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C'ORNETIST CONFESSES Del Staigers Tells a Few on Himself A HE first big thrill Del Staigers remem- bers-and he'll never forget it-was he one he experienced when six years old, vatching the Muncie, Indiana, Boys' Band rching up Main Street. Whether the hrill was occasioned by the sight of the flashy blue and red uniforms worn by the and members or by the playing of the band, Staigers is not sure. But he does know that he decided then and there to become a bands- man. With the permission of his mother, he ap- olied to Professor E. W. Garrett of the ~funcie, Ind., Conservatory of Music for instructions' on the cornet, after school hours. The Professor rented Del a horn at the rate of ten cents a week and told him to go home and blow it. Del blew it, up- stairs, downstairs and in the cellar until finally through the insistence of his mother, ook it out in an empty lot and blew it. He will not say whether or not there was a "Public Nuisance" law.in .Muncie aLthat time. Just the same,two years after rent- ing his first horn, he occupied first chair in >he Muncie Boys' Band. A Boy Wonder The year following, he was advertised as the "Boy Wonder" at the Winona Lake, In- diana, -Chatauqua. After attaining this somewhat doubtful distinction, there .fol- lowed several years of study, general as well as musical. Del recalls with ease each little exercise he went through in those days and the method of practice he used on the vari- ous exercises, Contrary to the general run of experiences, he liked to practice, In fact he never seemed to tire of tooting a horn. His first professional engagement came at the age of thirteen, in Dayton, Ohio, with the N H DV S Band. However, during that summer he won a scholarship at. Manlius School, and his professional career was tem- porarily side-tracked. Not for long, how- ever, He had attracted the attention of Pat Conway while playing in the Manlius Band and was engaged-to play the following sum- mer in Conway's Band at Willow. Grove Park, outside of Philadelphia. '., ' His first appearance in the band shell was riot according to Hoyle. He tells of how he eventually sat down on the third chair (rst B.flat cornet) for which position he had been engaged. Upon opening' his book he found that it was marked "first E flat Tr~mpet." He says that he had heard of thd:se things before, but he had never seen one, I asked him what he did under the circumstances and he replied, with his usual cQl}1placency,"What could I do ? I suppose the; matter would have been straightened out if) had asked Dolan, in the first chair, but 1. }hought maybe I was supposed to play wl\9.tever copy was given me, so I dug in and did. my best. Somehow Lfigured the best The Metronome, December, By l)A VE KENYON th~ng for me to ~o would be to play every- thmg a fourth higher, and luckily I "at bv with the concert." '" , The Sequel The~e is. a sequel to that story. On the following night, Conway, who had a habit of walking around between numbers came over to Del's position and asked him h~w he liked the work. Del was just about to reply when ... Championing }he Cause of the Cornet Player Conway spied his music.' "Where in hell did you get that from ?"he yelled so loudly that some of the' audience must have-heard him, and proceeded to upbraid his brother Mark, who 'Was "the librarian. Quite a few ex- amples of 'choice language were exchanged, but in the end DeI- was furnished -with his "First 'B flat book." In laughing over this incident Del says that' he immediately reo. solved to learn all of the transpositions and advises all cornetists 11:0 do the same as he considered thisjust as necessary an adjunct to the trumpeter's equipment. as. keeping time. After a few more years of study and two years of traveling over the Keith and Or- pheum Circuits, he was engaged as assistant soloist with the Sousa Band. At this. point his experience as a trouper really began. Del can spin yarns by the hour of railroad wrecks, being snowed in, missing trains, sleepless nights, impossible hotels and worse food. . He tells of. many practical Jokes played during his tours with the Sousa Band. Dur- ing one concert, the flute player was assigned 1988 a solo which was interpolated by the r;nging of the triangle. Prior to this solo, sorneone - ' having access to the part played by the drummer, had erased the triangle part and substituted a coo-coo part. We can imagine the confusion of the soloist, when, aW:liting the soft tinkle of the triangle, he was greeted by the gentle voice of the coo-coo bird. At another time some joker cut the sl:rings of the bass fiddle almost in two so thai: dur- ing the concert the strings broke, one after another, each break sounding like a rifle shot and completely disrupting the concert The Governor . Del says "The Governor" always a.ppre- ciated these pranks, unless they interferred too seriously with his programs. When he thought the fooling had "one far enouzh he caIl~d '<7 halt and every ~nember of th~ or- gamzation knew that he meant what he said. The longest tour that Del made with the- Sousa Band was for forty-two consecutive weeks, two concerts every day, and in most cases two towns a day. After leaving Sousa, he became first trumpeter at the New York Hippoci!rom(~ and later at the Strand Theatre+in New York City. All of this time he was making records for various phonograph companies and finally was engaged permanently as first trumpet with' the Victor Talking Machine: Company, which position he still holds. Like most of us, when Del first beard of radio broadcasting he considered it some: new fad and paid little attention to it. f\bout 1923, he learned of experiments be- mg made in broadcasting music. Some of his friends told of journeying to Bedloes . Island (upon which rests the Statue of Liberty) arid also to the Westinghouse: ~Iant at Newark, New Jersey, and singing- 111toa thing that looked like a frying pan without a handle-and that people in New York actually heard them sing. Before: many weeks the Victor orchestra was mak- ing these same journeys and wondering. what it was all about. . Thought It Was The Bunk Strangely, most of the air favorites of to- day, had a hard time convincing themselves then that radio wasn't the bunk. Even N a- thaniel Shilkret was very skeptical, and as. Del says "It took him a long time to persuade: himself and the boys in our band that he. should accept a commercial broadcast pro- -gram from a soft drink company. This was, one of the first commercials. Since then" Del has participated in and appeared as: soloist on many of the big programs. Spare time has been a minus quantity with him. If not attending to a broadcast there has always. (Continued on page 32) 25
