CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The John Philip Sousa collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is marching to the beat of a different drummer, and by all appearances, it is a quick march.
The drummer in this case is an archivist, Scott Schwartz. On board as the new Sousa archivist since last fall, Schwartz has wasted little time in reorganizing Sousa's large collection at Illinois and organizing an ambitious celebration of and for the beloved American band leader-musician-composer known as "The March King."
In five months, Schwartz has re-energized, refocused and renamed the archives - a major band music collection and museum. The new incarnation is called the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music. Schwartz also is well into plans for a monthlong celebration of American music in November in honor of the 150th anniversary of Sousa's birth.
An archivist and classical guitarist, Schwartz also is an author with wide-ranging interests. He has written extensively on the business and music practices of Duke Ellington and on the music and culture of the Appalachian serpent- and fire-handling believers of eastern Kentucky.
Previously at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, Schwartz said he sees the new job as "an opportunity to grow a program from the ground up, to turn a diamond in the rough into a world-class archive and repository."
His plan is to expand the Sousa collection from "what might have been described as a shrine to Sousa's legacy, instruments and papers, into a vital repository." He also wants to use the revitalized repository as a base from which to "show the breadth of American music."
Although ambitious, these ideas are do-able. Schwartz discovered that Illinois has hidden treasures in "three major music collections": wind band material - the Sousa Archives being the core; electronic and computer music; and "an incredible ethnomusicology collection."
"These three collections," Schwartz said, "make us truly unique, and are the reason why we now have a mission statement that defines us as collecting American music and documenting the legacy and heritage in these three areas."
Schwartz said he believes that "being an outsider who has represented a national and international perspective" at the NMAH has helped him see the various pieces of the puzzle - that is, the music collection strengths at Illinois - and how they could be put together to make a world-class center for American music.
"That's the reason they brought me here. That's the reason I moved my family - and my sailboat from the Chesapeake."
Schwartz already has taken several steps toward realizing his goals, the first step being to begin developing close working collaborations with people across campus.
"The School of Music, the Library, University Bands, Intercollegiate Athletics and many other units, divisions and schools across campus will have to work together if we are going to create a center for American music," Schwartz said.
Similarly, Schwartz has begun developing collaborative relationships with the other major U.S. music repositories that document American music. He believes that this kind of linkage eventually will lead to a sharing of resources among archives, museums and research centers both within and outside Illinois, including the Library of Congress and the National Museum of American History.
"The idea is to become a confederation, so to speak," Schwartz said. "We can't - and shouldn't - try to collect all aspects of American music. That can't - and shouldn't - be done by any single repository. Sharing is the name of the game."
Already, Schwartz and his staff - three graduate students and three undergraduates - are inventorying and processing Sousa holdings and redesigning the Web site. He also is planning the physical renovation of the archive and small museum, including the creation of a researcher-friendly reading room.
Moreover, he is tapping friends and colleagues across campus and the country to help put together a first-rate Sousa Sesquicentennial Celebration in November.
The timing couldn't be better, Schwartz said. November also is American Music Month, "so the Sousa Sesquicentennial will be a celebration of America's music."
Already booked are Illinois' University Band, which will re-create a Sousa concert; the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, a concert and one-day residency to give master classes; Alan Jabbour, the past director of the Library of Congress Folklife Center, the keynote lecture on preserving America's music legacy; Alison Brown, a Grammy award winner for the five-string banjo, and Andrea Zonn, recently named one of country music's top 10 acts, a talk on women in music and a performance on "the music mama taught me"; Sousa and American music exhibits and displays at the NMAH and three sites on the U. of I. campus.
"So we've got jazz, we've got traditional, we've got wind band, and I'd love to see us connect with a gospel group to highlight a part of America's religious music heritage," Schwartz said. "Our intent is to illustrate the incredibly diversified nature of America's music. And what we don't get this year, we'll get next year."
Schwartz said he also would like his colleagues across the country to follow suit, "so this becomes a huge national effort - and all on the anniversary of Sousa's birth. How much more American can you get? Sousa and America and American music."
A question that always comes up is why Sousa's papers are at Illinois. The answer is friendship and professional admiration.
In the early 1900s, Sousa struck up what would become a 30-year friendship with A.A. Harding, Illinois' first director of bands.
According to Paul Bierley, the primary Sousa biographer, Sousa greatly admired Harding's work and believed that "the University of Illinois Band was the best college band in the world." Sousa even composed a "University of Illinois March" in 1929 and performed it on the Illinois campus the next year; on that occasion he was made an honorary conductor of Illinois' concert band.
Sousa promised Harding he would bequeath most of his band music library to Illinois, and following his death in March of 1932, his widow kept that promise: 18,000 pounds of music in 39 trunks were delivered to the campus.
The U. of I. holds 74 percent of the extant Sousa materials, including original scores and parts, published music and manuscripts, personal papers, photographs, programs, news clippings, broadsides, memorabilia and one of Sousa's batons, a pair of his white kid gloves, which he always wore while conducting, his music stand and podium.
Among the manuscripts are the band parts for Sousa's Christmas Day 1896 composition "The Stars and Stripes Forever," which 101 years later would be declared the national march of the United States.
The Sousa Archives and Center also has a good selection of band instruments and uniforms, Native American instruments and some unidentified instruments.
The collection, in the Harding Band Building and under the aegis of the University Library, has grown to include the music, instruments and artifacts of many former Sousa band members, including first cornetist Herbert L. Clarke and vocal soloist Virginia Root.
Sousa's biographer described Sousa as "an incredible genius" and "truly an American phenomenon."
"He was to the march what Johann Strauss was to the waltz," Bierley wrote. Over his lifetime, Sousa composed 137 marches - including "The Washington Post March" and "Semper Fidelis," later adopted by the Marine Corps. He also wrote 15 operettas, five overtures, 11 suites, 11 waltzes, 13 dances, 28 fantasies and 322 arrangements.
The son of immigrants and the third of 10 children, Sousa was born Nov. 6, 1854, in Washington, D.C. When he was 13, he tried to run away from home to join a circus band, but his father apprenticed him to the U.S. Marine Band. At 24, Sousa became leader of that band, and held the job for 12 years. Sousa's band, which stirred hearts for 39 years, made annual transcontinental tours from 1892 to 1931, four tours of Europe and a world tour in 1910-1911. But being a concert band, they only marched seven times.
Sousa also wrote seven books. He was an athlete who adored baseball, a husband, father and self-made millionaire. Sousa died on March 6, 1932, in Reading, Pa., following a band rehearsal. The last piece he conducted was "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
