World of Pageantry

I’ve just become aware the US Marine Corps Band (in Washington, D.C.) has made available their first volume of “The Complete Marches of John Philip Sousa.”

You can download MP3 performances or hear them on YouTube, by the President’s Own band, AND – to almost everyone’s delight – you can download PDFs of each one of them.

Here’s the link:
http://www.marineband.marines.mil/Audio ... Sousa.aspx
or:
http://bit.ly/CompleteMarchesSousa1

This is really cool, even if it is going to take them 6 years to complete it! I have some things I'm wondering about though...

What are they going to do about giving out pdf parts and scores to the marches still under copyright?

It says 136 marches, I wonder if that is going to include any of the "recently discovered" marches (or fragments) like Library of Congress and Old Ironsides?

Also quite interesting that they are doing the in chronological order.

Hope they come out better than the "Heritage of JP Sousa" did. I know that the sponsor of that project fought constantly with the Marine Band recording engineers over the very poor mic placement and balance of percussion to winds, usually to no avail. Although that series can't be duplicated in it's completeness of Sousa's music (including suites, operetta selections, etc.)

Since it's in chronological order, and it will take six years, everything should be in public domain by the time it's done.