[African-Americana – Missouri – Race] Postlewaite, Joseph W.

“St. Louis Greys Quick Step”. [Sheet Music]

St. Louis, Missouri: Balmer & Weber, [1852]. Sheet music measuring 10 x 13 ½ inches, 5 pp. Item #List3710

Sheet music for Joseph W. Postlewaite’s “St. Louis Greys Quick Step.” Postlewaite (1827–1889) was an African American composer and bandleader, with a somewhat mysterious background: apparently well-educated, he came to St. Louis in 1848, where his freedom bond was co-signed in 1850 by a wealthy fur trader. He became a well-known musician and composer in the city, but also owned a coffeehouse, publishing company, and booking agency.[1] As he rose in prominence, his audience and fellow performers apparently assumed that he was white, an assumption that Postlewaite did not correct.[2] Postlewaite’s compositions, and his performances with his various bands (Postlewaite’s Quadrille Band, Postlewaite’s Cotillion Band, Postlewaite’s Four-Man Band, and so on), were generally for the dances, parades, and events of St. Louis’s white society, including the exclusive Veiled Prophet Pageant in 1880.[3]

“St. Louis Greys Quick Step” is undated but was likely published around 1852. The Grays were a military company that served in the Black Hawk War and the Mexican-American War; the piece is dedicated to the Grays and to Captain George Knapp, who served in the latter war. We find one physical holding on OCLC, at the Missouri History Museum.

Of interest to historians of Black musicians and race in Missouri music circles around the Civil War.

[1] Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., “J. W. Postlewaite of St. Louis: A Search for His Identity,” The Black Perspective in Music 6, no. 2 (Autumn 1978): 151–167.
[2] Julie Winch, The Clamorgans: One Family’s History of Race in America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011): 221.
[3] Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., “A Black Composer in Nineteenth-Century St. Louis,” 19th-Century Music 4, no. 2 (Autumn 1980): 121–133.

Price: $950.00