Hold on to your spit valve campers!
You choose the tempo and the circus will do the rest.
I had the great honor of performing this march under the direction of Merle Evens many years ago when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to Dallas, Texas for a week.
Mr. Evens was the most famous director of the shows history. I found him to be very laidback and able to stop a story in its middle, direct twenty minutes of music and return to the story without missing a word. Meeting him was as moving to me as meeting and performing under Arron Copland in Davenport, Iowa decades ago.
Merle Evans was born in Columbus, Kansas in 1891. His father was a foreman in a coal mine. He had six siblings. Evans had an early job selling newspapers on corners. He used his cornet to call attention to the headlines. After holding several other jobs, Evans left home and joined the S.W. Brundage Carnival Company as a cornet player. Evans held several other jobs, including as a band director for the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show featuring Buffalo Bill Codey.
Evans was hired as the band director for the newly merged Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1919. Evans held this job for fifty years, until his retirement in 1969. He only missed performances due to a musicians union strike in 1942 and the death of his first wife. He wrote eight circus marches, including Symphonia and Fredella.
