Annotation:Japanese Grand March

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JAPANESE GRAND MARCH. American, March (4/4 time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABCD. A minstrel banjo march by W.H. Gassner. The title is perhaps composed in honor of The Japanese Embassy to the United States in 1860. Primarily a trade embassy, its purpose was to ratify the new Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation, and followed on Commodore Matthew Perry's opening of Japan in 1854. It was Japan's first diplomatic mission tho the United States. Arriving at San Francisco, the three-man Japanese delegation crossed the Isthmus of Panama by rail, and sailed for Washington D.C., where they were received at the White House by President James Buchanan. After numerous receptions and a grand parade in New York City from up Broadway, the diplomats returned to Japan via the circumnavigation route. The incident may also have inspired the minstrel African-American dwarf performer Thomas Dilward (1840–1902) to adopt the stage name 'Japanese Tommy.'

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Buckley (Buckley's New Banjo Method), 1860; p. 28.

Recorded sources:

See also listing at:
See/hear the tune being played by Tim Twiss on youtube.com [1]

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