- Abilene/Conn
- Chicago/Lewis
- Chicago/Schilke
- Elkhorn/Getzen
- Elkhorn/Holton
- Kenosha/Martin
- Elkhart/Blessing
- Elkhart/Bach
- Grand Rapids/Yamaha
- Boonsboro/Lawson
Woodwind instruments were in demand long before brass instruments. A New York document of 1786, for instance, shows a comprehensive import order of various instruments: violins, spinets, clarinets etc., but no brass. These were not yet sufficiently developed to be used in a band. The European invention of keyed instruments at the end of the 18th century and of valves at the beginning of the 19th considerably increased their usefulness. The Dodworth Band of New York, probably the first of its kind, was founded in 1834 and the Boston Brass Band a year later. The first brass instruments were built in the United States in those same years.
The most important early instrument maker was Samuel Graves, who founded Graves + Co. in 1824. At first he made only woodwind and started to make brass instruments only in 1837 with the help of James Keat, a very good instrument maker from London.
Four more 19th-century makers may be mentioned:
- Joseph Lathrop Allen (active 1839-1869), inventor of a efficient rotary valve;
- E.G. Wright (active 1839-1869) who, among other things, made gold and silver keyed bugles for bandleaders; together with Samuel Graves he founded the Boston Musical Instrument Manufactory in 1869;
- Thomas D. Paine (active 1841-1881), inventor of a string mechanism for rotary valves;
- Isaac Fiske (active 1842-1887), who took out several valve patents; Fiske's Cornet Band, which played only his instruments, was founded in the 1850's; in 1887 he sold the business to C.G. Conn + Co.
[Robert E. Eliason: “Early American Brass Makers” (Nashville, 1979); and Virginia Redway: “Music directory of early New York city” (New York, 1941)]
I plan a series of reports on my visits, beginning in the next issue with C.G. Conn + Co. and Schilke Musical Products.
* Stephan Suter (*1961): 1968-1980: Rudolf Steiner School, Basle; 1980-1984: apprenticeship with A. Egger Co., instrumentmaker in Basle (ended with mastership); 1981-1983: playing the horn with the Youth Symphony Orchestra; 1984-1985: student visit to the U.S.; 1985: working with Egger in Basle again.