Traditional Circus Music
Traditional Circus Music
Circuses, such as they are today, feature music, but not like in the “good old days.” Circus music today is electronic, pre-programmed, and often recorded. Back in the heyday of circus trains, animal acts, and big top tents, circus music was real, immediate, and exciting.
Merle Evans, who was musical director for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for 50 years, and widely considered the “Toscanini of the Big Top,” defined circus music as “music written by circus musicians that is ‘brighter’ than other music.”
According to The Circus in America, the most often played type of music was the march. There were, of course, waltzes, rags, serenades, gallops, and other styles — but the march was called up most often.
Part of the reason may be that circuses generally featured animals — many of them considered ferocious. These “beasts of the jungle” were usually accompanied by a march with a strong beat. Typical marches played included Bravura or Burma Patrol.
Galops were the music of choice for clowns. Tunes like Prestissimo or The Homestretch, especially when laced with lots of trombone smears, provided just the right background music for the slapstick antics of the misfits of the midway.
In the very early days — of one-ring circuses, circus bands were more like orchestras, with strings. Beginning in the mid-19th century strings had all but disappeared, replaced by brass and percussion due to the need to fill the big tent that now held three-ring extravaganzas.
Saxophones, clarinets, and the other reed instruments aren’t really brass instruments but were always included — to add tonal color and provide variety to the music performed.
Interestingly, most of the original circus music surviving today was written in the early 20th century. Prior to that time, circus musicians were far too busy playing or conducting to take time to write music. In the early 1800s circus bands and orchestras played songs like Yankee Doodle and other popular tunes of the day.
Traditional circus musicians are called “windjammers” because they “jam wind into cornets, clarinets, trombones, baritones, etc. for six to seven hours a day,” according to Merle Evans.
Today there is an organization called Windjammers, dedicated to the preservation of traditional circus music. Membership in Windjammers Unlimited, Inc. includes many non-playing lovers of circus music as well as a large number of performers who get together twice a year to play the music they love.
Merle Evans, who lived through so much of the golden age of circus music, had his favorite circus songs. They included Battle of Shiloh March, by C.L. Barnhouse, Quality Plus by Frederick Alton Jewell, and Barnum & Bailey’s Favorite by Karl L. King.
All three composers were outstanding circus musicians. Barnhouse became the foremost publisher of circus music, Jewell wrote more than 200 tunes, and King, who was Evans’ predecessor at the Ringling show, wrote 282 different band compositions in his lifetime.
Evans’ least favorite song might have been John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, but for a reason you might not suspect. In circus tradition, Stars and Stripes was a danger signal, reserved for major disasters, such as fires or animal stampedes.
On July 6, 1944, while Evans led his musicians in a soft waltz, he spotted flames at the side of the big top. He immediately stopped the band and signaled them to play Sousa’s famous march, loud and strong.
Circus performers heard the band, knew the meaning, and Evans and his band are credited with saving thousands of lives that day. As it was, 168 people died in what is widely considered “The Great Circus Disaster.”
A great way to experience the sound of traditional circus music is through a recording called Circus Music from the Big Top featuring the Merle Evans Circus Band. It’s available on Amazon.com as a CD or as individual MP3 files and contains great circus band versions of some of the most famous circus music of all time.
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