Henry Fillmore (3 December 1881 – 7 December 1956) was an American musician, composer, publisher, and bandleader, best-known for his many marches and screamers.
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James Henry Fillmore Jr. was born in Cincinnati, Ohio as the eldest of five children. In his youth, he mastered piano, guitar, violin, and flute, as well as the slide trombone, which at first he played in secret, as his conservative religious father believed it an uncouth and sinful instrument. Fillmore was also a singer for his church choir as a boy. He began composing at 18, with his first published march "Higham", named after a line of brass instruments.
Fillmore entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1901. After this, he traveled around the United States as a circus bandmaster with his wife, an exotic dancer, named Mabel May Jones. They were married in St Louis.
In the 1920s, he was back in Cincinnati, directing the Shriners Temple Band, which he turned into one of the best marching bands in the country.
In 1938, Fillmore retired to Miami, Florida, but kept active in his later years organizing and rehearsing high school bands in Florida. Henry Fillmore Band Hall, the rehearsal hall for many of the University of Miami's performing groups, including the Band of the Hour, stands today as a tribute to Fillmore's work in the band genre. There, he wrote his final piece, "President's March". He was given an Honorary Doctorate of Music by UM in 1956 in appreciation for his outstanding contributions to local school bands. Fillmore lived out the rest of his days in South Florida.
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. Henry Fillmore wrote under a series of different names such as Harold Bennett, Ray Hall, Harry Hartley, Al Hayes, and the funniest, Henrietta Moore. The name that caused a conflict was Will Huff, because there was a Will Huff who composed marches and lived in his state and area.
While best-known for march music and screamers, he also wrote waltzes, foxtrots, hymns, novelty numbers, and overtures. Fillmore's best known compositions include:
Fillmore gained fame as the "Father of the Trombone Smear", writing a series of fifteen novelty tunes featuring trombone smears called "The Trombone Family". A number of these have a strong ragtime influence. All of Fillmore's trombone rags are:
See also: "The Music of Henry Fillmore and Will Huff", by Paul E. Bierley, Columbus, OH: Integrity Press, 1982. ISBN 0-918048-02-8.