The Band That Played On Read Online Free PDF Page B

a more creative role involving assembling bands, choosing repertoire, and supplying music. A musician friend, Enos Green, became the Blacks’ London representative, working out of his home on Fordwych Road in West Hampstead.
    C. W. & F. N. Black became the sole agents for the Grand Central Hotel in Leeds; the Kardomah Café in Castle Street, Liverpool; and the Constant Spring Hotel in Jamaica. They claimed to be able to supply groups of between five and fifty musicians. The most lucrative side of their business was to come from the shipping lines, which all used professional bands on their major passenger routes. By 1912 they were booking musicians for American, Anchor, Booth, Cunard, Royal Mail, and White Star—lines that owned more than eighty vessels between them. Players in the employ of the Blacks were known in Liverpool as “Charlie’s navy.”
    Although the musicians on ships played stringed instruments and were often referred to as an orchestra, they were officially bandsmen under the direction of a bandmaster. In a rare interview from the period, John Carr, a musician on the White Star liner Celtic , explained: “It’s a mistake from the technical point of view to call a steamer’s orchestra a band. The term is a survival of the days when they really had a brass band on board. On all the big steamships now the music is given by men who are thorough masters of their instruments.”
    Initially music on ships was provided by musically competent passengers, later by crew members. Stewards in second class were routinely tested for musical skills. When bands were eventually recruited from outside, they made their income from tips, but by 1907 the first salaried professional orchestras appeared on ships such as the Aragon and Adriatic . A 1909 White Star Line brochure for the “big four”—the Adriatic , Baltic , Cedric , and Celtic —used music as a selling point: “The cheery surroundings of the lounge make it an ideal spot for casual conversation or for the leisurely after-dinner demitasse, and, with the ship’s own orchestra of professional musicians discoursing catchy airs in the main foyer of the steamer, just outside the lounge doors, a pleasant sense of camaraderie is certain to be developed between the passengers even though they hail from many corners of the globe.”
    Crew lists reveal the names of these often uncelebrated musicians who played their way around the world: people like Ernest Drakeford of Rotherham, Ellwand Moody of Bramley, Frederick Stent and Albert Felgate of Egremont on the Wirral. Some of the older musicians were in their late fifties. Some of the younger ones were barely out of their teens. Many would stay with a ship for months or even years, but others would flit from ship to ship and from line to line. On Mediterranean cruises two English musicians might, for example, leave the ship in Italy to be replaced by two Italians. It was the ideal job for travelers, adventurers, and those escaping domestic problems.
    The work was long and arduous. A band could be expected to play at lunchtime, during teatime, and then again in the restaurant at night, as well as rehearsing every day. They might also perform at church services, evening balls, and at special celebratory events, such as when a ship broke the speed record. A sixteen-page White Star Line music booklet of the period lists 341 numbered pieces ranging from overtures, waltzes, ragtime, and marches to sacred music, classical music, and operatic selections. It was an extensive repertoire and new hit songs would be added as the list was constantly updated. Passengers—each given a copy of the booklet—could call out the number of any tune, and the band would be expected to play it.
    The rewards of the job were the regularity of employment and the chance to travel. Musicians on regular transatlantic sailings would inevitably spend as much time in Boston and New York as they did in Liverpool and Southampton. They made friends in