P. G. Lowery

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P. G. Lowery
P. G. Lowery
P. G. Lowery holding a cornet
Background information
Birth namePerry George Lowery
Born(1869-10-11)October 11, 1869
Topeka, Kansas
OriginReece, Kansas U.S.
DiedDecember 15, 1942(1942-12-15) (aged 73)
Cleveland, Ohio
Genres

Perry George Lowery (Topeka, October 11, 1869 – Cleveland, December 15, 1942), commonly known as P. G. Lowery, was an American composer, conductor, cornet player, and a circus sideshow manager of African American entertainment and musical ensembles.

Early life[]

Born October 11, 1870, P. G. Lowery came from a musical family.[1][2] He played the drums in a family band, but later transitioned to cornet.[2]

Musical career[]

P.G. Lowery spent most of his musical career as a performer, manager, and band leader with different traveling circuses. At the turn of the century the U.S. was a deeply segregated country and economic opportunities were limited.[3] Most African Americans worked in agriculture, domestic work, or unskilled labor.[3] P.G. Lowery and many other Black musicians found opportunities in the circus. The traveling circus was a popular form of entertainment before movies.[3] In the early 1900s every circus had an African-American sideshow band and/or minstrel show.[3]

Beginning[]

18 people (16 men and 2 women) sit under a big tent. The men wear uniforms and the women wear white dresses.
P.G. Lowery Sideshow Band (date unknown).

In 1895 Lowery performed the cornet in a band for the show Darkest America, with the Mallary Brothers Minstrels.[4] The following year he played with the Wallace Circus.[4] Next Lowery became a cornetist with the Original Nashville Students and P. T. Wright’s Colored Comedy Company.[4] In 1897 or1899 he studied at the Boston Conservatory under the direction of Henry C. Brown.[2][4] In the summer of 1898 he played solo cornet at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska with the Original Nashville Students.[2] And in 1899 he started the and P.G. Lowery's Vaudeville Company, an important accomplishment because he was the first African American to bring his own vaudeville troupe to the circus.[4][2]

During the early 1900s he published a column, "The Cornet and Cornetists of Today" in The Freeman.[2]

Mid and Late[]

P.G. Lowery led and managed bands in circus sideshow tents for the remainder of his career.[2] Black band leaders, like P.G. Lowery, "strove toward social and economic equality through hard work and artistic and musical achievement."[3] Lowery worked with the following circuses: Sells Brothers and Forepaugh's Circus, Wallace and Hagenbeck, Ringling Brothers, Cole Brothers, and Barnum and Bailey.[2] His longest stint with a circus was from 1919 - 1931 with the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus where he managed his own band.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ P. G. Lowery and the Spread of African American Music | The Circus, retrieved March 6, 2021
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Southern, Eileen (1982). Biographical dictionary of Afro-American and African musicians. Internet Archive. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-21339-7.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Hughes, Sakina M. (July 3, 2017). "Walking the tightrope between racial stereotypes and respectability: images of African American and Native American artists in the golden age of the circus". Early Popular Visual Culture. 15 (3): 315–333. doi:10.1080/17460654.2017.1383028. ISSN 1746-0654. S2CID 191530394.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Richard, Schwartz (2000). "The African American Contribution to the Cornet of the Nineteenth Century. Some Long lost Names" (PDF). Historic Brass Society Journal. 12: 61–75.

External links[]

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