Ossman's 71st Facelift

[Shawn McSweeny]

Yes, even "Old Plunk" needs some freshening up from time to time.

The score for his "71st Regiment Quickstep" is in the site Music Library, but has been dwelling in obscurity, which is a shame as the piece gives great insight to Ossman's formidable chops,  his musical imagination and facility with rhythm, very early in his career.

It is still in A notation and the score has a number of musical typos, including two "segno" symbols but no corresponding "D.S.", an "end repeat" symbol with no corresponding "begin repeat", a few bad notes and a few measures with note values exceeding 2 beats.

An Ossman facelift is just the thing to start off the new year.  The score is now transposed to C notation, and the typos are edited, with my own take on how to reasonably resolve the repeats. Available below are a digital playback ( sounding more like a classical guitar, sorry)  and the C score in both standard notation and tab.  Enjoy.

[Joel Hooks]

Thanks Shawn!  When this piece was first posted I gave it a couple of read throughs and it did not really jump out at me, I'll give it another try.

Your colorized cover looks good!... but your choice of tint makes Vess look a little "too too" and "utterly utter."

[Shawn McSweeny]

Hi Joel 

Worth another look, it's a polished, ambitious march and quite rhythmic for 1892 , but no Cakewalk or Rag. 

With the cover art photo I was striving for the hand tinted, limited palate and washed out look of the day and apparently succeeded beyond my Wilde-est expectations.

[Chris Cioffi]

That's a lot of dedication, time, and work that is much appreciated, Shawn.

Well done, Thank you.

Nice cover.

Kind of funny....the soundtrack programmers even went to the trouble of putting finger/string left hand squeaks in there so we'd feel right at home!

Thanks again, Shawn, and Happy New Year.

Chris

[Trapdoor2]

Very cool. Well done, Shawn!

Just doing a quick search, it seems that the various 71st regiments had a lot of tunes written for them. There's one for a 'California' 71st (Grand Quick Step of the California Regiment), one for a 'Scottish' 71st (71st Regimental Quick Step) and yet another 71st got a 'march' (Joyce's 71st Regimental March).

I wonder what's up with all these different 71st Regiments? The numerology must add up to something special...

[Shawn McSweeny]

Hi Chris.     

Happy New Year to you as well. I figured you would notice the string squeaks. For greater realism, the digital playback uses recorded samples, squeaks and all,  rather than the pure and boring sound of synthesized electronic tones.

 

Hi Marc

The 71st Regiment of Foot was the first newly formed infantry regiment of fresh recruits, mostly Scottish, added to the British Army in 1775, to fight the American colonists.  After serving in many key battles, the regiment was disbanded and its few survivors returned to the UK when hostilities ended in 1783.

Fast forward about 70 years and in 1852, five companies of rifles were detached from the First Regiment NYSM,  (New York State Militia) and with three newly formed companies were organized into a rifle regiment named the 71st Regiment NYSM.

The 71st Regimental Band was originally composed of enlisted men led by Harvey J. Dodwoth, then the foremost band leader in the country. With the advent of the musical union in 1870, band members were no longer required to enlist. The Dodworth band was with the 71st under contract and for a time was without peer in NYC.  

It appears Felix J. Eben led the band in the 1890's when Ossman penned his tribute and the attached clip from Wm Tell was recorded. By the late teens, the leader was Lt. Lambert L Eben, (see news clipping) so it looks like the gig stayed in the family.

I have no answer as to why the NY militia named a regiment apparently in honour of an enemy force.

[Trapdoor2]

Yah, I was commenting more on the use of "71st" than anything else.

The 71st NY had serious problems in Cuba during the Span-Am war, I would think that Ossman might have re-titled this if he had wrote it after the war. ;-)

[Richard William Ineson]

I think that Ossman, or someone else, did retitle it as the 'Exposition March'. I haven't looked at it for some years, but I think that its the same tune. I'll try to remember to have a look for it, later on today.

[Richard William Ineson]

[Richard William Ineson]

[Shawn McSweeny]

Hi Richard 

I see the "score detective" has been hard at work. Thanks for pointing this out.

Going through the scores, it looks like "Exposition March"  ("EM") is a mild reworking of the "71st Reg Quickstep", most notably dumbing down a few measures, deleting what I had labelled Part E and repeating the finale for greater effect.

"EM" was prepared by Ossman for the 1899 Banjo Mandolin & Guitar Festival, in connection with the National Export Exposition,  Philadelphia, at which he was the concert banjo soloist. The Dec 1899-Jan 1900 issue of the Stewart Journal presented a souvenier program of the festival and also included the score for "EM" in A notation. Ossman was probably too busy to come up with a completely original piece.