It's the grand old 4th of July and here I am in Bulgaria thinking of fireworks, band concerts and the like. Actually, I had the good fortune to catch a free concert by the Sofia Brass Band this past Saturday and they opened the program with, what else but the Stars and Stripes Forever! So, in the spirit of the festivities, I'm able to post from abroad a classic band recording by the famed Goldman band under their founder Edwin Franko Goldman. This particular issue was the first in Columbia's "Harmony" series, the budget label that was the forerunner of the much larger, and expansive Odyssey one.
Edwin Franko Goldman is probably the most influential, and important American Bandmaster after Sousa. Besides being a superb conductor, he was a terrific composer and arranger, excellent cornetist, teacher, and founder of the American Bandmaster's Association, probably the most important fraternal band instructors organization in the world. The Goldman Band, in its heyday, was a great professional band, that set incredibly high standards for band performance and did much to popularize the medium beyond the setting in the park. These performances of Sousa marches by the Goldman Band carry on the tradition of Sousa and set the stage for Fennell and his revolutionary work at Eastman. Important documents they are indeed and a clear and clean record of a bridge of style from the 19th to the 20th century. I'm not sure of the recording dates here but I would guess the 1940's.
I have included four of Goldman's own marches as fillers. These recordings are from the mid 30's and are available on the Internet Archive. Excellent music it is with a strong imprint of Sousa.
Happy 236!
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