ARTHUR PRYOR
The clear, mellow tones of a trombone, playing Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep, stilled the noisy crowd until a whisper could be heard. Until that moment no one had paid any attention to the Pryor Band which was serenading General “Black Jack” Logan at the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic at Denver, Colorado, in 1883.
At the close of the solo General Logan hurried out of the meeting to speak to the bandleader, D. S. Pryor. “Who played that trombone? I want to talk to him.”
Removing his bearskin cap, Maestro Pryor proudly said that it was his son Arthur.
“It is God’s gift, and your son has a great future,” said General Logan. Laying his hand on the bushy locks of the bashful twelve-year-old Arthur, the General advised him, “Make the best use of the divine gift you have, boy.”
This incident made such an impression on Arthur’s father that he decided to give his son a more thorough musical training. He secured a Professor Plato, a renowned harmonist and theorist, to teach him.
Arthur Pryor, born September 22, 1870, in St. Joseph, Missouri, was destined to become a musical prodigy. It was in his blood. Back through the generations in his family ran the musical strain, an unfaltering line. His father, Daniel Pryor, was leader of Pryor’s band and “played all instruments.” His mother was a gifted pianist.
At the age of three Arthur beat the drums with such rhythm and skill that the neighbors in admiration forgot to complain about the noise. At six he was playing the piano. Later he did remarkably well on the cornet, alto horn and bass viol.
When Arthur was eleven he played the valve trombone and made his first appearance in Chicago, Illinois, where he was called “the boy wonder.” Soon the lad and his trombone were in great demand in his part of the country, with or without his father’s band.
Arthur reached another milestone at seventeen when his father gave him a slide trombone which he had accepted in payment of a debt. He devoted endless hours to its study under his father’s teaching, and progressed fast.
In later years, Arthur often laughed about his father, a strict teacher, rapping him on the head with a violin bow when he was slow in these lessons. That punishment was stopped after Mr. Pryor had done great damage to a 100 dollar bow.
But the boy did so well that he had a succession of acclaimed appearances at county fairs and other public gatherings in his part of the country. He soon attracted the attention of Liberati, noted cornet soloist of the time, who hired him for his band at Kansas City, Missouri. Arthur was with Liberati from 1888 till 1890.
The twenty-year-old trombonist was engaged for Patrick Gilmore’s band, but instead he accepted the conductorship of the Stanley Opera Company, going to Denver, Colorado.
Then he received his big chance. The great Sousa had heard stories about “a trombone wizard” from the Middle West and sent for him to join him at once. Arthur headed East with a trombone, a ticket to New York, thirty-five cents in cash and a determination to become a “great” in the musical world.
The first night in New York he slept on a bench in Union Square. But the next day at Sousa’s rehearsal the tall, red-haired young man, wearing clothes that badly needed pressing, astounded the veteran bandsmen by his unusual mastery of the trombone.
Pryor became Sousa’s first trombone player in 1892, and the next year played first solo with him at the Chicago Exposition. From premiere soloist he went on to be Sousa’s assistant conductor also. A warm friendship developed between the two musicians, and they traveled together on three world tours in sixteen countries.
An episode that shows Pryor’s trombone magic happened at a concert at the Enclosed Garden in Berlin. Trombonists of six German regiments were there especially to hear him. Pryor played a selection in which he produced his own bass accompaniment, jumping three or four octaves between notes. The vast audience rose en masse and gave him an unprecedented ovation. After the concert the German trombonists approached a German-speaking member of the band and asked permission to examine the master’s instrument. They spent several minutes looking it over, taking it completely apart in the process. Finally they went away grumbling, “It’s impossible. Just another Yankee trick!”
During these years Pryor was christened “the trombone king” and in Germany he was called “the Paganini of the slide trombone.” He estimated that he had played 10,000 solos while he was with Sousa.
Pryor’s association with Sousa ended in 1902. Samuel D. Pryor had recently died, and Arthur took over the band which his father had started one year before Arthur’s birth. With the reorganized band, now made up of some of America’s most talented musicians, Arthur Pryor appeared at the Majestic Theater in New York on November 15, 1903, for his band’s premiere concert.
For the next thirty years Pryor’s band was an internationally known American institution. Critics were lavish in their praise of this group’s simple but original and telling melody. The Pryor organization played at Asbury Park, New Jersey, for nineteen successive summers. From 1904 to 1909 it made six coast-to-coast tours; and for ten straight winters up to 1926, it played at the Royal Palm Park in Miami, Florida. It appeared for ten spring seasons at Willow Grove Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at expositions, state fairs and many public conventions.
Besides, Pryor led his band in various theater and radio engagements, the latter sponsored by General Motors, General Electric, Goodyear Tire and other companies. One popular broadcast, known as the Schradertown Band carried two comics, Gus and Louis, so-called proprietors of the Schradertown Garage.
Pryor was very active in making recordings, notably for the Victor Company. For thirty-one years he was organizer and director of various bands and orchestras making Victor records.
Arthur Pryor was the author of more than 300 compositions, including three light operas, Jingaboo, On the Eve of Her Wedding Day, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Originality, beauty of melody and exceptionally fine and effective arrangements characterize his compositions, many of which were sung, whistled and played over the whole country. On Jersey Shore was a great favorite, particularly with his New Jersey audiences who rose to a man when it was played. Razzazza Mazzazza, Irish King, Goody Two Shoes, and Southern Hospitality were always encore winners. But The Whistler and His Dog, a novelty two-step became a craze everywhere. Audiences demanded it, and whistled it and kept time with their feet to the lively, catchy tune.
Although Pryor remained identified with his band until his death, he virtually retired in 1938. He was always proud of his birthplace, St. “Joe,” Missouri, but New Jersey had been “home” for a long time. Here he lived with his wife, the former Maude Russell, whom he had married in 1895. Their two sons, Arthur, Jr., a bandsman and New York advertising executive, and Roger, orchestra leader and movie actor carry on the inherited musical strain.
Typical of the popularity of the genial, kindly Arthur Pryor was his election in 1933 as freeholder of Monmouth County with 5,000 votes over a veteran politician.
Arthur Pryor, noted bandmaster, composer, and greatest trombone player the world ever had, died June 18, 1942, at his home, in West Long Branch, New Jersey. But his music, which for more than fifty years had set the feet of millions of people throughout the world to marching, lives on.
