A Coon Band Contest 1899 Arthur Pryor

Dr. Pitt-Payne in London UK - 12 Jun 2003

Coon Band Contest
- Eighteen Ninety Nine
by Arthur Pryor
*
Arthur Pryor, the trombonist/arranger
for the Sousa Band composed this cakewalk
in Eighteen Ninety Nine. The military
band was the most popular idiom during
the turn of the twentieth century.
The music illustrates the link between
brass band music and the Negro style music.
It uses the cakewalk rhythm and also
the use of syncopation. There is also
a very characteristic trombone performance
with the use of the glissando.
*
Arthur Willard Pryor was an American trombonist,
bandleader and composer of popular music.
The son the town bandmaster of
St. Joseph, Missouri, he showed early
musical talents in mastering the cornet,
alto horn, valve trombone, drums, violin,
bass viol and piano. He absorbed
the prevalent fashion for the early
ragtime music being in the close proximity
of the likes of Scott Joplin,
James Sylvester Scott and Percy Wenrich.
*
Pryor's dazzling career as a trombonist
was initiated by being given
a dilapidated slide trombone
by his father, Samuel who accepted
it as a debt repayment. This
instrument was virtually unknown in
the United States at that time so
consequently the fifteenyear old
Arthur Pryor was obliged to teach himself.
In so doing after much diligent practice
he mastered the slide trombone horn
using only the top onethird length
of the slide. It was some five years
later that he learned from a casual
acquaintance that the complete length
of the slide could be used.
*
Due to this unconventional selftuition
whereby he innovated
his alternate positions in addition
to the standard seven positions
he was able to achieve fantastic speed
and fluidity on his instrument becoming
renowned as "the Boy Wonder of Missouri."
*
After touring with the great cornet soloist
and bandmaster Allessandro Liberati he was
eventually invited to join John Philip Sousa
in his newlyformed concert band in
Eighteen Ninety Two. In his eleven year
career with the Sousa Band he rapidly
advanced from first trombonist, to lead
soloist and then to assistant conductor in
Eighteen Ninety Five.
*
It was in this position that he started
composing cakewalk successes such as
'Southern Hospitality'
and
'A Coon Band Contest.'
*
In Nineteen Hundred and Three he resigned
from Sousa's band to enter into business for
himself as a composer/bandmaster and pioneer
in the fledgling music recording industry
at the Victor Talking Machine Company.
The years at the company were the most
fertile period for as a composer. Of his
threehundred original works, the most
famous were created during this time.
*

Soft karaoke
Words
str 25
str 50
str 110
fr hrn 60
brass 75
flute
timp
bassoon
clarinet
piano t clef
oboe
pizz str
glock
tenor sax
harp
drum
*
A Coon Band Contest 1899
by Arthur Pryor
copyright - expired
sequence by Dr. Pitt-Payne in London UK
on Thursday 12 June 2003 at 23.42
in association with Doug Grierson
*