Search - South Shore Concert Band :: Sounds of the Circus Vol. 1

A Fine Collection of Authentic Circus Music

Daniel E. Turkington | Danville, VA USA | 06/24/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The South Shore Concert Band does a nice job on this album of sounding more like a circus than a concert band, and of playing this very difficult material at extremely rapid tempos in some cases, but also taking some numbers at a slower beat, to provide contrast. Unfortuately, there are almost no liner notes, and the nice pictures from the Circus World Museum at Baraboo, WI are the same on all of the first several albums in this series, except for the one on each cover.Appropriately enough, over half of the selections on this CD are by Karl King, including his most famous composition, Barnum and Bailey's Favorite (which has possibly been recorded even more than Stars and Stripes Forever), four other "King standards", Sells-Floto Triumphal, Ponderoso, New Madison Square Garden, and Invictus, and some lesser-known marches. Appropriate, since King wrote more marches than any other American composer, around 175, including several galops (marches played at one beat to the measure; in other words, extemely fast, to be played typically for fast-paced circus acts), and a few marches written under the nom de plume Carl Lawrence. About 75 of these marches are still published, and 50 are included in this 18 volume series of circus music. He also wrote many waltzes, overtures, and desciptive pieces.Karl King (1891-1971), grew up in various cities in Ohio, and lived most of his life in the midwest. He studied music from an early age, playing the baritone and having his first compositions published by the age of seventeen. He began playing with circus bands at nineteen for the next four years, after which he became the bandmaster of the Sells-Floto and Buffalo Bill Combined Shows (1914-16), and Barnum and Bailey Circus (1917-18). Unlike other band leaders, most notably John Philip Sousa, who chose to pursue high-profile careers, King then settled in the "backwater" of Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he lived the remaining fifty three years of his life, leading the Fort Dodge Municipal Band and running a successful music publishing business. He was truly one of the finest writers of circus music, and marches in general, that this country has ever produced.I recommend this album for anyone who enjoys music from the Big Top."