Harold Bennett is one of the many pseudonyms of Cincinnati native Henry Fillmore (1881-1956). He was prolific composer and arranger and a beloved band leader whose music and performances delighted audiences. He started his own professional band (the Fillmore Band) in Cincinnati in the 1930s, one of the last great professional bands of its kind. He was also prolific in creating pseudonyms, including Harold Bennett (whose young band books were famous), Will Huff, Al Hayes, Gus Beans, Henrietta Hall (a rare female name), Ray Hall, Harry Hartley, and others. Over the span of his 50 year career, he (and his pseudonyms) wrote more than 250 original compositions, including 113 marches. He also created more than 750 arrangements for band, many of which are gold standards of the genre. After a long career in Ohio, he moved to Miami (the one in Florida, not the one in Ohio) and became involved with the bands at the University of Miami, where he had a lasting impact and where he left most of his estate.
Military Escort was first published in 1923 as part of a young band collection. Frederick Fennell gives outstanding program notes in his 1980 edition of the march:
Military Escort probably has introduced more Americans to the regimental march style than any title in that vast and fascinating musical literature. And while it may not enjoy–in this era of supposed musical sophistication–the position it held so firmly half a century ago, it remains a classic example of effective and disarming simplicity, reflecting the innocence and charm of a bygone time in American music education. Its composer, the versatile and enormously gifted musician, Henry Fillmore, wrote it under the Harold Bennett pseudonym as part of what became the famous Bennett Band Book No. 1–A Collection of Original Compositions for Band. This was in 1923 when organized instrumental music instruction and participation were in their infancy in our public institutions.
Today’s plush bandrooms generously staffed and with their long corridors of practice rooms, instrument lockers, orthopedically designed chairs, forests of music stands–and instruments tuned at the factory were but the wildest dreams of the dedicated bandmaster who taught his kids the fingerings in the boiler room.
After the kids knew how to play–what would they play? Henry Fillmore knew what they could play. His Bennett Band Books (there were 4) held out genuine incentive, honest reward, and that ultimate satisfaction in performance for which there are no words. The various musical styles contained in these books offered Waltzes, Serenades, Overtures, Fox Trots, Two-Steps, and Marches; Military Escort is No. 7. With these sixteen titles printed in the then convenient double fold march size format, Henry Fillmore probably was a greater part of the initial ensemble musical experience for more instrumentalists than any single composer whose music was played in the schools of the United States in the 2nd quarter of the 20th century. The Bennett Band Books became the model for the many others that still follow.
We “played at” Military Escort in the orchestra at Miles Elementary School in Cleveland when I was a boy. But I never got its real message until I heard the parade band of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus play it as the evening pre-performance walk around at their annual stand on the Cleveland lakefront in 1928. It was a small but wonderfully effective group (not the main tent band) and they played it slowly, so all could walk with ease. This tempo has stayed with me ever since, and so has the whole march. If this handsome new quarto size edition gets this marvellous march into the head and heart of people of any age who might have missed it up to now, we shall be as happy as its composer–the remarkable, the irrepressible Henry (Harold Bennett) Fillmore–wished us to be.
Here is the US Air Force Reserve Band performing Military Escort:
Military Escort is currently available in its original publication (for free, as it’s in the public domain) from the Band Music PDF Library. In addition to Frederick Fennell’s edition, there are others by James Swearingen and Larry Clark. See more at Barnhouse, HeBu Music, and the Wind Repertory Project.