ALEXANDER, RUSSELL

Russell Alexander spent most of his adult life as a composer-arranger and euphonium player on circus bandstands and vaudeville stages. He wrote several marches while playing with the Belford Carnival Band, but his big opportunity came in 1897 when he joined the Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. With Carl Clair as bandmaster, the twenty-year-old Alexander became the show’s euphonium soloist and composer-arranger in time for its five-year tour of Europe. Many...