The Pioneer Leader of School Bands
The High School principal, hurrying out to lunch stopped at the foot of the stairs and listened in astonishment.
“Horns and drums,” he muttered, “I’ll have to see what is going on down here!”
He followed the sounds easily and through the rear door of the manual training room saw a group of boys, seated on nail kegs and boxes, playing various instruments. A stocky young man was busily directing them.
The principal smiled and quickly turned away. “Mac has certainly started something this time!” he said to himself. But not until years later did he realize that he had seen in its very beginning, Joliet’s famous School Band under its leader, who became the Dean of the School Band movement. This was the commencement of the greatest wave of music ever to sweep the country.
A. R. McAllister was born on a farm near Joliet, Illinois. As a very small boy he was fond of making music. Seldom was he seen without a cornstalk fiddle or an elder flute.
To the dismay of his thrifty Scotch father, Archie sold his pet pig for eight dollars and immediately sent a request to a mail order house for a cornet costing that exact sum. However, the elder McAllister was pleased that his son sent a C.O.D. order. Evidently he was going to be sure to get the worth of his money.
The boy tooted away faithfully and was soon able to play tunes. His next thought was to teach other boys in the neighborhood and organize a band. The group made good progress and had fun besides, although some of the neighbors declared “That McAllister boy does nothing but fool around with music and will never amount to anything.” But the first year of its existence this new band entered a contest and won the first prize—a music rack. The second year they again won first prize—this time a five-dollar bill.
Then Arch grew restless. He wondered which to follow—business or music? He loved music but he wanted to make money quickly, so he took a course in business school and got a job as auditor of the street car company. That failed to satisfy him. He sold his cornet and went “out west” to a fruit ranch in Montana. There he worked into a different line, woodworking, building and making things with his hands. He felt he had a real talent for this sort of work and soon went back to Chicago to teach manual training in a Jewish training school.
A few years later McAllister accepted a position as Manual Training teacher in the High School in Joliet, Illinois. Here he seized upon an opportunity to get back into music work. He rounded up twelve boys who liked music but knew nothing at all about it. They gathered up a dozen used instruments, and McAllister began to teach and train the High School Band, which at first was looked upon solely as an aid to the football team. Their lessons were given outside of school hours and for some time McAllister received no extra salary.