ITEA Journal Volume 47 Number 2 (Winter 2020)

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The Man with the Golden Tone:
By Mark Jenkins

The Life and Career of Ole June May

In 2010, ITEA established the Clifford Bevan Award for Excellence in Research, a biennial program seeking to encourage the highest level of research in the area of low brass scholarship. The Bevan Award recognizes research on contemporary as well as historical topics, including acoustics, composition, theory, scoring, organology, performance practices, and pedagogy. We are pleased to feature the work of Mark Jenkins, one of two recipients of the 2019 Bevan Award.

The Internet has over the last two decades created an enormous resource for researchers. Aggregated data sources (newspaper archives, genealogical libraries, etc.), which have been digitally scanned and catalogued, have made the search for a subject's dates, life events, and valuable ephemera less like a hunt for a needle in a haystack and more like shopping at a needle store. Never before has so much primary source material been so easily accessible to scholars as they piece together our collective history. Due to the lack of these tools in the past our understanding about the lives and careers of early professional euphoniumists in the U.S. has been limited with most players being forgotten entirely over time. The goal of my dissertation, Musicians of Unusual Merit, has been to use these tools to tell the story of the development of the euphonium in "The President's Own" and to chronicle the lives and careers of the 46 men who have played it over the band's storied 221 year history. Each man's history comes together as part of a singular, comprehensive history of the instrument's use and development over a span of roughly 150 years from the perspective of a single musical organization. Below is an excerpt from the life and career of star soloist Ole June May, who was the Marine Band's euphonium soloist from 1903 to 1907, at the height of the "Golden Age" of bands.

1. Ole May pictured with his Conn double-bell euphonium and the Marine Band for the cornerstone laying of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. (ca. 1907)

In a tenure lasting only four years, no soloist in the history of the Marine Band attracted more public notice or garnered more press than Ole June May. The attention came not solely for May's prodigious artistic and musical accomplishments but also for the unfortunate part he played in a salacious scandal that placed him and the band in the middle of a federal murder trial and the media circus that followed. During his lifetime May was considered one of the great brass soloists of the day, seen as second only to the great Simone Mantia. May's greatest gifts were his beautiful sound and lyrical approach to the instrument, as well as a tremendous high range. By the time he arrived at Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C. he was already known as "The Man with the Golden Tone." While a large portion of his notoriety was garnered for his musical abilities, his main source of income for most of his life came from his other career as a political cartoonist and part-time newspaper reporter. His artwork was printed in many leading newspapers across the country including theWashington Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Houston Chronicle, and Pittsburgh Times-Gazette. While a large part of May's two careers has been preserved through newspaper references, much of his personal life and background was compiled by brass historian Glenn Bridges who interviewed many of May's contemporaries while gathering information for his book Pioneers in Brass, published in 1965. He later passed along all of his information via written correspondence with Marine Band euphoniumist Arthur Lehman.

2. The 46 euphonium players of the 221-year history of the U.S. Marine Band

Bridges gives May's birth date as June 14, 1872 in Pleasanton, Iowa, a small farming community situated on the state's southern border with Missouri. While he lists no sources for the date, the year matches federal census records. After Ole's birth, his father George moved the family several times, mainly in areas just over the border in Missouri. Ole grew up with four sisters, three of them older and one younger, all of which are purported to have been accomplished musicians in their own right. Ole apparently began to develop his musical abilities early. While there is no record of him taking formal music lessons, by the age of nine he was already playing the "old baritone horn" and touring with a traveling band called "The Weber Family," a group well known throughout the United States in the late 1870s and '80s. He spent three seasons on the road before his parents finally came after him and took him back home to finish school.

3. Autographed photo of Ole May as Marine Band euphonium soloist (ca. 1903)

He graduated from the Commercial Department of the Stanberry, Missouri Normal College in 1887 where, among other subjects, May received training as a stenographer. After graduation he traveled west to accept a two-year position as a court reporter in Colorado Springs and Denver. He then traveled east and worked for two years with the Columbus and Hocking Coal and Iron Company in Ohio as a stenographer and bookkeeper; from there he went to work for the Pullman Company, being employed in both Chicago and St. Louis. After leaving that job, he worked three years in the law department of the Chicago meatpacking firm Armour and Company.

Growing up, Ole always had a skill for sketching, and even his dedication to music, which he kept up by playing euphonium in local bands in his off hours, never fully overcame his desire to develop his talent with pen and ink. During his school days he had developed an especially keen hand at drawing caricatures of his college professors, much to their chagrin. While working at Armour and Company, May decided to study drawing formally, attending night classes at the Chicago Art Institute. By the mid-1890s Ole, now married with children, abruptly headed for the west coast, briefly settling in Southern California after accepting a job as an artist for the Los Angeles Times newspaper. Later he moved again, this time to Houston, Texas to work for the Houston Post.

4. Ole May caricature of USMB horn player Leo Mazulla (ca. 1905)

It appears from Bridges's account that sometime in the late 1890s Ole moved the family to Cleveland, Ohio to work as an artist for the Cleveland Leader newspaper. There he began performing as euphonium soloist with The Great Western Band. Though the exact date of his move to Ohio is unclear, Glenn Bridges's interviews with many former players of the band, including Cliff Barnes, son of the band's former conductor W. E. Barnes, provides many accounts of May's fine playing. There the old timers in the band gave him the nickname "The Man with the Golden Tone." According to those who heard Ole perform, his gift for fine phrasing made operatic airs come to life and was probably his greatest asset apart from his extensive playing range. Barnes once heard May performing Wagner's "Song to the Evening Star" and described Ole's playing as simply beautiful. He recalled that May, unlike his rival Mantia, used a slight vibrato in his playing that only enhanced his natural expression. According to Bridges, "While [Ole] may not have been the equal of Simone Mantia or Joseph DeLuca, as to technical display, his golden tone enthralled even the great trombone soloist Arthur Pryor.

Census records indicate that by 1900 the May family had relocated to St Louis, Missouri, where Ole worked for three years with the George D. Bernard Company making pen and ink drawings for photo-lithography. It is interesting to note, however, that when asked by the census taker to name his profession, he listed "musician" rather than "artist" or "cartoonist," possibly indicating a preference to music at the time as his primary career path. After a short stay in St. Louis, he returned north to Chicago, this time taking a job working for the Charles H. Fuller Advertising Agency designing pictures for advertisements as well as performing as euphonium soloist with Thomas P. Brooke's famous Chicago Marine Band.

5. Ole May caricature of USMB clarinetist and violinist Taylor Branson, who later became 19th Director of the Marine Band

Like Sousa, Brooke wanted top talent and was willing to pay for it. During his years with Brooke's band, May became close friends with several future Marine Band colleagues including virtuoso cornetist Edward Llewellyn, who would eventually go on to occupy the principal trumpet chair for many years with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The band and advertising jobs lasted until December of 1903, when May once again moved east with his family, this time to Washington, D.C., where he accepted the position as euphonium soloist with "The President's Own" United States Marine Band.

No history remains as to exactly when and how the Marine Band's conductor Lieutenant William H. Santelmann became interested in May as a soloist or how the hiring process transpired, though it is reasonable to assume that May had at some point visited Marine Barracks and played for the director. May entered the band at the rank of Musician First Class, the band's highest enlisted rank at the time, indicating that Santelmann recognized May's abilities and was willing to compensate him accordingly with the highest rank and pay available to him. After May arrived, Santelmann wasted little time putting him to work, featuring him as a top-billed soloist on the Marine Band's spring and summer concert series. According to existing concert records, May appeared nine times as soloist during the summer of 1904. The following summers of 1905, 1906, and 1907 equaled or exceeded that number. By 1905 the band had purchased a new silver-plated Conn double-bell euphonium for May at a cost of $129, making it one of the most expensive instruments in the band at the time. Like all soloists, May had his standard repertoire, performing pieces such as the "Therese Polka" by John Hartmann, Allesandro Liberati's high-register stunt, "The Pyramids," Richard Wagner's "The Song to the Evening Star," T.H. Rollingson's "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," Gardell Simons's "Weldon Polka," and John Hazel's polka "Le Secret," which he also performed as soloist on the band's 1907 concert tour. As he had managed to do in every other city, May used his spare time away from the horn working as a political cartoonist and part-time reporter for the Washington Post newspaper. He endeared himself to many of the officers and band personnel at the time by drawing caricatures of his colleagues.

6. Ole May caricature of USMB tuba section: Fred Walen and Paul Pharr

Though professionally May's life in Washington was thriving, by the fall of 1905 ongoing struggles within his marriage had begun to escalate, eventually affecting his career with the band. In December of 1890, May had married eighteen-year old Jennie Crawford. Soon after their marriage Ole witnessed his wife having what appeared to doctors at the time as epileptic fits. Though reported to be a kind and gentle personality in healthy times, during these episodes, Jennie would turn violent, sometimes beating or threatening their children. She sometimes fell to the ground unconscious, badly hurting herself in the process. May eventually learned that the condition ran in his wife's family, after seeing both Jennie's mother and sister displaying the same illness. A witness described one of Jennie's fits as it happened at his home during a christening celebration: "When unconscious she was rigid, eyes bulging from her head, face blue. When she came to she shook and was extremely nervous." Despite Jennie's illness, the couple had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. The couple would quarrel often, usually due to Jennie's erratic behavior and occasional lapses of infidelity, sometimes leading to Ole or his wife leaving the home for a time. By 1905, the situation had progressed to the point where Lt. Santelmann confidentially advised Ole to seek a divorce.

Unfortunately, May's failure to take Santelmann's advice at the time would have disastrous consequences for both Ole's family and his career. The unfortunate chain of events began two years prior to May joining the Marine Band, during his time playing with Brooke's Band in Chicago. In February of 1903 he was introduced to a 19-year old violinist and horn player named Lucien Conen, a Kentuckian hailing from Louisville. The two men met through a Mr. George Gault, a mutual friend in the city. While Conen and Gault's sister boarded at the May's home for a short time, Conen also met May's wife Jennie, whose family were also from Kentucky, and the two apparently became close. A year after Ole had joined "The President's Own," as a personal favor to Conen, he secured a position for him in the band, which Conen accepted, relocating to Washington in February of 1904. Not long after Conen's arrival, Ole began hearing rumors linking his wife's and Conen's names together. May counseled Jennie to be careful, but she maintained her innocence. Conen also denied any involvement with Mrs. May and apologized to Ole for all of the "talk." But by September of 1905, Ole knew that the relationship between his wife and Conen had deepened despite their assurances to the contrary. During a heated argument with Ole on September first, Jennie finally confessed to the affair but added that Conen had been, "poisoning her mind against [Ole] for two years. He wanted her to divorce [May] and marry him." Ole threatened divorce if she did not cease relations with Conen. Several weeks later, after Jennie had failed to comply with his request, Ole sought redress with Lieutenant Santelmann where he complained against Conen's behavior. The situation quickly escalated to a formal hearing before the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General George Elliot. As a result of these meetings Conen agreed to end the affair, however, he maintained his innocence to the home-wrecker charge by furnishing "incriminating letters" in Mrs. May's hand as his defense. On the morning of September twenty-fifth, 1906, Ole told his wife about the decision of the hearing and the letters in Conen's possession, again threatening divorce if the letters proved genuine. When Jennie heard this she flew into a rage, alleging that Conen had slighted her character in front of Lieutenant Santelmann and General Elliot. She requested an audience with the Commandant but was refused. She then sent for Conen who also would not come. An article published in the Washington Post, dated September 28, 1905, detailed the events as they then transpired:

7. Washington Times headline, August 4, 1906, detailing the affair and attempted murder

Yesterday afternoon, [Jennie L. May] took a .32 caliber revolver from a bureau drawer in [her] home and went in search for Conen, taking a position at the southeast corner of Seventh and E streets, near Marine Barracks. At about 6:30 PM, she saw Conen and his mother, who had been visiting him, walking down Seventh Street on their way to the barracks from a band concert at the Capitol. Waiting until Conen had passed she walked up behind him, bystanders said, drew the revolver, and fired one shot. The bullet entered Conen's back near the spinal column, piercing his left lung, and he fell to the ground. The woman replaced the revolver in her dress and walked to the other side of the street. Policeman Morgan, of the Fifth Precinct, heard the shot and ran to the aid of Conen. Someone pointed Mrs. May out to him, and leaving the wounded man to the care of bystanders; he crossed the street and placed the woman under arrest. Conen was carried to his home on Seventh St. where he boarded with a Mrs. Selver, and shortly afterward was taken to Providence Hospital where he received treatment. His mother went with him.

8. Ole May in 1915 as a cartoonist with the Pittsburgh Gazette

Another eyewitness was later quoted as saying that after firing the shot Mrs. May, "uttered a piercing scream and then shouted for the police to arrest her." Conen's mother later testified that after the first shot Jennie rushed up to Conen, who was lying on the ground, and pointed the gun at the back of his head intending to shoot again. Conen's mother claimed to have twice wrestled the weapon away from her son's head before another bystander knocked the pistol from Jennie May's hand. While being walked to the local precinct, she asked her captor, "Why didn't you let me kill him?" Once at the police station, Mrs. May refused to speak with anyone but a lawyer about the incident, only saying that Conen had slandered her to Lt. Santelmann and others and that she had shot him in defense of her name.

About a week after the shooting on October fifth, Conen underwent the first of several unsuccessful operations at the Naval Hospital to retrieve the bullet which had severely damaged his spinal cord leaving him partially paralyzed. Surgeons found that it had lodged itself in Conen's left lung. Jennie May, meanwhile, had been arraigned on the charge of assault to kill in Police Court but was able to return home from jail after Ole somehow posted the $3,000 bail. The police made it clear, however, that murder charges would be filed if Conen were to die. Home was hardly a comfort for Jennie as the May's townhome at 917 E Street Southeast was directly across the street from the main entrance to the Naval Hospital where Conen was being treated. It was soon apparent to doctors that there was little they could do for the dying man and eventually allowed his mother to take him back to Louisville in hopes the change would at least prolong his life temporarily. While doctors at the time fully believed that it was only a matter of days before Conen's death, he lingered just over a year before finally dying of the wound on October 9, 1906. Under Federal law at the time, if the victim of a criminal assault survived the incident for more than a year and a day the crime of murder could not be charged to the alleged perpetrator. On November 26, 1906 Mrs. May was arraigned in Criminal Court and indicted on the charges of assault with intent to kill and assault with a dangerous weapon.

9. Ole May caricatures of members of the band on tour through Cleveland (ca. 1915) including double-bell euphonium soloist George Frey who replaced May as Principal Euphonium in the band

Various delays pushed back the trial date, but finally preliminary court proceedings and jury selection began on January 29, 1907. Newspapers reported that Jennie May's lawyers planned to use the "unwritten law" as their main argument for the defense. The approach had been used successfully in connection with insanity pleas in several high-profile trials in the United States between 1843 and 1885 and basically held that an outraged husband, brother, or female victim could justifiably kill any male "libertine" guilty of seduction of a wife, sister, or the female victim herself. In many of these trials, juries acquitted the defendants on the grounds that the jury believed them to be in a state of insanity when committing the crime. Indeed as the trial began Mrs. May's defense attorneys asserted that she had not only been seduced and slighted by Conen but she was also, "subject to occasional fits of mental aberration, and by inference, that she was in that condition when she shot and fatally wounded Lucien Conen." Her lawyers also produced several physicians who testified that her symptoms were indicative of epilepsy and an otherwise unsound mind. The prosecution countered by reading to the court seventy-seven of the love letters written by Jennie May to Conen that had been in his possession before the shooting as well as a handful of local witnesses all testifying of a long history of secret meetings between the two lovers at various parks, street corners, and in friends' parlors around the area. One uncovered detail contained in her letters was that often, when Ole May was away playing a concert with the band, Jennie would place a white handkerchief in the window as a sign for Conen to visit. This evidence, compounded by Jennie's own statements as well as Ole's testimony that he trusted his wife with their children while he was away despite her mental illness and Ole's pistol being in the house, ultimately led the jury to reject Mrs. May's temporary insanity defense, finding her guilty of assault with the intent to kill Lucien Conen.

To his credit, even the prosecution and the press praised Ole for the devotion he showed to his wife throughout the trial in spite of her humiliating public infidelity and criminal conviction. Despite the trauma he and his family had just endured, May continued to maintain a heavy performance schedule with the Marine Band that year. As a soloist on a spring concert tour to New York City, May soloed to packed houses at the famed New York Hippodrome theatre. Throughout the summer months he performed more solos than any previous year, appearing at least eleven times in front of the band. His last documented performance in Washington was at Marine Barracks, playing a transcription of the famous sextet from Gaetano Donizetti's opera Luica di Lammermoor in front of the band with five of his colleagues. Two days later the band departed on a three-week tour to Pittsburgh, New York, and Boston, again featuring Ole May as soloist. On that tour May had the opportunity to perform as soloist at Boston's Symphony Hall. Sadly, no recordings of May's solo performances are known to exist. Though, as part of the band's euphonium section, he played on several two and four-minute Marine Band wax cylinder recordings for both the Edison and Victor recording companies.

By December of 1907, Ole's enlistment with the Marine Corps was spent and he did not re-enlist. According to muster rolls Ole May was officially discharged from service on December 23. Under "Physical Condition" May only rated a "fair" instead of the more standard "good" marking. Glenn Bridges indicates in his correspondence with Arthur Lehman that Ole may have suffered from bouts of alcohol abuse throughout his life. Whether this claim is true and to what extent the problem affected his career or contributed to the family's domestic problems will never be known.

After leaving the band May moved his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he accepted a job drawing for the Pittsburgh-Gazette Times newspaper. In the 1910 Federal census he lists his occupation solely as a "cartoonist." His work there as an artist and music critic gained him an excellent reputation. An article printed in the paper in 1910 described some of the unique qualities of May's personality.

His work in Pittsburgh has made him many friends and admirers, and his work shows steadily growing broadness and strength. But not only does May persist in steady application to his chief line of work, he believes in the old idea that a change of work is as good as a rest, and when he has settled the destinies of the nation for another twenty- four hours, he goes down to the editorial rooms, where his personality has made him welcome since his first day in office, pulls open a desk and pounds away at the typewriter just the same as if he were a real reporter. And when the city editor reads what he has turned out he finds that the man from the Art room has written an able, polished musical review that reads as if he had been doing that sort of thing all his life. And just in passing he will talk opera to you by the hour if you will let him, and talk with all the intelligence and enthusiasm that wouldn't be much of a surprise if his name had a foreign ending.

Later that year Ole moved the family back to Cleveland to take a job with the Cleveland Leader newspaper. Before leaving Pittsburgh, Ole had hired a 31-year old widow named Nora Archibald as a housekeeper, whom the kids began calling Aunt Nora. Sometime after moving to Ohio he and Nora were married. While working in Cleveland Ole began soloing again, appearing with Robertson's Cleveland Band in the summer of 1914 as the featured euphonium soloist playing the "Therese Polka." According to a journal kept by Ole's son Dale, Ole was able to play for several different band leaders at the time including John Philip Sousa.

The great trombone soloist and band leader Arthur Pryor had great respect for Ole as a euphonium soloist and tried for years to engage him for his band as a replacement for Simone Mantia, who had left to perform as a trombonist in New York. Though Ole had long entertained the idea, the opportunity didn't come until the summer of 1917 when he finally accepted Pryor's invitation to perform as a euphonium soloist for the band's summer season at Asbury Park, New Jersey. The Mays arrived in town on June fourteenth and moved into an apartment located over a store at the corner of Cookman and Grand Avenues. They opened their home to a boarder for the summer, a Miss Phillips who was a noted contralto soloist from New York that Arthur Pryor had contracted for several concert runs with his band. The season opened with Pryor's band playing two concerts a day at Asbury Park's Arcade. Despite the heavy performance load, Ole still found time to draw cartoons for three newspapers simultaneously: the Detroit Journal, Toledo Blade, and Star Eagle newspaper of Newark, New Jersey. According to his son Dale, Ole loved being able to play euphonium with a top professional band again.

On a hot evening in August, having just finished playing a concert, Ole and Nora, along with another Pryor Band musician, cornetist Frank Williams, decided to go for a late night drive along the ocean front in the Williams's seven-seat Cadillac convertible. The party was joined by Miss Phillips and later William's wife. The party made their way South down the coast on Ocean Avenue stopping for a bite to eat in Long Branch before heading home. Sometime around one o'clock in the morning, Williams, who was driving, momentarily lost control of the vehicle resulting in the car swerving to the right and broad-siding a large pole at the corner of Ocean and Lincoln Avenues. Local newspaper reports differed slightly at the time as to the exact cause of

the accident. One paper cited a source saying that a sudden gust of wind had blown Williams's glasses off of his face causing him to lose control of the wheel as he fumbled to replace them. The Long Branch Daily Record printed Williams's testimony given the following day. He stated that before the trip he had stopped at a local garage to see about a possible problem with his headlights. The mechanic assured him that he would be quite safe driving with just the pair of small headlights on the car. When nearing Lincoln Avenue, a car behind him had such glaring headlights that he was somewhat blinded. His eyeglasses started to fall off and with one hand on the wheel he used the other hand to replace his glasses. As he did so, the large pole on the corner loomed up before him. He had just enough time to avoid a head-on collision by turning his wheel hard to the right. This accounts for the side of the car colliding with the pole.

The speed at which the car hit the pole caused the vehicle to nearly tear in half before rebounding in the air and overturning. Mr. and Mrs. Williams, who were seated in the front were thrown nearly fifty feet from the vehicle during the accident but escaped with only minor injuries. Miss Phillips was seated in a reversible folding seat in the middle of the cabin reading a piece of sheet music when the car struck the pole directly behind her. The impact crushed the back of her skull killing the singer instantly before throwing her underneath the overturned vehicle and pinning her body to the ground. Nora and Ole were both ejected onto the street. Nora suffered a broken arm and two fractured ribs while Ole faired much worse with two broken legs, a fractured skull and other internal injuries. The first police patrolman at the scene flagged down passing motorists to help transport the injured passengers to nearby Long Branch hospital. When the ambulance finally arrived, Miss Phillips was pronounced dead at the scene and taken to the local morgue. Arthur Pryor's son was one of the first to reach the scene after the accident. He quickly telephoned his father at his home in Wanamassa and both Pryor and his manager Hal Nelson went directly to the hospital. Ole's son Dale, stationed in Cleveland while serving in the Army, recalled reading purely by chance the following day in the local paper that his father had been critically injured in an automobile accident. He spent the next week inquiring at local news offices for any updates on his father's condition. Despite initial reports that his condition was improving, on Friday, August 10th Ole May finally succumbed to his injuries, dying with his wife Nora at his bedside.

Of all the cities he had lived in, Ole had always considered Cleveland to be his home. When the decision was made to transport the body back to Ohio for burial, Arthur Pryor covered all of the hospital and funeral expenses himself. Funeral services were held in Cleveland with the internment at Lakeview Cemetery. The gravesite is only a short distance away from where, 36 years earlier, the Marine Band had led the funeral procession for assassinated president James A. Garfield. The Meridian Masonic Lodge No. 610 was in charge of Ole May's funeral service. Six masons representing the newspaper industry and six from the local musicians' union acted as pallbearers. A sixty-piece band provided music for the graveside ceremony. In the October, 1917 issue of the trade journal "The Cartoonist Magazine," Ole was eulogized by his colleagues: "He had a host of friends and acquaintances not only in the musical and journalistic professions, but in business life as well, and all who knew him came to regard him as a comrade." Years later, Dale May wrote in his journal that the untimely death of his father, "at the age of 47… sure was a waste of talent, for talented he was."

Mark Jenkins joined the United States Marine Band in 2002, and currently serves as principal euphonium.

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