Description
The American light music composer George Linus Cobb (1886-1942) wrote over 200 pieces, including ragtimes, marches, and waltzes.
In 1916 Cobb moved to Boston – where he would stay for the rest of his life – to take on a new job as a staff arranger for publisher Walter Jacobs. Jacobs published Cobb’s two-step Cheops (Egyptian Intermezzo) in the same year. Cheops (also known as Khufu) was an ancient Egyptian monarch and likely commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza. Cobb’s Cheops certainly has an Egyptian air to it – at least to western ears. At the time his success enabled him to be more adventurous in his composition work, and perhaps that is what attracted him to the exotic subject matter.
Cobb’s contract did not specify exclusivity as a composer for the firm so he remained free to approach rival publishers to secure himself the best deal. Indeed, Jacobs missed out on Cobb’s biggest hit – the Russian Rag of 1918 (also arranged for wind quintet here).
