Dance Music, Brass Bands, and Tin Pan Alley
Social functions of dancing Popular European styles Contradance (or country dance tradition) the grand ball
Brass bands Military bands: ◦ trumpets ◦ trombones ◦ tubas John Phillip Sousa and the Marine Corps band (1893)
America’s “March King” The most popular bandleader of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
touring bands Italian concert bands shaped musical taste contributed to popular music ◦ e.g., ragtime ◦ e.g., jazz
publishing businesses centered in NYC Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe ◦ lower Manhattan ◦ “pluggers” promoted songs ◦ 28 th Street was Tin Pan Alley sheet music 25 – 60 cents
Tin Pan Alley Biggest Hits "After the Ball" (Charles K. Harris, 1892)Charles K. Harris "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" (Charles Coborn, 1892)Charles Coborn "The Sidewalks of New York" (Lawlor & Blake, 1894) "The Band Played On" (Charles B. Ward & John F. Palmer, 1895) "Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose" (Ben Harney, 1896)Ben Harney "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (Joe Hayden & T. Mertz, 1896)A Hot Time in the Old Town "Warmest Baby in the Bunch" (George M. Cohan, 1896)George M. Cohan "At a Georgia Campmeeting" (Kerry Mills, 1897)Kerry Mills "Hearts & Flowers" (Theodore Moses Tobani, 1899) "Hello! Ma Baby (Hello Ma Ragtime Gal)" (Emerson, Howard, & Sterling, 1899)Hello! Ma Baby
descended from: ◦ music hall shows ◦ minstrelsy popularized Tin Pan Alley songs a series of performances: ◦ no overarching narrative
“The Letter That Never Came” (1885) “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” (1899)
“Daddy of Popular Song” “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” (1900) “I Want a Girl (Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad)” (1911)
ex-minstrel “plantation” songs ~700 songs: ◦ “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” (1878) ◦ “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” (1879)
“After the Ball” (1892) ◦ first mega-hit pop song ◦ sold over 5 million copies! ◦ interpolated into Show Boat!