Sound Check: Navy Band Great Lakes

LT Geordie Kelly and the band
finish their sound check.

Navy Week in Rock Island, Ill. began last night with a performance by the Wind Ensemble from Navy Band Great Lakes, and...

And wow. I arrived at Schwiebert Park while the band was completing its sound check, and I sensed immediately this band would shine.

It did. It's been decades since I heard or played in a Navy concert band, but I don't recall fleet bands playing at such a level.

Throughout the concert, I found myself wondering: is this the typical quality of today's fleet bands, or is the Great Lakes band somehow special?

My guess is: both. After the concert, the bandmaster, LT Geordie Kelly told me that a typical Navy fleet band nowadays is filled with MUs who completed their bachelors' degrees before enlistment.

Navy Band Great Lakes' performance had everything you'd expect from a Navy band concert and, even better, things you wouldn't expect; I'll provide video highlights of the concert soon.

2015 NMA Reunion Highlight: The School of Music in Action

MUs still start the day on the grinder.

Last year's visit to the renovated Naval School of Music was a crowd-pleaser. The skipper's tour was informative and detailed.

Unfortunately, the  school was empty.The work was incomplete and training was still taking place in temporary quarters.

Warning: this is not your grandfather's School of Music.

Now, the U.S. Naval School of Music is back in action. To highlight the 2015 NMA reunion, the school's commanding officer, CDR Dwaine C. Whitham, has invited us to tour the school and observe a typical day of training.








We're also invited to attend the Basic Course Graduation, complete with ceremonial band and guest speaker. CDR Whitham has gone out of his way to line up a speaker who is held in particularly high regard by the entire Navy music community.





Whether you underwent Navy musical training at Little Creek, Anacostia, or belowdecks on the USS Constitution, this trip to the U.S. Naval School of Music is sure be a memorable morning.

The NMA will provide bus transportation for this excursion. (A nominal fee may be charged.)

Congratulations Carl Gerhard

NMA member LCDR Carl Gerhard's retirement ceremony yesterday included a special honor: a final salute from the Chief of Naval Operations.

After the ceremony at the Naval War College, ADM Jonathan Greenert noted

While in Newport yesterday I rendered LCDR Carl Gerhard's final salute, prior to him being piped ashore at his retirement ceremony.... As a leader of the Navy Band, Carl has been an integral part of displaying the excellence our Navy has to offer to the American public. Additionally, our bands are important to international outreach - I think what says it all, is I can put a band where I can't put a ship. I thank Carl, and the Gerhard Family, for their years of dedicated service. Fair winds and following seas, Shipmate. 

We of the Navy Musicians Association concur with the admiral and hope that those fair winds and following seas will allow Carl to spend more time with his comrades in the NMA.

Merry Christmas to the Fleet

The professionalism of our active-duty bands is on full display in this video of Navy Band Northeast's 2014 Holiday Concert at the Naval War College, Naval Station Newport, LCDR Carl Gerhard conducting.

 

Incidentally, this was Carl's last performance before his upcoming retirement. Congratulations to our NMA shipmate, who, we hope, will now be able to attend our reunions without having to leave on Friday mornings to get back to Newport for military gigs!

The Pearl Harbor Cornet

Petty Officer Second Class William Harten, Jr. wasn't a gunner, pilot or landing party leader. He was a musician. While in training at the Navy's School of Music in Washington, DC, he'd played his cornet at President Roosevelt's inauguration. Now, in December of 1941, Bill was attached to the band aboard the USS West Virginia, serving as cornetist, assistant bandleader and communications specialist.

The Pearl Harbor Veteran's Cornet

And on December 7, he became something more.

As the bombs fell and the West Virginia went down, Bill jumped overboard. Swimming towards Ford Island, he spotted a panicked, drowning sailor amid the debris. Although exhausted and choking on the fumes of the fires of hell that surrounded him, he changed his course and pulled the sailor to safety.

People like this are called heroes and are rightly honored with medals and decorations. But a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, MU2 Harten received a singular, unprecedented  award. At his request, a Navy diver who was making an underwater survey of the West Virginia found his way to Bill's storage compartment and rescued his cornet.

Bombs, fire and water had taken most of the valves, tubing and fittings from the horn. It was now useless as a musical instrument but, in a certain sense, valuable beyond measure.

Throughout Bill's long life he served as a bugler at civic events and veterans' funerals. Of course, on these occasions he used a working instrument. But his old cornet saw duty, too, serving for decades as a vivid reminder to all who saw it--on television, in newspapers and at patriotic observances--of the realities of war and the nobility of service.

And, as Bill always admitted, a  reminder of a special grace that kept him alive on that day of infamy.

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Photo courtesy of Valerie H. Briggs, © 2001. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Read a more complete story of Bill Harten's experiences at TapsBugler.com.

Happy Thanksgiving

Soon enough, we'll be swept up in the rivalry of the Army-Navy Game. But today we sit together and give thanks for all who serve.