Brass BAnd: Hymn to the Highlands

[Alan H]

I recently came across some photographs of the Brass Band in Jamestown, here in northern California.

There were two pictures of the band around 1880 and they were fascinating. Thing is, the majority of the early miners in the hard-rock mines here in California were Cornish men, who probably brought the brass band tradition with them. Cornets, euphoniums, alto horns, one metal clarinet!!!..... and an over-the shoulder sort of "sousaphone" called a "Helicon Tuba" with a very conical bore and almost no flare at all were in the photograph. I wish I could get a copy of it.

The Eureka Brass Band.