Researching the life of Max Roach, the iconic percussionist and composer, we stumbled on Alton Augustus Adams, another significant Black musician unknown to us. Thanks to the phenomenal work and legacy of musical educator Samuel Floyd, who will be profiled in the future, we learned of Adams’s achievements, first and perhaps foremost as a pioneering bandmaster. Born in St. Thomas, in the Virgin Islands, Adams’s history was recounted by Floyd in the “American Music Research Journal,” including how he connected with Adams and continued many years of friendship and music history.
Adams was born November 4, 1889, and was the son of parents who aspired to be artisans. Their aspirations imbued him with a similar passion, though he initially apprenticed to become a carpenter and then a shoemaker. Even as he worked diligently at these trades, his love for music and literature was not ignored.
He learned to play the piccolo since it was less expensive than a flute and later in 1906, joined the St. Thomas Municipal Band. With an aim toward perfecting his skills, he began taking correspondence courses with Dr. Hugh Clark at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1910, he left the Municipal Band and formed his ensemble—the Adams Juvenile Band. It wasn’t long before the band was a popular fixture on his island’s main city, Charlotte Amalie. One vital way Adams nurtured his musical career was by reading music magazines, mostly from the U.S., including “The Dominant,” where in 1910 he contributed an article on the Black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
Five years later, he became the editor of The Herald, labor rights advocate D. Hamilton Jackson’s St. Croix newspaper, and subsequently the band columnist for the “Jacobs’ Band Monthly.” In his column, Adams often emphasized original works and they soon caught the attention of John Philip Sousa and Edwin Franko Goldman. He expressed himself in a very stylish manner with a flair for social idealism. On the eve of World War I, the U.S. purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark, an event that gave Adams considerable advantages and opportunities.
When the Adams Juvenile Band was inducted into the U.S. Navy, Adams, fortuitously, became the first Black bandmaster in the U.S. From this unique post, Adams helped to defuse the racial tension and hostilities between Blacks and whites, and it also gave him a formidable position to improve his status as a community leader on the islands. In his capacity as chief petty officer, he served as a leader of the local chapter of the Red Cross and helped to found the library in Charlotte Amalie, all the while continuing his musical endeavors and developing an educational program on the islands.
In 1922, he traveled to the U.S. for the first time to do research in music education, and two years later led his band on a tour in the U.S., winning honors and praise for the band’s style and sound reminiscent of the Sousa bands. Among his best-known works were “Virgin Islands March” (1919), “The Governor’s Own” (1921), and “The Spirit of the U.S.N.” (1924), dedicated to President Calvin Coolidge. He also made an unforgettable impression on Harlem residents and is possibly the most significant place his band appeared in the U.S.
After the unit was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Adams’s life began to spiral into one setback after another, most devastatingly a fire that took the life of his daughter and destroyed his home in St. Thomas in 1932. Lost in the fire, too, was a sizable collection of his scholarly writings and unpublished compositions. Upon his return to St. Thomas, he resumed his educational pursuits and journalism at The Bulletin but this was soon interrupted by the onset of World War II. Called back to active duty, Adams was back on the Bay where under his leadership the first racially integrated band was sanctioned by the U.S. Navy. There would be two more relocations of the band before Adams retired from the service in 1945.
Two years later, the indefatigable Adams became a charter member of the Virgin Islands Hotel Association and was elected president, a position he held until 1971. This duty did not interfere with journalism, where he was a stringer for AP and the Associated Negro Press. His musical reputation rose even higher when the Virgin Islands accepted his “Virgin Islands March,” for rededication. In 1982 it became the official territorial anthem, two years before Floyd brought Adams to the U.S. to receive an honorary degree from Fisk University.
“By that time,” Floyd said, “I had sent the Navy enough material that they invited him to come and conduct their band. I asked Mr. Adams about giving his collection to Fisk, but he had already promised it to the University of Arizona. I didn’t know why, but that’s what had happened. So I forgot about it. Then, I think it was 1990, I was in the Caribbean again and I stopped by his son’s firm—he’s an engineer. We talked a little bit, and when I got ready to go he said, ‘Wait a minute, what are we going to do about my father’s collection?’ I said, ‘What do you mean? I thought it was in Arizona.’ He said,‘No way.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do with it.’ [laughter] ‘Well, it’s in Chicago now, after having been sent straight to Michigan to this real deep-freeze place to kill all the larvae and bugs that were in the collection. It took three years to process it all, but it’s now in shape.’”
Adams composed a volume of songs, including one dedicated to the Roosevelts, “Welcome to Our President” in 1934.
Around 1983, Adams closed his guest house in St. Thomas. He died on November 23, 1987, in Charlotte Amalie, a few weeks after his 98th birthday.