Recordings

The mission of the Americus Brass Band (ABB) has always been the authentic performance of music of famous brass bands from the past and our recordings preserve the best of that music for the future. Through the use of original instruments and historically informed performance practices, our goal is to transport the listener back to that earlier time in our nation’s history,  the so-called “Golden Age of the brass band,” when bands provided the sound track to all American life and culture. And each member of the Americus Brass Band, skilled professional musicians one and all, are deeply committed to this important task. To that end, the ABB has recorded a complete anthology of early American band music that includes the original Americus Brass Band (and several others) of the Civil War era, the Dodge City Cowboy Band and the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show from the “Old West,”  more recently, James Reese Europe’s “Harlem Hell Fighters” Band from WWI and finally, Capt. Glenn Miller’s US Army Air Corps Band from WWII.

The group made it’s first recording back in 1987, an analog LP of Civil War era ballroom dance music we called A 19th Century Grand Ball. The project was inspired by Desmond Strobel, “dance master to the stars,” who worked with us on many Civil War balls and a couple  of TV shows and movies. Unfortunately, the 19th Century Grand Ball album was never digitized and is no longer available. 

Music of the Civil War — The band recorded its first CD for Summit Records in 1991 and we simply called it Music of the Civil War, (DCD 126). With the assistance of Mark Elrod, former librarian to the US Marine Band and nationally renown Civil War music authority, the CD features a playlist of original brass band pieces from both sides of the war,  of course all performed on period instruments. The CD was produced to sell with the ABB’s first show, Honor and Glory: Civil War Memories, which told the story of the original Americus Brass Band in the Civil War. We toured that show nation-wide for Columbia Artists in the early 1990s.

The Dodge City Cow-Boy Band — Our next CDs were recorded four years later in October 1995 and feature music of two later nineteenth century brass bands of the “old west.” The first features music of the historic Dodge City Cowboy Band which dated from c.1880 to c.1915. The CD was produced to sell with the ABB second touring show of the same name and features brass band pieces from the original Dodge City Cowboy Band’s library. There are also several actual cowboy songs sung by two of the touring show cast  members, Mark Torreso and Eric Love. 

Wild West Music of Buffalo Bill’s Cowboy Band — The second CD, recorded at the same time, featured music from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Band and for the first time, includes the woodwind instruments that were becoming common in American brass bands near the turn of the 20th century. The music was selected because of its use in the Wild West Show and includes rarely heard pieces by such legendary composers/band leaders as William Sweeney, Thomas Preston Brooke and Karl King. There are even examples of some of the earliest ragtime music ever written for band. The recording was produced by Dr. Mike Masterson and the Buffalo Bill Historical Society of Cody WY and ABB recorded on an entirely new set of old instruments. Not quite modern but closer than the Civil War set, these instruments were chosen based on photographs of the original bands from the era.

James Reese Europe’s Harlem Hellfighters Band — The next ABB recording was made many years later in 2018,  and is a recreation of the iconic Pathe recordings by James Reese Europe and his “Harlem Hell Fighters” band from WWI. This recording was the result of careful research into the original Pathe records that Europe made back in 1919, recordings that jazz historians say are the earliest examples of “big band” style pre-jazz music. Again, the woodwinds joined the band and all of the musicians were tasked with recreating the new “jazz stylings” that Europe’s band used one hundred years ago. The result brings that amazing early ragtime/blues/jazz music back to life in a way that the original wax cylinder records can’t quite match.

The Americus Brass Band is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.
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