Military marching bands brought Western music to Asia, beginning a process of cultural fusion and interaction that continues to this day. Christian religious music came along at the same time, often in the form of hymns, but I'm not sure that hymns had the same impact as the dramatic, crashing sound of brass instruments played by marching musicians.
Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
Musicians and drummers had long been used by European armies, often to set a rhythm to march to or to advance on an enemy, but it was the Ottomans who, as they conquered parts of Eastern Europe, brought marching ensembles that featured drums and horns to Europe. The basic form we see today in military bands appears to have its roots in Ottoman military manuals that date back to the 12th century.
The bands arriving in Asian capitals, fronting their military-backed delegations in the middle of the 19th century at the height of European imperialism, must have been an awesome sight. Decked out in colourful military uniforms, marching and playing in unison, they were also designed to "shock and awe", to project power. And it certainly impressed the locals; governments and courts in Tokyo, Bangkok, Shanghai, Manila and many other major cities quickly acquired brass instruments and invited Western military personnel to teach their staff.
Europeans had, of course, been seeking trade for several centuries prior to the 19th century but they had done it without the marching brass bands. New technology in the form of proper valves for brass instruments, invented around 1816, changed brass instrument manufacture, enabling the invention of all the instruments we associate now with brass bands -- trumpets, tubas, trombones, saxophones and so on. So, from around 1840 these instruments were being used by military bands and by 1860 they had been introduced via performances to Thailand (by the British) and Japan (by the Americans).
Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, it was the Filipinos who introduced European military band music (as I've written before, this music became known as "Manila music" in Cambodia), particularly after the Philippines became a US colony in the late 1800s.
In Thailand, by the end of the 19th century, European diplomats reported that there were two excellent local marching bands, playing to a high standard. They had been taught by several British military band teachers hired by the Thai Court. Apart from the huge and impressive sound these bands could create, the authorities in Japan and Thailand were impressed with the notation and sheet music system that had been developed in Western music, as it greatly facilitated learning.
The arrival of the phonograph and cinema at the end of the 19th century in Asia brought many different kinds of music, and musicians who had been trained in military brass music began to play other kinds of music -- jazz and all the dance crazes from the black bottom to the tango spread quickly. By 1912, there are reports that brass bands were being used to perform outside cinemas in Bangkok to attract patrons.
Military brass band music has certainly influenced the development of popular music in Asia but some countries and regions brass band music took a very different direction. For instance, where I come from in the north of England, a tradition of brass bands in mining communities developed in which both classical and popular songs and tunes were and are still performed. Perhaps the most famous of these bands is the Black Dyke Mills Band, founded in 1816, which performed on one of Paul McCartney's solo albums. It's beautiful, stirring music that always reminds me of the hills and moors that I come from. To get a feeling for what the music sounds like and what it means to those communities it comes from, I recommend that you check out Mark Merman's excellent 1997 film on England's brass bands, Brassed Off, which is based on the struggles of the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and features Pete Postlethwaite and Ewan McGregor.
I've also seen and heard the lively brass bands you can still find in small Italian towns, particularly in the south, and there is a very strong brass band tradition in the Balkans, the bands of which usually perform their music at a breakneck tempo; check our Ivo Papasov (often dubbed the "Charlie Parker of the Balkans"), who plays among other styles, a style of wedding music. Just how this music ended up being mixed with Japanese chindon music by Cicala Mvta is anyone's guess.
And then there is my favourite brass band music -- from New Orleans. Some years ago, I had the great fortune to see the Dirty Dozen Brass Band perform in Bangkok; during their set they played sad funeral dirges, traditional jazz, popular tunes and even funk. They could play anything you requested.
I had the chance to talk with the band later and they told me that the special, swinging sound New Orleans' brass bands create comes from funeral processions. The brass band leads the cortege with family members to the burial ground, playing laments and dirges in a sombre manner. After the burial, the band ups the tempo to celebrate the release of the body (of the deceased) and plays music to dance to, as the procession returns to town. If you listen to the early jazz song Oh, Don't He Ramble, you can hear the dirge in the slow intro, followed by the syncopated swinger in the second part, neatly mirroring what a New Orleans' funeral procession sounds like in just one song.
And behind the musicians were friends who would dance, beat time on bottles and whoop and holler; this became known as the "Second Line", from which gumbo of sonic treasures came much of New Orleans rhythm and blues, soul and funk.
I'll end with one of my favourite brass bands, the Gangbe Brass Band from Benin who I saw perform the Borneo jazz festivals some years ago. Like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band they play anything and everything. To hear them in full flight, have a look at the music videos they've done with the US-based blues band Hazmat Modine. Truly wonderful and highly recommended.
This columnist can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
