'ROLLING THUNDER' IS AN EXCITING CIRCUS MARCH, ALSO KNOWN AS A 'SCREAMER', COMPOSED BY THE PROLIFIC COMPOSER, HENRY FILLMORE IN 1916. IT INCLUDES A FAST AND EXTREMELY TECHNICAL TROMBONE PART. PERFORMED BY THE TMEA ALL STATE SYMPHONIC BAND.
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Story behind the song
This is performed by the 1977 TMEA (Texas) All State Symphonic Band. The conductor was Col. Arnold D. Gabriel.
Rolling Thunder is a screamer composed by Henry Fillmore in 1916. It includes a fast and extremely technical trombone part. It has a fast and furious tempo and is performed as openers and encores of concerts. It is a great circus march, as breathtaking in its excitement as the action feats in the center ring.
Henry Fillmore (3 December 1881 ? 7 December 1956) was an American musician, composer, and publisher.
A prolific composer, Fillmore wrote over 250 tunes and arranged orchestrations for hundreds more; he also published a great number of tunes under various pseudonyms. While best known for march music and screamers, he also wrote waltzes, foxtrots, hymns, novelty numbers, overtures and waltzes.
Henry Fillmore's career spanned half a century and he seems to set the record for writing and arranging band music. It isn't a matter of quantity over quality either, since his compositions have become warhorse numbers for marching bands and big bands alike. Like a darts player who tosses a whole fistful of the little arrows at the target hoping to hit one bull's eye, Fillmore kept up a steady stream of new band music under several composer's names. Harold Bennett? No such guy?that was Fillmore?and a clue that it would be one of his easier tunes for musicians to execute since that was supposedly a Bennett speciality. For something slightly harder, there were the composers Will Huff and Al Hayes, or rather there weren't those composers since both were pseudonyms for Fillmore. If that wasn't filling enough music stands, he would Fillmore with even more demanding compositions by Gus Beans?now there's a good pseudonym?Ray Hall, and Harry Hartley. Always a strong supporter of female musicians, Fillmore also pretended to be a lady composer named Henrietta Hall, although no evidence has been found that he might have also dressed the part. He also published a series of arrangements under the Hartley name. All told, it is estimated that there are some 250 original compositions and approximately 750 arrangements for band that were the work of this man. Over his life span, this averages out to some two pieces completed per month, quite a feat since Fillmore did all of his own work, including the copying. One of the names most associated with the golden age of concert, parade, and military bands, he wrote hymns, fox-trots, waltzes, marches, overtures, and arranged several classical compositions. The latter area was one of his great specialities. He would arrange works by well-known classical composers into a simple, playable reduction emphasizing melodic structure that could be performed with only a small amount of rehearsal time. Many other concert band arrangers and composers have picked up on this practice, some creating entire careers from it.