The incredible band of John Philip Sousa

"John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) is an American icon. Most famous for his military marches, for forty years the composer and bandmaster led a disciplined group of devoted musicians on numerous American tours and around the world, shaping a new cultural landscape while performing more than fifteen thousand concerts. Paul Edmund Bierley has spent forty years documenting every aspect of the March King's band: its history, its star performers, its appearances on recordings and radio, and the challenges band members faced during rigorous tours across America and Europe and on their 1911 trip around the world. Sharing Sousa's vision of a better America, the musicians traveled the globe via train and steamship, stayed in hotels with no electricity, and performed at unheated concert venues in freezing weather. Enhanced by more than 120 images and photographs, The Incredible Band of John Philip Sousa also contains six statistical appendixes detailing where the band played, what it played, a complete list of musicians, instrumentation of the band, program listings, and a discography." — Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.