America's Military Bands

On May 17 at 4 p.m. in Robert Reed Park in downtown Chincoteague, Valor Brass will continue America’s tradition of free public concerts by members of a military band. The players of Valor Brass perform in “The President’s Own U.S. Marine Band”. They bring their music and this American tradition to Chincoteague to help celebrate Armed Forces Day.

While their role has changed over the centuries from communications to entertainment, U.S. military bands have helped our Nation celebrate, thank its warriors, mourn its losses, and so entwined their function in American culture that, without them, there might be no jazz or rock-and-roll.

American military music begins in 1633 at Jamestown. The Virginia Colony required all free, white males to serve in its militias without pay and to supply their own firearms. Although the Colony was parsimonious when it came to military supplies and wages, it purchased musical instruments for all of its militias and paid drummers to support field operations. Twenty years later, New Hampshire organized fifteen oboes and two drummers into the first, colonial, military, performance band.

In 1779 the Congress adopted Baron von Steuben’s Regulations for the Order and Discipline of Troops of the United States. Chapter twenty-one of this first U.S. military manual is titled “Of the Different Beats of the Drum”. The text prescribed how drums would communicate orders to the army. The Continental Army totaled twenty-seven regiments. Within each regiment were fifteen officers and eight companies of ninety-six men. Each platoon within a company had one drummer and one fifer who were paid a monthly salary of $7.33.

First-hand accounts from the Civil War describe evening encampments during which bands of the opposing forces would alternate playing tunes to entertain the soldiers. Union officer George Armstrong Custer is remembered for his deep affection for the Irish tune Garryowen. Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart employed a horse-mounted banjo player to perform for his Calvary.

By 1862 the annual budget to support 618 U.S. military bands had topped $4 million. The ratio of musicians to soldiers was roughly 1 to 41. Congress decided that the bands were too expensive and should be eliminated. However, during the congressional inquiry, fifty Union bands played a non-stop, protest concert at the White House. In the end the size of the bands was reduced from 24 members to 16, the pay of the band leaders was cut in half and the number of bands was reduced. But the music played on.

After the Civil War most musician-soldiers re-entered civilian life where many continued to perform in community and professional bands. Huge numbers of brass instruments were also retired from military service. Those former military trumpets and tubas flooded the civilian market and formed the instrumentation that would become New Orleans-style Jazz.

Thanks to his memorable compositions such as the Stars and Stripes Forever, Marine Band leader John Phillip Sousa is a household name in America. Too few recognize the name James Reese Europe. This African-American was the most widely known and highly regarded bandleader of his time. He is rightly credited with playing a lead role in the transition of American popular music from blues and ragtime to jazz. The 1912 performance contracts for his Clef Club Band exceeded $100,000. He voluntarily left that lucrative career to accept the rank of Lieutenant and lead the Harlem Hellfighters in World War I. His musical genius enlivened military music, spawned specialized military bands and carried American jazz to France.

During World War II military bands performed in every theater of operation. General Jimmy Doolittle wrote that Glenn Miller’s Army Airforce Band was “the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations.”

Listen carefully to the voice of contemporary musicians like trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. In his music you will hear the songs of Glenn Miller, James Europe, John Phillip Sousa and thousands of other American solider-musicians whose legacies spring from the distant drummers of Baron von Steuben at Valley Forge.

You can hear today’s version of the songs of those distant drummers on Armed Forces Day when Valor Brass performs a free concert on May 17 at 4 p.m. in Robert Reed Park in downtown Chincoteague.

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Bill Troxler is Music Coordinator for the Chincoteague Cultural Alliance. He produced and performed on the Chincoteague Island Library’s CD Music To Read By. He teaches courses in musicianship, music theory, arranging and how to listen to music.

Music at the Dock concerts are made possible by grants from

The Virginia Commission for the Arts and
The Town of Chincoteague