Robert Guyn McBride was born in Tucson, Arizona, on February 20, 1911.
As a boy he learned to play the clarinet and saxophone. He later played
both instruments in various dance orchestras. In 1933 he was graduated
from the University of Arizona, and a year after that received there his
Master’s degree. Having studied the oboe in college, he played that
instrument with the Tucson Symphony for several years. Then, after
additional study of the piano, composition and voice, he joined the
music faculty of Bennington College in Vermont in 1935, holding this
post eleven years. During this period he received a Guggenheim
Fellowship. In 1942, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded
him a prize for creating a “new idiom in American music.” McBride has
made successful use of jazz, popular and folk elements in serious
chamber-music and orchestral compositions.
The _Mexican Rhapsody_ (1936) is one of McBride’s best known works for
orchestra. He wrote it in Arizona while studying at the University. It
was first presented in Tucson in a two-piano arrangement, then in its
definitive orchestral version, and finally as a choreographic
presentation. McBride here makes a colorful and freshly conceived
presentation of four Mexican folk songs familiar to many: “_El Rancho
Grande_,” “_Jarabe_” (or “Hat Dance”), “_Cuatro Milpas_,” and “_La
Cucaracha_.”
McBride has written several interesting compositions in a jazz style.
One of the best is the _Strawberry Jam_ (1942). This is a caricature of
a jazzband jam session, but with the utilization of modern harmonies and
symphonic orchestration. _Stuff in G_, for orchestra (1942), is in the
racy, tuneful style of Tin Pan Alley, while _Swing Stuff_ (1941) brings
to the symphonic orchestra the improvisational devices and techniques
and the beat of Swing music.