John Philip Sousa

With drums pounding and trombones flashing in the sun, a brightly uniformed marching band marches down Main Street. This is a common scene in America on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and other occaisions that call for the snap and flourish of a military band. And such bands usually play at least one rousing march by John Philip Sousa, the composer and bandleader who is known as the “March King.”

Studying the violin at age six, Sousa showed his flair for music early. When he was 13, he began a two-year apprenticeship with the U.S Marine Band. Then he spent several years with theater orchestras. He began composing music – waltzes, orchestral suites, and even operettas. But it was his marches that made him famous. They included “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Washington Post March,” “El Capitan,” and “Semper Fidelis.”
Sousa developed a tuba that rested on a player’s shoulders and could be carried in a march. Called the sousaphone, it is used in marching bands today.

In 1880, Sousa rejoined the Marine Band as its leader. Under Sousa, the band became famous around the world. Many of his best-known marches were written for this band. In 1892, he left the Marines to form his own group, the Sousa Band, which toured America and the world, cementing Sousa’s reputation as the greatest composer-bandmaster of his day.

Here is an example of Sousa's "El Capitan":

Scott Joplin

In the early 1970s, Americans became captivated by piano music written more than 60 years earlier by Scott Joplin. Known as rags, these tunes featured syncopated, foot-tapping rhythms , rich harmonies, and bouncy melodies.

Rags had been popular in the early 1900s, but they were largely forgotten until 1973, when they were featured in a hit movie, The Sting. Suddenly, pianists across the country were playing “The Entertainer” and other rags by Joplin, who received overdue recognition as an important composer.

Born into a musical family headed by an ex-slave, Scott Joplin left home at 17 and moved first to St. Louis and then to Chicago, where he earned a living as a pianist. After studying music at George Smith College in Sedalia, Missouri, he began writing his own songs. One of his early compositions, Maple Leaf Rag, made enough money to allow Joplin to devote himself entirely to composing.

In addition to some 50 piano rags, Joplin wrote operas and ballets. But his wish to be recognized as a “serious” composer was unfufilled until long after his death in 1917. His opera, Treemonisha, was performed to critical acclaim in 1972. Because of the reborn popularity of his rags, recordings of Joplin’s music accounted for an incredible 75 percent of all albums on classical best-seller lists in 1975. And in 1976, the “King of Ragtime” was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to American music.

Irving Berlin

In an amazing life that stretched for 101 years, Irving Berlin wrote some 1,500 songs. His melodies, sometimes simple and sentimental, other times stirring and swinging, had a profound effect on 20th-century American music. Many of his songs---White Christmas, and God Bless America to name just two---have become American standards.

Born Israel Balin, Berlin was the youngest of eight children. He and his family moved to New York City from Russia when he was five years old. Not long after the move, young Irving left school to earn money by singing on street corners and in saloons. As a teenager, Irving Berlin earned a dollar a day as a singing waiter. At the age of 20, he was hired as a songwriter in a vaudeville theater. Three days later, he wrote his first hit, Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
During World War I, while serving as an infantryman, Berlin wrote the rousing God Bless America. During World War II his armed-services show, This Is the Army, became a hit movie, earned him the Medal of Merit, and forever associated him with patriotic music.

Berlin also made an everlasting mark on America’s holiday traditions with songs like White Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Easter Parade. His numerous stage musicals include the Broadway hit Annie Get Your Gun.