Biography
Born Arthur Willard Pryor on 22 September 1870 in St. Joseph, Missouri, the future musician lost his father, a working professional, only after receiving strong early encouragement to pursue music. By his early teens he had already mastered the slide trombone through solitary practice and would soon earn recognition as one of its foremost technicians. Following a Denver engagement, he joined John Philip Sousa’s ensemble in 1892; once in New York his precision and virtuosity secured him the principal chair and regular solo features. Those same abilities elevated the trombone’s artistic standing and helped prepare the instrument for its later central role in jazz ensembles.
The rising popularity of ragtime and the dance styles that preceded jazz opened still wider opportunities. Although Sousa personally disliked the new idioms, he bowed to audience demand and placed Pryor in charge of preparing and leading them. Pryor embraced the material, began writing rags himself, and also assumed full direction of the Sousa band’s recording sessions after Sousa declared his aversion to the phonograph. In 1903 Pryor established his own organization, which toured vigorously for several seasons before he shifted to profitable summer contracts at fashionable resorts and winter posts as musical director for New York theatrical productions.
Throughout the 1920s he ranked among the Victor Talking Machine Company’s best-selling artists and withdrew from live performance. By the time he retired in 1933 he had accumulated more than two thousand discs and had arranged nearly one thousand dance selections, among them several of his own pieces. The best-known of these, “The Whistler And His Dog,” was joined by such enduring works as “Heart Of America March” and “On Jersey Shore,” both frequently likened to Sousa’s most celebrated marches. Pryor maintained a teaching studio, practiced daily, and in 1942, after the United States entered World War II, agreed to perform at a morale-building concert near his Long Branch, New Jersey, residence. He suffered a fatal stroke during rehearsal on 18 June 1942; his son, Arthur Pryor Jnr., conducted the scheduled program, which concluded with the elder Pryor’s composition “We’ll Keep Old Glory Flying.”
The rising popularity of ragtime and the dance styles that preceded jazz opened still wider opportunities. Although Sousa personally disliked the new idioms, he bowed to audience demand and placed Pryor in charge of preparing and leading them. Pryor embraced the material, began writing rags himself, and also assumed full direction of the Sousa band’s recording sessions after Sousa declared his aversion to the phonograph. In 1903 Pryor established his own organization, which toured vigorously for several seasons before he shifted to profitable summer contracts at fashionable resorts and winter posts as musical director for New York theatrical productions.
Throughout the 1920s he ranked among the Victor Talking Machine Company’s best-selling artists and withdrew from live performance. By the time he retired in 1933 he had accumulated more than two thousand discs and had arranged nearly one thousand dance selections, among them several of his own pieces. The best-known of these, “The Whistler And His Dog,” was joined by such enduring works as “Heart Of America March” and “On Jersey Shore,” both frequently likened to Sousa’s most celebrated marches. Pryor maintained a teaching studio, practiced daily, and in 1942, after the United States entered World War II, agreed to perform at a morale-building concert near his Long Branch, New Jersey, residence. He suffered a fatal stroke during rehearsal on 18 June 1942; his son, Arthur Pryor Jnr., conducted the scheduled program, which concluded with the elder Pryor’s composition “We’ll Keep Old Glory Flying.”
Singles
