‘March King’ Sousa led U.S. Marine Band to fame

The Lore of the Corps: ‘March King’ Sousa led U.S. Marine Band to fame
By Nick Adde - Special to the Times
Posted : May 21, 2007

It seems inevitable that young John Philip Sousa, who was born in 1854 within earshot of the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., would become linked to “The President’s Own” — the U.S. Marine Band.

His father, Antonio, played trombone with the ensemble. Following in his dad’s footsteps, young John became proficient in several instruments at an early age.

But Sousa’s legendary time with the band almost didn’t happen.

A circus band director who heard the boy practicing violin offered him a job. But John’s father caught wind of the plan, and on the morning the boy was to run away to join the circus, Antonio brought him to the barracks and mustered him in as a musician apprentice.

Sousa earned a full position in the band by age 17, playing a number of instruments: violin, piano, flute, cornet, alto and baritone horns, and trombone. Facts about his rank are sketchy: When he made the band, he was a third-class musician.

In 1875, Sousa left the Marine Band to begin a successful professional career in Philadelphia as a conductor, violinist, composer and arranger. Five years later, he returned to the Marine Band at the request of Commandant Col. Charles McCawley to become its 17th director.

From that point, the band’s rise in popularity, as well as his own, was meteoric.

“We did a comparison of all composers in the U.S. from 1872 to about 1900,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Mike Ressler, the Marine Band’s chief librarian.

“Sousa was the leading composer who wrote music that all audiences could enjoy — serious and light-hearted [pieces], waltzes, suites and, of course, marches,” Ressler said. “He holds a very important place as an early composer in our national music history.”

Sousa and the band were arguably the most popular musical ensemble in the country at the end of the 19th century. He earned the nickname “The March King” by penning no fewer than 137 marches.

Several years ago, an unfinished manuscript in Sousa’s hand was discovered in the Library of Congress. The band’s chief arranger, Master Sgt. Stephen Bulla, completed the piece, and the band presented the debut performance of the “Library of Congress March” in the library’s grand hall in 2003.

Sousa’s two most famous pieces — “Semper Fidelis” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” — remain staples of patriotic music more than a century after reaching the zenith of American popular music.

Sousa wrote “Semper Fidelis,” now “unofficially the official march of the Marine Corps” according to Ressler, in 1888 at the request of President Arthur, who sought a replacement for “Hail to the Chief.”

He composed “The Stars and Stripes Forever” in his head during an ocean voyage from Europe in 1896, committing it to paper when he arrived at his hotel in New York. The stirring march accompanies the annual July 4th fireworks display in Washington, D.C. President Reagan signed a bill in 1987 designating it as the U.S. national march.

Sousa stayed in his post with the Marine Band until 1892, when he organized his own ensemble. He toured extensively until his death in 1932, at the age of 77. His body was returned to Washington to lie in state in the Band Hall at the Marine Barracks. He was buried four days later in nearby Congressional Cemetery.

Ellie