Adelbert “Del” Staigers was born on August 19, 1899 in Muncie, Indiana, U.S.A. His first tutor   was E.W. Garrett. He performed his first solo at Winona Lake in Indiana at the age of nine, being featured as “The Boy Wonder”. After playing in local Muncie organizations between 1915 and 1918, he was hired as Frank Simon's assistant for the Willow Grove concerts in Philadelphia with Sousa's Band in 1918 and continued with Sousa through to 1920. Del then played cornet in the Victor Salon Orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company, in addition to other New York theatre work. He was hired to play cornet solos with the Goldman Band in 1926, performing many solos that season including his own arrangement of the Carnival of Venice twice, Hartmann's Facilita once, Sullivan's Lost Chord three times, and Bellstedt's Napoli four times. Bellstedt's Napoli was perhaps one of Staigers’s most favourite pieces, performing it on average three times per season with the Goldman Band. It was Edwin Franko Goldman who advocated the use of the cornet for first parts and the trumpet for the rhythmic second parts. Del played his own arrangement of the Carnival of Venice on average twice per season. In 1933 he published the “Arban-Staigers complete celebrated method for the cornet and trumpet”. He left the Goldman Band in 1934, returning briefly in 1942.  In the early 1940s he moved to Los Angeles to be a studio musician for radio and movies, featuring on trumpet in the introductory music course “Rusty in Orchestraville”. Del Staigers died on July 12^th 1950 in Los Angeles, California.

You may also be interested in Tribute to James Burke, a former student of Del Staigers at http://www.jfbcornet.com