PBA Galleries

J.M.Black and Katharine E. Purvis, “When the Saints Are Marching In”, No. 59 on Pg. 59 in James M.Black, ed. Songs of the Soul, No. 2 / For use in Sunday Evening Congregations, Revivals, Camp-Meetings, Social Services and Young People Meetings (Curts & Jennings, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and Eaton & Mains, NY, Boston, Pittsburg, San Francisco, 1896) First Edition. Original pictorial boards.72 pp. 5.5 x 8”.  

Music historian and bibliographer James Fuld wrote that while the Black-Purvis song is not identical to the famous “Negro spiritual”, “the music and words are quite similar to those in the present form and, in particular, include the famous ‘echo’.” The familiar modern form of “When the Saints Come Marching In”, the Black gospel song that became a Jazz Age favorite, did not appear until 1927.