Saturday, February 28, 2009

Circus Music #6


Columbia album, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Columbia album

In 1941 Merle and the band recorded 10 sides for Columbia in Liederkrantz Hall in New York City. They were released as “Circus,” an album of five 10-inch records, which must have been a good seller, since used copies are almost continuously available on eBay, in various states of condition and completeness.

Posted by Buckles at 2/28/2009 06:00:00 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I well recall this album. I got it (78-rpm)for Christmas in 1945. You can hear the air calliope playing. It also had music from the 1941 Old King Cole spec. I thought it the best circus album I ever owned.

28 February, 2009 12:41
Anonymous said...

The 'Old King Cole' march or medley was arranged by Edwin Franco Goldman, but Merle left out 'Jingle Bells' on the recording. My copy of the arangement came from the Holton Band Library in Elkhorn, WI.

The Holton Band at one time had many former circus band members and also included some manuscripts from famous musicians of the time.

I don't know what has happened to the library, but, I assume some smart young school teacher threw it out because many of the pieces didn't have a conductors score (this happened in Beloit). For you non-musicians, many of the early marches had the cues for other instruments on the solo cornet parts.

28 February, 2009 18:56
Eric said...

This is probably the Ringling band's best album. Many of the sides feature Merle and the band doing split-second segues between numbers on whistle cues. Columbia later re-released it as a 12-inch LP on its budget Harmony label. For some reason, silence was edited in between the whistle-cued segues, completely ruining the effect.

28 February, 2009 20:05

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