Purchasing information Notice for leaders/bass players
Length: approx. 4¼ mins.
Yankee Bird was to dedicated to a certain V. E Etheridge and is another early homage to aviation which Johnson followed up with
Cloud Kisser (1911). The cover of the original sheet music shows what appears to be a fairly accurate representation of a 1905 Wright pusher aircraft propelled by two contra-rotating single-blade propellers. Later forms of this particular Yankee bird saw service in the United States Signal Corps and acquired a reputation for being dangerous. Whoever Etheridge may have been is lost in the sands of ragtime history. The march itself is a bright and breezy affair having an AABBACCCC form with a 4-bar introduction and an 8-bar interlude preceding each of the final two C-strains which are an octave above the first iterations. The AB- and C-strains are written in the major keys of G and C respectively. The C-strain may for some be too high for the 1st tenor recorder but there is time enough to safely alternate to a treble.
Yankee Bird was published by
Chas. L. Johnson Publishing Co., Kansas City, Missouri, USA.
A tempo of 80 crotchets/min. is suggested.
