thedrifter
08-07-09, 07:23 AM
‘The President’s Own’: An American Musical Tradition
By PETER DUFFY
Two Fridays ago, President and Mrs. Obama attended a free outdoor performance in Washington D.C., one with roots in the earliest days of the Republic: the U.S. Marine Corps “Evening Parade.” The show they were lucky enough to see featured coordinated movement that rivaled anything conceived by Merce Cunningham, music with as deep a connection to the American spirit as Duke Ellington’s and spectacle that could offer lessons to your average Tony winner. In a multimedia world where the president’s every earthly vibration is subject to forensic discussion, there was very little notice outside a few wire-service photos.
The event has its origins in the open-air concerts that the United States Marine Band first began playing for the public in 1854. The band, formed by the same act of Congress that organized the Marine Corps in 1798, has been known as “the President’s Own” since Thomas Jefferson’s administration. Once the most celebrated musical outfit in the land—John Philip Sousa was its leader from 1880 to 1892—it serves as the president’s sort of living and breathing iPod, tasked with catering to his every melodic requirement. Even when the band leaves for its annual concert tour, enough musicians remain behind so that an ensemble can perform at whatever event the commander-in-chief wishes.
The show that the Obamas witnessed was first performed in 1957. Every Friday at nightfall during the summer, a crowd of some 3,000 respectful, neatly dressed spectators gathers around the parade ground at the Marine Corps barracks in southeast Washington to witness an hour and 15 minutes of military ceremony elevated to high art.
In addition to the Marine Band, the parade features the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, two ceremonial infantry companies, the Silent Drill Platoon, and “Chesty,” the 13th English bulldog by that name to serve as barracks’ mascot. (No. 7 and No. 9 are buried in the grounds.) These Marines—Chesty is a lance corporal, by the way—execute a kind of martial ballet with patriotic music, ritualistic exercises like the presentation of the colors and exhibitions of precise form, the most famous of which is the performance of the Silent Drill Platoon. For several minutes, the 24 members of this elite unit move in rapid lockstep while carrying, swinging and throwing their bayonet-affixed M-1 Garand rifles.
At last Friday’s parade, as I marveled at the skilled marching and listened to the rousing music, I thought of my father, Peter L. Musacchio, who had served in the drum and bugle corps at Camp Lejuene in North Carolina in the early 1960s.
One of the few times I ever saw him overcome by emotion was while we were sitting in my New York apartment last year watching a DVD of the Evening Parade. The sight of the precision drills and the sounds of the patriotic anthems clearly conjured memories for him of his character-forming experiences playing the bass drum as a Marine musician. I had given a passing thought to bringing him down to Washington to see the parade in person, but he died last December before I could arrange a trip. Instead, I took my 7-year-old daughter, who loved it when the lone bugler, a spotlight on him, appeared on the roof of the building opposite the grandstand and played “Taps” to conclude the show. She didn’t remember the last time she had heard those notes, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
—Mr. Duffy is an author and journalist living in New York City.
Ellie
By PETER DUFFY
Two Fridays ago, President and Mrs. Obama attended a free outdoor performance in Washington D.C., one with roots in the earliest days of the Republic: the U.S. Marine Corps “Evening Parade.” The show they were lucky enough to see featured coordinated movement that rivaled anything conceived by Merce Cunningham, music with as deep a connection to the American spirit as Duke Ellington’s and spectacle that could offer lessons to your average Tony winner. In a multimedia world where the president’s every earthly vibration is subject to forensic discussion, there was very little notice outside a few wire-service photos.
The event has its origins in the open-air concerts that the United States Marine Band first began playing for the public in 1854. The band, formed by the same act of Congress that organized the Marine Corps in 1798, has been known as “the President’s Own” since Thomas Jefferson’s administration. Once the most celebrated musical outfit in the land—John Philip Sousa was its leader from 1880 to 1892—it serves as the president’s sort of living and breathing iPod, tasked with catering to his every melodic requirement. Even when the band leaves for its annual concert tour, enough musicians remain behind so that an ensemble can perform at whatever event the commander-in-chief wishes.
The show that the Obamas witnessed was first performed in 1957. Every Friday at nightfall during the summer, a crowd of some 3,000 respectful, neatly dressed spectators gathers around the parade ground at the Marine Corps barracks in southeast Washington to witness an hour and 15 minutes of military ceremony elevated to high art.
In addition to the Marine Band, the parade features the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, two ceremonial infantry companies, the Silent Drill Platoon, and “Chesty,” the 13th English bulldog by that name to serve as barracks’ mascot. (No. 7 and No. 9 are buried in the grounds.) These Marines—Chesty is a lance corporal, by the way—execute a kind of martial ballet with patriotic music, ritualistic exercises like the presentation of the colors and exhibitions of precise form, the most famous of which is the performance of the Silent Drill Platoon. For several minutes, the 24 members of this elite unit move in rapid lockstep while carrying, swinging and throwing their bayonet-affixed M-1 Garand rifles.
At last Friday’s parade, as I marveled at the skilled marching and listened to the rousing music, I thought of my father, Peter L. Musacchio, who had served in the drum and bugle corps at Camp Lejuene in North Carolina in the early 1960s.
One of the few times I ever saw him overcome by emotion was while we were sitting in my New York apartment last year watching a DVD of the Evening Parade. The sight of the precision drills and the sounds of the patriotic anthems clearly conjured memories for him of his character-forming experiences playing the bass drum as a Marine musician. I had given a passing thought to bringing him down to Washington to see the parade in person, but he died last December before I could arrange a trip. Instead, I took my 7-year-old daughter, who loved it when the lone bugler, a spotlight on him, appeared on the roof of the building opposite the grandstand and played “Taps” to conclude the show. She didn’t remember the last time she had heard those notes, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
—Mr. Duffy is an author and journalist living in New York City.
Ellie