Walter B. Rogers

American cornetist, violinist, conductor, bandleader, and composer
(born Delphi, Indiana, October 14, 1865 - died New York, NY, December 24, 1939).

Rogers studied first the violin, then the cornet while growing up in Indiana. In 1886, he moved to New York City where he joined the Seventh Regiment Band directed by Carlo Alberto Cappa, whose leadership he took over after Cappa's death in 1893. In 1898, he joined Sousa's Band on cornet, taking turns on cornet solos with his childhood friend, Herbert L. Clarke. Starting in 1900, he became the band's assistant conductor; in 1902, when Clarke left, he became the lead cornet.

In 1903, Rogers became a studio musician with the Victor Talking Machine Co., first under Arthur Pryor. In September 1904, when Pryor founded his own band, Rogers become the lead conductor and arranger for most of Victor's studio recordings, a position he held until 1916.

After a brief stint as musical director for the short-lived Par-O-Ket Record label in 1916, Rogers worked as a conductor for Paramount, Emerson, and, from 1919, Brunswick. He made his last records in 1929, but continued to play cornet in a Huntsville, Ontario, band led by his friend Herbert Clarke and in theater orchestras in New York City until 1932.

Rogers' best-known composition is a piece for cornet called "A Soldier's Dream."