CHAPTER 7 | BAND MUSIC AFTER THE CIVIL WAR 165
postwar years by such bandleaders as Patrick S. Gilmore and John Philip Sousa,
brought polished musical performances to the ears of more Americans than
any other ensemble. But behind bands like Sousa’s lay a vast network of amateur
groups that, like church choirs, were part of many people’s musical experience as
performers and listeners.
Between the Civil War and World War I, the wind band fl ourished, for it was
well matched to the character of town and city life. As technological progress gave
people more leisure time, civic functions multiplied: parades, picnics, dedica-
tions, store openings, as well as concerts, dances, and other social functions. By
playing music that the public enjoyed, at a volume that could be heard outdoors,
a band enlivened these occasions. In cities, the performers might be professionals
who played in theater orchestras during the winter season. In villages and towns,
players of all ages were recruited to form amateur bands. Band instruments were
relatively inexpensive, and the music required only modest technique. The play-
ing of amateur bands reverberated across the land in these years, bearers of a
tradition of democratic music making that has continued into the twenty-fi rst
century.PATRICK S. GILMORE
At the same time that amateur bands were on the ascendancy, other musicians
were working toward raising the band’s artistic and professional status. A key
fi gure in steering the wind band’s course after 1865 was Patrick S. Gilmore, a
bandmaster who proved that the band could cut loose from military affi liation
and succeed as an independent ensemble in the public arena.
Born in Ireland in 1829, Gilmore immigrated to the United States in 1849 as a
cornetist. He settled in Boston and began in the early 1850s to lead bands, includ-
ing the Salem Brass Band, which he took over in 1855. The next year, Gilmore
engaged the keyed-bugle virtuoso Ned Kendall in a public competition. Neither
was judged to have won the contest, but with a shrewd gift for promotion, Gil-
more parlayed his challenge into public recognition for himself and the cornet.
In 1858 Gilmore resigned from the Salem Brass Band and founded Gilmore’s
Band, which made its debut at the Boston Music Hall in April 1859. The group was
a professional ensemble, with the leader in charge of both its artistic and busi-
ness sides. Gilmore conducted the band, supplied uniforms for his thirty-two
players, chose the music, booked engagements, and handled all other details. He
also collected the profi ts.
The outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861 interrupted the successful rou-
tine of Gilmore’s band, which became part of a Massachusetts regiment. W hen
all volunteer military bands were mustered out of the Union army in August
1862, Gilmore and his musicians returned to Boston, playing concerts to sustain
public morale. In 1864 he accompanied a band to New Orleans, where he staged
a giant musical event celebrating the inauguration of a new governor: a perfor-
mance by a “Grand National Band” boasting some fi ve hundred players and a
chorus of fi ve thousand schoolchildren.
Gilmore’s grandiose streak was soon to fi nd an even grander focus. In June
1869, mindful that the war’s end had not soothed the bitterness between North
and South, he organized a National Peace Jubilee in Boston, a musical event
of unprecedented scope. Gilmore assembled vast forces: an orchestra of fi veK Lookout Mountain,
Tennessee, is the site of
this 1864 photograph of
a Civil War brass band’s
performance.the National Peace
Jubilee172028_07_162-182_r3_ko.indd 165 23/01/13 10:19 AM