The Blast of Brass.

So, as Gracie Fields advises, “Fall in and follow the band,” the band of Hope, the call of the weald.

Who is there so dumb and dubious that he can resist the blare of the band —the blustering blast of the Big Blow? That Kruschen crash of brass and breath, that zipp and zoom of accelerated air. Why, even well-bred babies still kick the stuffing out of their perambulators, swaddlings swallow their chewing gum, and adults become adulterated and trickle along behind the big bassoon, when the band goes by. And why? Because of all the variegated velocitated vibrations that masquerade as music, give us the big bold brasses. The wild wail of the bagpipes may stir the Scot to the very knots of his purse strings, the oboe may minister to the meth-elated spirits of the dismal Desmonds, the saxophone may sag and moan, jazz may cater, from hip to heel, to the cataleptic callisthenics of the rhythm-ridden; crooners may give depressed-air expression to the curse of Adam, and violins may whip the welkin from neck to knee with every knack of neoteric necromancy from the sob of a punctured pie-crust to the scream of a stepped-on corn; but the “brasses” have the wood on the “wood-winds,” they have the “reeds” rattled, the “strings” unstrung, and the oscillated orchestrations of synchronised syncopation jazzed to a “frazz.”