Pinch-Hitting for G. Oliver

I’ve been on a blogging sabbatical for the past week and a half while recovering from outpatient surgery.  I suppose I should have arranged for some guest bloggers to fill in for me, following the example of my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, when he became ill in late 1936.  Of course, G. Oliver did not enlist guest bloggers to substitute for him – veteran band members and prominent band directors took up the baton and directed the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band in his absence.

G. Oliver was hospitalized after Christmas 1936 with heart problems.  Instead of canceling the first week of post-holiday rehearsals, my grandfather, Ronald Riggs, and assistant band director Earl Bohm stepped in to coordinate practices for the three band groups: the beginners, the junior band, and the concert band.  My grandfather was directing the high school band in Thief River Falls, Minn., at the time, and Bohm was a boys’ band alumnus and a student at St. Cloud State University.

(A side note: Bohm later became a music teacher in the St. Louis Park school district, and both he and my grandfather were inducted into the Minnesota Music Educators Hall of Fame.) 

It was a busy schedule to juggle, and it’s not hard to see why the 66-year-old bandmaster might have worn himself out.  The band rehearsed on Tuesday evenings, the concert band rehearsed on Wednesday evenings, the beginners on cup mouth piece instruments and drums rehearsed on Saturday mornings, and the beginners on reed instruments rehearsed on Saturday afternoons.

When it became clear that G. Oliver would remain in the hospital for several weeks, a plan was devised to bring in weekly guest conductors to direct the concert band.  Bohm continued to rehearse the younger groups, with help from boys’ band veterans Bill Goblish, Tommy Pederson and Leonard Jung.

Gerald Prescott, director of University of Minnesota Bands, in about 1938.

The first guest conductor was Phil Thielman, one of the first boys to play with G. Oliver when he organized the St. Cloud Boys’ Band in 1923.  Thielman played piccolo, flute and clarinet, he had studied with symphony artists in Minneapolis, and he had several years of experience directing school bands, according to a Jan. 4, 1937 article in the St. Cloud Daily Times.

Thielman was followed by Francis Gonnella, director of the well-regarded band at the St. Cloud reformatory (a topic which deserves a blog entry of its own sometime).  I couldn’t find a photo of Gonnella online, but the Minnesota Historical Society has three photos of the band in its collection, including this one from about 1920.

A longtime acquaintance of G. Oliver’s, Minnesota Bandmasters Association President William Allen Abbott, made a trip from Minneapolis to direct the band in mid-January.  Abbott, a St. Cloud Daily Times article noted, “is the conductor of three outstanding bands in the Twin Cities: the Minneapolis Working Boys Band, organized 33 years ago under Professor Heinzman; the Minneapolis South high school band, which twice has won the national school band contest; and the Gopher American Legion band.”  Abbott also directed the University of Minnesota band from 1931-32.

The final guest conductor was Gerald R. Prescott, who was director of bands at the University of Minnesota from 1932-1943, 1946-1950, and 1951-1960, and who was the first full-time director of the university’s marching band.

A St. Cloud Daily Times article about Prescott from Jan. 25, 1937.

Before taking the university job, Prescott was director of the high school band in Mason City, Iowa, which advanced to the national high school band contest in 1931.  G. Oliver knew of Prescott and admired his work, which is why he and his St. Cloud boys’ band stopped in Mason City on the way back from a convention in Des Moines that same year to serenade Prescott and his band (I mentioned this in an April 2010 blog post, Save the Northfield Depot!).

A few fun facts about Prescott: he became a good friend of my grandfather’s; he was elected as a member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association in 1936, the year before he filled in for G. Oliver; and he was a friend of Iowa composer and band director (and ABA member) Karl King, who wrote the college march “Mighty Minnesota” in 1939 and dedicated it to Prescott.

As a way of thanking his substitutes, G. Oliver organized a St. Cloud Municipal Band concert in April 1937 spring at the Paramount Theatre and dedicated the first song, Henry Fillmore’s “Gifted Leadership,” to Abbott, Gonnella, Prescott, Riggs (Ronald) and Thielman.

The concert also featured a trio for cornets, Walter M. Smith's “Bolero,” played by Howard Pramann, William Goblish and Robert Kollman; the overture “Mignon” from the Opera Comique Mignon by Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas; and it concluded with John Philip Sousa’s march, “Semper Fidelis,” featuring the St. Cloud Cathedral Girls Drum Corps.

A program from the April 11, 1937 concert at the Paramount Theatre.

The band played two concerts that day, at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.  G. Oliver was back!

And so am I.