Marshall's Civic Band

Songs included in the medley are: 
    1) "Darktown Is Out To-Night" 
    2) "Love In A Cottage Is Best 
    3) "Who Dat Say Chicken In Dis Crowd" 
    4) "Jump Back" 
    5) "Hottest Coon In Dixie" 
 
    The year, 1898, was notable for the production of an all black musical show 
(or comedy-revue) that had a big success on Broadway.  This was "Clorindy; or 
Origin Of The Cake-Walk", with music by the highly gifted and well-trained black 
composer Will Marion Cook (1869-1944) and lyrics by the poet Paul Laurence 
Dunbar.  Cook had studied violin at the Oberlin Conservatory and with Joseph 
Joachim at the Berlin Hochschule, and composition with Dvorak at the National 
Conservatory in New York.  But he still kept the popular touch. 
    Reminiscing about the memorable opening of "Clorindy" at New York's 
fashionable Casino Roof Garden in the summer of 1898, Cook wrote: 
    "When I entered the orchestra pit, there were only about fifty people on the 
Roof (Garden). When we finished the opening chorus, the house was packed to 
suffocation...The show downstairs in the Casino Theatre was just letting out. 
The big audience heard those heavenly Negro voices and took to the elevators... 
    ...My chorus sang like Russians, dancing meanwhile like Negroes, and 
cakewalking like angels, black angels!  When the last note was sounded, the 
audience stood and cheered for at least ten minutes."