Maurice Levi and his Star Band

There is one musical instrument that makes no sound. It has no complicated strings or keys or valves to press. It is always in tune and can easily play in any key. Even though it can't be heard, it's always the first and the last instrument performing in any concert. Amazingly simple to learn and yet still the most difficult instrument to play well, it has unlimited capacity for the loudest forte or softest pianissimo; the highest treble or the lowest bass; and the slowest Lento or the fastest Presto all at once.

It is a conductor's baton.

This conductor knew all about playing the baton. His name is Maurice Levi and he is pictured in this unused postcard wearing a white band uniform and black cap, and surrounded by eight images of himself in various conductor action poses.

He made an appearance on my blog in August 2010 when he was featured in The Music at "Churchill's" Broadway and 49th Street.  

It is one of my more popular stories (judging by the blog's statistics) and also one of my personal favorites for depicting the golden age of American Showbiz. When Maurice Levi and his orchestra performed nightly at Churchill's restaurant in the 1900s, they enjoyed a celebrity that was riding atop a titanic wave of new American culture. Hundreds of new theaters were being built in every city. Music publishers contested to sell the latest hit songs. Music instrument companies wanted every child to have a cornet and every parlor to have a piano. Concert promoters demanded the best bands and performers on their stages. Music was an industry and it made a profit on glamor and fame.

Maurice Levi is a great example of the celebrated band leader who once had it all. Recognized in his era as a performer, a composer, and above all, an entertainer, his music is now forgotten. But once upon a time, he was the model of what people considered an orchestra conductor.

To read his story about Churchill's restaurant on Broadway and 49th St., click this link but meanwhile here is a rerun of the postcard that inspired that post.

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Maurice had a good publicist as I've found several good newspaper accounts reporting on his appeal and praising his musicianship. One review in the Baltimore Sun of March 27, 1905 noted that Levi was a native of Baltimore, Maryland and got his start in show business around 1890 by playing piano in Baltimore theaters. He quickly took over the leadership position in the pit and directed several musical shows in Philadelphia and New York. The 1905 article has a detailed description of his conducting style.

Sometimes Mr. Levi whistles, and when the queenly leaders of the chorus are holding the front of the stage he smiles on them and tells them he has a high opinion  of them or vice versa if they do not attend to "the stick." It is Mr. Levi's thorough knowledge of music, his pleasant manner of directing, his energy and, above all, his ability to keep things moving along that has won for him such high repute.

When in action he has more motions than John Philip Sousa. He beats time with both hands, turns to all points of the compass, talks to the musicians and never takes his mind off his work. When he wants the drum beaten he saws the air with his baton. When he wants a loud blast from the horn he reaches for the horn player with his left hand and literally drags out the desired sound. No one can shirk under the eagle eye of this director, and he is the hardest worker in either orchestra pit or company. In spite of his good nature Mr. Levi insists on having good order on the stage, and the most serious business of his life is running a rehearsal and conducting the piece. If he gets a new musician who does not grasp the spirit of the music, Mr. Levi will, if necessary, devote an entire morning to coaching this one man until he plays to the satisfaction of the master.

Besides his ability as a musical director, Mr. Levi is a composer of first class music. He wrote all the music of "Higgledy Piggledy" and "The College Widower," and there is nothing else so popular this year. Go into any of the best restuarants in New York or, in fact, in Baltimore, for it has preceded the attraction, and you will hear the orchestra playing "The Game of Love," "Nancy Clancy," "Honey, for You," "Mr. Socrates Jackson" and the rest of Mr. Levi's compositions.

Several of his popular songs were recorded by other performers onto that modern technology called the phonograph. These antique cylinders have been preserved by the Library of Congress which has this recording from 1902 of one of Maurice Levi's more successful songs, The Wedding of the Reuben and the Maid. It is played by Sousa's Band and conducted by Arthur Pryor. 

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A baton may make no noise, but Levi certainly knew more than just how to beat time. He made it the focal point for amusing entertainment.  This description of his comic antics is from a theatrical magazine, the New York Star, October 24, 1908.

MR. LEVI CONDUCTOR AND COMEDIAN

Al Aarons does not seem to have made a mistake in signing that five year contract with Maurice Levi and his band: that is, judging by the manner in which music and fun-lovers have shown their appreciation of Mr. Levi's efforts to entertain and amuse them.
 

For Mr. Levi amuses as much as he entertains. There is nothing of the academic about his methods. From the day we first knew him well on Broadway as the conductor with the Rogers Brothers, when he made the gallery join in his choruses and the orchestra give recognition in foot-stamping and head swaying, up to the present moment, when he is funnier than ever as conductor, he has been able to make his audience join in the thought that music need not be sad and serious in order to be either edifying or amusing.
 

Not that Mr Levi cannot be legitimate in the old-fashioned manner; often he is. For instance, at the evening concert at the New York Theater last Sunday his band gave the overture to Von Suppe's "Poet and Peasant" with grace, swing, and close adherence to literal reading. To be sure your Wagnerite may sneer and say that it really doesn't matter how such a trifle as "Poet and Peasant" is given, but Mr Levi's audiences are not made up of the highbrows who prowl around on Wagnerian concert nights, but mostly of folks who like music, even if it happens to be melodious, sprightly, and on the opera comique order.
 

The way Mr. Levi conducts for, say his burlesque of that classic ditty of the sidewalk, "I'm Afraid to Go Home in the Dark," is side-splitting. Not only is the band arrangement full of actual melodic comedy, but the conductor conducts himself in a protean way that becomes no small part of the rendition. He is at times a comedian, while never for a moment losing control of his excellently trained band. Absolutely the only fault I have to find with Mr. Levi is that he is too willing to respond to encores. This is a fault so easily remedied, and at the same time not a fault to so many who want a large measure of value for a small measure of investment, that it ends perhaps by not being a fault at all.
 

Mr. Levi is bound to strike the popular fancy when he goes on his road tour. They have never seen anything like Maurice Levi in the cities he is to visit and he will be a revelation to them.
 

If you are slightly pessimistic and think that fun cannot possibly go with music, then go and hear Mr. Levi and be cured of your hallucination. You will discover that while this conductor does not run in the ruts worn smooth by years of following the traditions of band-leading, he has a firm grip on his band and is so a master of the situation while he on the stand that he permits neither the beauties of a score nor the very finest qualities of a composition to be lost in the slightest degree. Maurice Levi is a scream, but also is he a conductor who knows his business from the classic to the most maudlin of popular musical maunderings.

The review suggests that Levi was about to go on tour, and I found several references of his appearance around the country from 1908 to 1910. So a postcard promoting his comedic conducting style would likely be from this period.

I was able to find only one certain genealogy record for Maurice Levi, and that was in the New York census of 1915 where he is listed as a Bandmaster.  He was 48 at the time, so his birth year was around 1867. He and his wife Beatrice Levi, age 32 and born in England, lived in apartments at Broadway and 104th St. No children were recorded. The first newspaper accounts and advertisements with his name date from 1894 and the last are around 1916.

Perhaps one day I will discover more of Maurice Levi's history, but let's watch one of his musical descendants, the great pianist, humorist, and sometime conductor - Victor Borge. It's a perfect demonstration of how a conductor's baton can blend music and comedy together. Maurice would have laughed too. 

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This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

click the link for more people dressed in white uniforms.

Circus Bandwagons on Parade

In 1900 when John Robinson's Circus came to town, the parade was led
by a bandwagon pulled by a team of 14 camels.  Who could miss that?
'Cause that's something you don't see everyday!


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Daily Illinois State Register - July 17, 1900

Two weeks ago my orchestra finished our concert season in a hall adjacent to the civic sports arena where a circus (the one everyone knows) had a run of several performances. The circus started an hour early so that the two different crowds of patrons would not collide coming through the doors. One of the obstacles was a group of PeTA protestors in front of the entrance.

On the day the circus set up I happened to walk through the lower arena storage and got a glimpse of two elephants carefully screened from the world, and seemingly content to wait for the evening showtime. Almost all the production came in on trucks, but the elephants arrived rather secretively from the rail depot without fanfare or big parade. There was certainly no bandwagon pulled by 14 camels. 

In 1900 it was very different. A circus was a town's highlight of the year, and because they traveled by rail and performed in huge tent cities constructed overnight, there was always a parade down Main St. Dozens of circus promoters competed to have the biggest and most extravagant attractions. John Robinson Ten Big Shows Combined was one of the largest and had been entertaining American and Canadian audiences since 1842. By 1900 it was run by the third generation of the Robinson family and the season included a new biblical spectacle of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. This pageant needed a lot of camels. 

It was a probably no coincidence that the Robinson Circus chose the theme of Africa and camels since only a few months before in October of 1899 the 2nd Boer War had begun in South Africa. A circus this size was also admired for the way its touring logistics mirrored a military campaign. According to a Robinson circus agent's report in the New York Clipper of June 2, 1900:

The rank and file of the show numbers 282 people. Our train, which is run in two sections, numbers forty-two cars. Never in the history of the Robinson Show has it been more complete than one now finds it. Our parade is commented on by press and public unanimously as without a peer in the circus business. A thirty cage menagerie, no two of which cages are alike either in design or color. All harness and trappings are absolutely new, and visiting showmen pronounce the show at the top of the list. We are carrying a complement of two hundred and forty head of horses, fifty-eight ponies, and, with the new shipment of elephants, secured by Mr. Robinson this winter, which will reach us in about ten days, we will have a herd of seven elephants. Add to this twenty-two camels, all of which we have succeeded in harnessing together, and which form the distinguishing feature of the parade. Business has been, up to late, more than satisfactory.

But securing camels was not easy. The New York Clipper reported earlier on March 31, 1900 that: 

The John Robinson Circus lost twelve of nineteen camels by death on shipboard while en route to this port from Calcutta, India. The ship ___ safely landed seven camels and a dwarf cow on March 22.

This circus usually opened each season in mid April playing Madison Square Garden and then took to the road for shows under the big top in a different town each day. The parades, the rail travel, and the weather made for a difficult life for man and beast.  By December 1900, Billboard magazine ran this short note:

Out of thirty camels purchased by the John Robinson Shows last spring, all have died save six.

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Other circus troupes preferred horses that were better suited for the temperate climate of North America. In the 1890s Dan Rice's Circus parade had a bandwagon pulled by a team of 40 horses. The top photo shows the 40 matched draft horses arranged in 10 hitches of 4 horses, and all controlled some 80 feet away by a master wagon driver. Such champion teamsters were renown in their day for their skill to hold twenty pairs of reins and manage the direction and speed of so many horses. The same horsepower might help with hauling the canvas tents to the fair grounds, and later appear in part of the circus performance. 

The lower photo shows the ornately carved and gilded wagons of the Forepaugh-Sells Bros. Circus preparing to leave the lot during the season of 1899. I believe they are the menagerie wagons with the various circus animals, and the bandwagon may be on the right in the back. There are at least 10 wagons in this assembly and there were probably many more since one wagon has the number 61 on the back.

In the Kalamazoo Gazette of August 8, 1899 there was a large advertisement for the Adam Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Circus. Like the Robinson Circus, it described itself as the biggest and best, with a collection of 1,000 wild and trained animals, including Woodward's Seal & Sea Lion Orchestra. Now that's high class music!

I like to imagine that my gal from Kalamazoo, Mary Spohn Berghuis, whom you met last week, went to see this show. Did she wish she was playing cornet in the band?

Note that the tents of  the Forepaugh-Sells Circus were as absolutely waterproof as the John Robinson circus tents.

Kalamazoo Gazette - August 8, 1899

Both of these 5" x 7" photos are reproductions, but vintage reproductions that have an interesting photography history. They were originally part of the catalog of Charles Bernard of Savannah, Georgia. Mr. Bernard (1862-1936) was a former circus performer and traveling show agent, and in the 1920s and 30s he had a mail order business in old photographs of American circus groups. Some of the photos may not have been taken with his own camera, but he reproduced them in his own dark room, and sold them to circus fans and memorabilia collectors who wanted to remember the days of the great circuses, which were now fast disappearing. He was also a prolific writer on circus history and stories, and was featured in several show business magazines and newspapers. Today he would have a blog.

Though he did not live to see it established, he is considered one of the founders of the Circus Historical Society , which is one of the greatest history archives on the web. Shortly after his death in 1936, Charles Bernard's photos and negatives were sold to Robert Good of Allentown, PA and James Schonblom of Bradford, PA who both continued to sell these circus photos by mail order in the 1940s and 50s. That is where I suspect these two photos came from, so they are vintage reproductions of reproductions.

advert  from Circus Scrapbook - JULY 1930

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Kalamazoo Gazette - June 1, 1900

In June of 1900, Kalamazoo was on the route of the John Robinson Circus. The   Kalamazoo Gazette gave a review which described the 14 camels pulling the bandwagon, (and assisted by a single team of horses that did most of the real work). 

The report may have used material provided by a circus agent or advance man like Charles Bernard, but it begins with a fine poem to this traveling wonder that was once part of  American culture.

It's nice to know that Mary Spohn Berghuis could expect that with this circus, 
"There are no Noxious Insects in its Red Lemonade!"

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This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where it is animal stories and more this weekend.

That Gal in Kalamazoo

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H
I got a gal in Kalamazoo
Don't want to boast but I know she's the toast of Kalamazoo

Years have gone by, my my how she grew
I liked her looks when I carried her books in Kalamazoo

(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo

written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren ~ 1942

This girl is a puzzle. As she stands holding her cornet with a confident poise, her direct gaze at the camera captures our attention. Like the sphinx, that hint of a smile poses a question. "Can you guess my name?"


After many months of trying, I think I have the answer to her riddle.

Her name is Mary. That's certainly what the photographer, F.P. Ford of Kalamazoo, Michigan called her when he focused the lens on her brooch. The yellow sepia tone of the image is now very faded, so I improved the saturation and contrast levels with digital software. I imagine her blouse as green, but what color do you see? 

(Remember you can always click any image to see it larger.)

Just to make it doubly clear, someone added the name Mary in pencil on the back of this cabinet card.

Mary from Kalamazoo.

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The second piece of the puzzle came with the first. The girl in this photo looks very like Mary, but she is posed only from her shoulders up and she has no cornet. It came from the studio of Wood at 134 S. Burdick St., Kalamazoo, Mich. Conveniently Mr. Wood prints the year under his initials TEW  - 1889.    

Note the owl eyes in WⵙⵙD.  Do you think he wore spectacles?

This photo has an even better identification written in ink on the back, Mary Berghuis.

Mary Berghuis from Kalamazoo in 1889.

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The third puzzle piece came along with the other two. This photo, with the initials JMR of the Reidsema studio of  Kalamazoo, Michigan, also shows a young girl with a cornet. She wears a white blouse with a dark color skirt, and her face has a slightly goofy quality. There is enough difference in the facial features to make the puzzle challenging.

Is this the same girl? Or are they all different persons?

On the back is another inscription but it is in soft pencil and the card stock is grey so it is very hard to read. When digitally enhanced, it looks like
Miss Mary StJohn
Kalamazoo, Mich.

At least that's how I read the name until a week ago.

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The 1889 city directory for Kalamazoo listed several photographers including: Frank P. Ford at 119 S. Burdick; Thomas E. Wood at 134 S. Burdick; and on the other side of the river - John Reidsema at 103 E. Main.

There was a Mr. Garland B. St. John, president of the St. John Plow Co., and a Sylvester G. St. John - night watchman who lived at the same address as Miss Ada E. St. John - church organist. But no Mary St. John.

And no Mary Berghuis either. Only a Peter Berghuis - celery grower.

It's a brain teaser. Which Mary is Mary?

The 20 years between the 1880 Census and the 1900 Census are a great void of missing American history, because in 1921 a fire in the basement of the U.S. Commerce Building destroyed almost all the records of the 1890 census. Thoughtless bureaucrats shredded the rest in 1934. Every name, birth, death, marriage, occupation, and address notated on the census takers' handwritten data sheets are gone. There are still ways to track people down, but a history detective must always stumble through this very long tunnel in the dark.

Today the Internet provides vast archives that seem like an infinite reference library, but that is an illusion. Some records are incomplete; some are only at one place, while others are kept somewhere else. For all it's power, Google can't find everything.

So I have subscription to several commercial archives, and sometimes they will update the available records and add new sources. When I'm feeling lucky I might go back and repeat a search that was unsuccessful several months ago.

That's what happened this week.

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Kalamazoo Gazette
July 2, 1897

A new search for Mary Berghuis produced a new hit from records of the Kalamazoo Gazette. In 1897, Menno P. Berghuis 27, and Mary Spohn 24, both of Kalamazoo applied for a marriage license. The difficult handwriting on the back of the third photo reads Spohn, not St.John. The flourish in the SP made me assume an English name when a German name was what I should have seen! This was the Ahh Ha! moment that every puzzle enthusiast strives for.

Mary was the middle daughter of three girls belonging to William and Barbara Spohn. William was a stone cutter in the 1880 census and came from Baden, Germany, and his wife was from Württemberg. Mary was born in Michigan in 1873.


Menno Berghuis, born in 1870, was the son of Peter and Nellie Berghuis, both from Holland. In the 1880 census they lived on Vine Street only a few blocks away from the Spohn family on Third St.


But wait, there's more. A second hit in the Kalamazoo Gazette of 1897, turned up the Spohn-Berghuis wedding announcement, complete with a description of the bride's dress. 

Kalamazoo Gazette
June 25, 1897

It all fit very neatly now. Tracking a woman's married name through this decade is very difficult. Mary Berghuis of 1889 was actually only Mary Spohn at age 16. And surely the Mary who posed so nicely for Mr. Ford must be the same Mary Spohn Berghuis.

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Kalamazoo Gazette
December 10, 1892

Finally a third hit from the Kalamazoo Gazette flips the final letter and solves the riddle.



In December of 1892, Madam Jannasch Shortt produced a recital of her music students. This was the 7th annual event she had given, and there would be many more. Mme. Shortt began her career as a music teacher in Kalamazoo in 1880 and was still teaching in 1920. She offered lessons at her Musical Institute on piano, organ, violin, cello, clarionet, cornet, flute, piccolo, bass viol, mandolin, guitar, banjo, etc.



She was born in Germany where she received her musical training and immigrated to Kalamazoo sometime in the 1870s. Her student programs were announced regularly in the Kalamazoo Gazette, and in 1892 the newspaper printed the entire program of nearly two dozen selections, including a snare drum solo played by the unfortunately named
Master Clyde J. Bates.

In the second half, just after a banjo solo by Miss Edith Pearl Root, was a Cornet Duet - Po'ka with Quickstep performed by Miss Mary M. Spohn and Mr. L. J. Carrington. A second report a few days later said the concert was well received and the cornet duo was roundly encored.

(Master Bates gave his solo in good form)


Mary Spohn would be age 19 that year and surely her proud parents would want a photograph to celebrate her musical accomplishment. So I think the first photo was taken just before this concert, as of the three photos Mary seems the most mature in this one.

The third photo seems to me to be the youngest image of Mary. Perhaps at age 14 when she was first taking up the cornet.

That photographer, John Reidsema, was born in 1865 and was described in the account of his 1891 wedding as a young photographer. (He married Edith Pearl Root's sister that year, and Edith played the wedding processional music. It's not reported if this was on the banjo.) If he started his photography business at age 20 in 1885, that would seem to fit the timeline.

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Image from Findagrave.com

Mary and Menno Berghuis had a long and hopefully happy life. They had 6 children, but we can never know if Mary continued to play the cornet, or if making a family took priority over making music. Perhaps one of her children took up the instrument. Menno died in 1934 and Mary in 1943 at age 70.

In a German-American household of the late 19th century, learning a musical instrument was a valued talent. It was the mark of a refined and educated person of culture. Though a few of Madam Shortt's pupils may have gone on to professional careers, most students like Mary did not take lessons at this kind of music school to learn a trade. Music was about personal achievement. It was about the pride and fulfillment that comes from playing a musical instrument you enjoy. That's the answer to Mary's riddle behind her shy smile.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everyone has portraits on display this weekend.

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Think of this as the encore. In 1942, Glenn Miller and his orchestra had a big hit with the Kalamazoo song in the film Orchestra Wives. It features two versions, the first with Tex Beneke and The Modernaires, and for a very special treat, The Nicholas Brothers immediately follow with a reprise that adds their spectacular dancing. There is nothing on film or television today that even comes close to matching the quality and class of this performance.

I wonder if Mary might have seen it. 

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I'm gonna send away, hoppin' on a plane, leavin' today
Am I dreamin'? I can hear her screamin'
"Hiya, Mr. Jackson"
Everything's OK, A-L-A-M-A-Z-O

Oh, what a gal, a real pipperoo
I'll make my bid for that freckle-faced kid I'm hurryin' to
I'm goin' to Michigan to see the sweetest gal in Kalamazoo

Boys at Play

The full instrumentation of a British brass band has about 27 players: 1 soprano E-flat cornet, 9 B-flat cornets, 1 B-flat flugelhorn, 3 E-flat tenor horns, 2 B-flat baritone horns, 2 B-flat tenor trombones, 1 bass trombone, 2 B-flat euphoniums, 2 E-flat tubas, 2 B-flat tubas, and 2 to 4 percussion (drums and cymbals).  So with 43 musicians the Boys' Band of Gillingham, Kent are on the large size for a brass band. They are all very young (mostly) except for one clarinet player that I suspect is the bandleader, standing with his wife and daughter on the right. Most of the boys in the front rows look under the age of 12.

The photographer was Hill of New Brompton, which was the previous name of Gillingham, (pronounced with soft G = Jillingham)  a town next to the Chatham Dockyard on the River Medway in Southeast England. In 1901 it had a population of 42,530 who found employment mainly in the ship building industry there. In addition to the navy, there were soldiers too, stationed at forts guarding the dockyards.

So with all this activity in Gillingham, I expected the history of this boys' band would be easy to find. Alas it is lost, at least on the internet. If they were from a school, that information would usually be preserved, and in this era such a large school band would be very unusual. They might be from a workhouse, that Dickensian institution where the impoverished were given room and board in exchange for their labor, and workhouse boys were sometimes organized into a band. Though there was a small workhouse in Chatham, the boys in the photo seem too well fed and too numerous to be that kind of band.

They might be boys belonging to the Sea Cadet Corps, one of the oldest youth organizations in Britain. It was established as a training program for future sailors during the Crimean War of 1854, and there was a company in Chatham. But the boys' uniforms, especially their pillbox hats, are like those of army bandsmen, not navy. An alternate version of this postcard has the caption - Lads of Kent, so I think there may be a military connection that will take more research to decipher who they are. 

The back of the postcard was addressed to Miss Playford of Finsbury Park, London and sent on July 25, 1905 from Snodland, Kent, which is 10 miles from Gillingham. It has a rather intriguing message.

Nan has not heard of anything yet. Father + her went to Maidstone yesterday to see Mr. Ellis so we don't know yet how it will turn out but he intends to carry the thing through if they ?__? no notice of Mr. Ellis letter from ?about? - Your black ?smist? I see you left it behind. For love from all E.P.

What could be the matter between Father and Mr. Ellis?

This next group of young band boys are from Switzerland, and the Knaben-Musik Basel number 74 by my count. They are a real wind ensemble with woodwinds - flutes and clarinets - along with brass instruments and drums. The brass use the European rotary valves instead of the piston valves that the Gillingham boys have. There are also four horn players, two on each side.

The Knaben-Musik of Basel has a long tradition that dates from 1841. Using Google's translation feature does not always give a clear meaning, but I think the first band was organized for a summer music festival. However as the annual event continued, the boys' musical training moved from the rehearsal hall to the beer garden, and their playing, let us say became less than acceptable. This required a band director with a strong hand and the Knaben-Musik Basel engaged Fritz Siegin, who was conductor from 1886 to 1936. I believe he must be the large man on the left wearing a bow tie and straw boater. He gave the band their motto: Was man liebt, das züchtigt man. =  "What one loves, punishes you."

So does beer.

The postcard was sent on June 20, 1910 to Herrn Joh. Hubler of Schlosshof, Binnigeer, Lasell (I'm unable to find out where that is) by his son who felt no need to add his name for his parents. But he has carefully marked an X over himself in the back row of the band. The writing is in German and as best as I can understand he arrived safely in Zug and may have a ride home.  My guess is the boy is traveling with the Knaben-Musik for a concert, as Zug is a good distance southeast of Basel.

The Fanfare of the Institution Saint Nicolas de Buzenval are very large brass band. The photographer made a heroic effort to get all 91 boys to arrange themselves elbow to elbow and horn to horn. These young musicians are from a Catholic school in the Rueil-Malmaison commune of the suburbs west of central Paris. A Fanfare is the French term for a band and here there are no woodwinds, only brass and drums. These instruments  have piston valves including the trombones, but the first rank behind the drums are holding bugles. Look closely and you can see their cap plumes are in the French tricolor.

The Institute Saint-Nicolas was opened in 1901 as an extension of a Catholic charity school in Paris, originally for orphans and poor children. It is on the grounds of the Château de Buzenval, the former home of the Duchess of Cadore who bequest the estate to the church. In 1904 the school was secularized by the French government. In 1960 it merged with another Catholic school and is now called the College Passy Buzenval.

The postmark on the front of the card is obscured but I believe it is from 1904-09. The message to a Monsieur A. Nne.(?) of Paris reads: 

Will come Sunday Morning after breakfast Thank You. Affectionately yours A. Palut(?)

Each of the three boys' bands had a different heritage, but all developed for similar reasons. One reason was to provide vocational training on a musical instrument which might offer a boy a skilled trade if he persevered and had talent. The second was to give wayward boys a disciplined activity to occupy their time and keep them out of trouble. And the third reason was to promote the institution or town by giving concerts. There is a real sense of pride that comes from these boys smartly dressed in band uniforms and showing off their musical accomplishments.

Of course the income from the sale of postcards helped to pay for all instruments too.

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Today the band from Basel continues to provide music for Swiss youth, though since 1990 it now includes girls.  Recently there has been a controversy that the name Knaben-Musik was sexist because it means Boys' Music. Though the group has removed the hyphen to rename itself just KnabenMusic, they are apparently fooling no one and may have to change the full name.


Here is a recent video of the drummers of the KnabenMusic Basel performing at an outdoor concert. It takes little imagination to hear the same enthusiastic music played by the boys of Gillingham, Busenval, or Basel.

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Follow the link to Sepia Saturday
where everyone gets a turn to play.