In an musical age in which louder is generally considered better, Mr. Jack Daniel`s Original Silver Cornet Band is something of an anachronism. Founder Dave Fulmer wouldn`t have it any other way.
”My rule of thumb is, when in doubt, play it medium, mezzo forte. People are so used to being blasted,” Fulmer said. ”Let`s let them lean forward in their seats a little to hear what`s going on.”
The band was created in 1972 when Fulmer came across a dusty old photo in Lynchburg, Tenn., while researching a commercial for the Jack Daniels distillery.
”It was just this beat-up old picture from about 1889 showing a bunch of unlikely dudes holding these brass instruments, standing in front of a saloon,” Fulmer said.
”So that day, after a long day of shooting, I showed the picture to the ad director and asked him, `What would you think of forming a band like this today?` ”
Two weeks later, Fulmer was given the go-ahead to revive the Silver Cornet Band. His first move was to hunt down old scores from the period, which he discovered were less than thrilling.
”They were simplistic, sentimental and frankly sounded like museum pieces,” he said. ”So I sent them to my friend Greig McRitchie,” a Los Angeles arranger whose credits include the movies ”Dances With Wolves” and
”The Hunt for Red October,” ”and he made the music sound much richer.”
Then a group of session players recorded eight old-time tunes, and the resulting album was advertised ”in very small type at the bottom of a Jack Daniels magazine ad,” Fulmer said.
The result was that ”22,000 people sent in for the record, and that scared us. That tweaked our imagination.”
The band became a full-time touring unit which, in the last 20 years, has recorded seven albums and performed at such venues as Lincoln Center and the White House. It was produced and managed by Jack Daniels until last summer, when the group went its own way.
Fulmer, 67, no longer performs with the band-he retired in 1985 and was replaced by trombonist/actor Irv Kane-but he still writes and directs the Silver Cornet show.
”What I always want to establish is what life must have been like during the period between 1880 and 1915 when there were something like 15,000 of these groups in small towns all over America,” Fulmer said.
”They were the primary source of entertainment in that post-Civil War period. People craved entertainment, but remember, there were no recordings, and no radio broadcasts, and it was pre-automobile, so folks would sit at home and make up their own band-some were really bad-and they`d play `Dixie` or
`Moore County Toodle-oo` for their Uncle Harry.”
