot, at Deal. While this doesn't seem high for the number of years service Joe gave to the British Army, they hadn't promoted him for the 19 years he led his one Army band. For all that time he was a Warrant Officer Class 1. In 1930, he was sent to the Band of the Plymouth Division, Royal Marines, which was the premiere band of the Royal Navy. It was here that Joe would spend the rest of his career and most of the rest of his life. He retired as a major in 1944, leaving the service due to health reasons. He died at his home in Reigate, Surrey, May 15, 1944, at the age of 64 from lung cancer.
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He married his wife, Annie Louisa Holmes in 1907. Known as Nan, she was an excellent musician in her own right, being a very talented pianist. Nan met Joe at a sheet music shop in London. They had six children.

Zo Elliot (1891-1964) - - British Eighth

Alonzo Elliot, Jr., was born May 25, 1891, in Manchester, New Hampshire. He grew up in Brookhurst, New Hampshire. After finishing at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he earned his BA at Yale, then did additional study at Cambridge (Trinity College) and the Columbia Law School in New York City. He also studied music at the American Conservatory in Paris. Some of his music teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Zeller, Willy de Sadler, and Harry Wittemore. While at Yale, he wrote musical plays. Zo was, for the most part, a popular song writer. His most popular work was, "There's a Long, Long Trail," which was popular during World War I. Zo wrote the music. The words were written by Stoddard King (1889-1933). Some of the other songs he wrote include: "Tulips," "Captain of the Crew", "Wait for Me", "There's a Wee Cottage on a Hillside", "The World Was Made for You and Me", "In the Heart of Paradise", "Enchanted River", "Bluebird", and "Oh! Oh! Abdullah".
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Zo had a keen interest in military music. He wrote an opera entitled Top Sergeant and did a detailed study on the song, "John Brown's Body." What he discovered was the John Brown in that song was not the Virginia abolitionist but rather a Union soldier who died on the battlefield.
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British Eighth was written to commemorate General Bernard Montgomery and the Eighth Army (of the British Army). The march, his only one, was composed in 1943 for publication in 1944. The publisher was Carl Fischer of New York. The first bands to play it were U.S. military bands. When printed programs were used, the description of the British Eighth march stated that Zo Elliott was an English composer who moved to New England after studies at Cambridge (they didn't get the part that he was born and grew up in New Hampshire!)  Zo said that he chose the title for the march carefully, "If I was an English composer, I would have simply called the march 'The Eighth Army.' Since I knew Americans would be the first to play it, I made it British Eighth. But it should never be thought of as a British march. I am an American." And it was popular with British military bands later in 1944. There was no confusion there as to the march's nationality in the U.K. It was published in New York City.  (However, his one popular World War I hit, "There's a Long, Long Trail" was published in London in 1914 and nowhere else.)  The English poet John Masefield (1878-1967) wrote words for British Eighth, which could have added even more confusion. After all, he was the King's poet laureate.
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Zo Elliott died on his 73rd birthday at the Gaylord Farm Hospital in Wallingford, Connecticut, on May 25, 1964.